Our Fall 2011 Newsletter is now online!
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Stephanie, be TRC’s Valentine!
One of our friends, the author of the popular blog SocialBling, has posted a very funny homemade cartoon that highlights the need for good communication and quality contact in intimate relationships. Apparently, communicating primarily by text message can be problematic. Stephanie, you are hilarious! Please be TRC’s Valentine!
Mindfulness and Psychotherapy
Comment to recent LA Times Post:
“Incorporating mindfulness practices in psychotherapy interventions makes good sense and makes a big difference when the objective is to minimize symptoms associated with mood dysregulation. An added twist, however, is that the speciic mindfulness strategies psychotherapy clients are taught to employ can unintentially encourage disengagement from relationships with other people! Attending to breathing and observing the flow of thoughts introduces added dimenstions of complexity when we are also in the midst of navigating a social interaction. The tendency when practicing mindful awareness during these moments would be to “withdraw” from the social contact – either by literally physically exiting to a quieter environment or merely emotionally distancing through silence or in extreme cases dissociation.
The cutting edge of mindfulness in psychotherapy is the integration of meditative practices while remaining socially engaged. The earliest practitioners of meditation in Eastern traditions were always embedded in highly communal societies and always put their meditative practices to use “in the service” of more mindful engagement with those communities. Let us emulate their wisdoem and build our own skills for mindful social engagement!”
Do You Mind?
Mindfulness is a practice of minding our breath, our feelings, our thoughts and the flow of consciousness that binds us to each other. To be mindful is to engage with compassion, to savor our experience without hoarding it. Minding does not transcend the body; it honors the body.
See why The Relational Center advocates engaged mindfulness as the first and foremost of our Skills for Engagement.
Read more about mindfulness at www.shambhalasun.com
A New Curriculum
Visit The Relational Center’s Education site to find out more about our new curriculum to support our “Skills for Engagement” initiative. Our newest project will develop a broad public education vision, bringing support and resources to communities of all kinds to build social resiliency, enrich relationship networks and confront the effects of isolation.
The Relational Center is not just training helping professionals. We are engaging with all kinds of people to learn new skills and build their capacity for deep connection and interdependent community.
Why don’t we hear more about “Social Health”?
Social Health: Information from Answers.com.
For anyone unsure about the phrase “Social Health” this short blurb linked above from Answers.com will explain enough. I love this phrase and have started using it on a daily basis since it resonates with my ideas of a holistic lifestyle that includes mental and physical health as well. I certainly like it more than the usual QOL – quality of life – terminology.
Am I just late to the party or does this seem like news to you also?
It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better
In the spirit of the recent wave of encouraging videos (literally, intending to bestow “courage”) of credible speakers offering a vision of a hopeful future to LGBTQ youth who experience daily torture at the hands of bullies, I would like to make a slightly different remark. In my experience (which includes daily torture, usually witnessed by disaffected bystanders many of whom woke up one day to realize they should have said or done something to stop it), the notion that life will get better does LITTLE TO PROTECT US from bullying.
What we need more than encouragement are COURAGEOUS ADVOCATES. We need escorts to and from school restrooms, buses, parking lots and doorsteps. We need vigilant allies who will speak out against humiliating rhetoric and nasty comments meant to intimidate and demoralize us. We need parents, teachers, coaches and principals who will refuse to tolerate bullying or hatred of any kind.
Pardon me for declining to be so optimistic… But what we need is people coming together to coordinate something OTHER than homophobic, sexist, racist hatred and fear. We need ACTION more than encouragement. We need to see others stepping into the crossfire, showing us we are worth defending.
I needed that. I am sure others needed that. I know many others need that now. I pledge to create the world I am envisioning. Will you join me?
Conference – March 2011: “The Relational Turn”
Join us along with our Conversation Host, Gordon Wheeler, and a team of distinguished international conversation leaders as we gather in Los Angeles, March 18-20, 2011, for an unprecedented conference experience.
Visit the conference website.
Loneliness Links to Illness
John T. Cacioppo’s research looks at the connections between the social and neural mechanisms underlying human behavior. He investigates how societal influences and personal relationships affect cognition and emotions…
