In the mid-20th century, we learned some shocking and invaluable lessons about how to raise healthy humans: Don’t separate young children from a primary caregiver. Warmth, food, medicine, toys, and other material comforts are not enough.

This point was not lost on British psychologist, John Bowlby (1907 – 1990) who changed the face of child care nearly single handedly (with the aid of colleagues, James and Joyce Robertson).

Bowlby is the author of one of the grand theories of psychology, attachment theory. Attachment theory is an explanatory framework that brilliantly describes and explains the course of “the enduring affectional bond” between parent and child. Infants are born with reflexes that draw the attention of caregivers (grasping, smiling, crying) that in a short time develop into more intentional behaviors (social smiling, crying, babbling, calling out, following) designed to prompt love and support from the parent.  If that care is not forthcoming, the child retreats and avoids the caregiver (and seeks life-supporting attention elsewhere). The first lessons an infant learns about others and the value of the self are through these interactions. When things go well, the child learns others are trustworthy and the self is lovable. When things go especially poorly, the child is fundamentally distrustful of others and has learned that  she is not worthy of love and attention. In the extreme, Bowlby referred to these as “affectionless characters”. These first relationships are essential for emotional, social, and personality development.

So, about separating a young child from his or her caregiver, how long is ok?

That’s where the Robertsons come in.  In an effort to make Bowlby’s work accessible to people in the care industry, they made a series of short films from the 50s and 60s tracking children in “brief separations” from their parents. At that time, it was not unusual to foster a child out to qualified adults while, for example, a sibling was being born.  This is exactly what happened to 17-month-old “John”, and no one thought twice about it before the Robertson’s documentary.  He was put in a care center with other children and friendly attentive adults (a “tender age shelter”, if you will). He had good food, plenty of toys, and playmates. It was just like “summer camp”.

Yet, the film clearly shows John moving through the exact stages of grief outlined at length by Bowlby in his 3 volumes, Attachment and Loss.

Source: John Moore/Getty

Protest. First, we see John crying after his parents as they assure him that he will be ok. He is inconsolable. We have heard these heartbreaking wails from audio leaked by journalists in the last 24 hours.

Despair. After a day or two, John quiets. But he won’t play, take food, or engage with his new caregivers.  John looks depressed, listless, and ill. He receives visits from his father with no joyous reunion.

At last, John starts to brighten as he starts interacting with toys and his new caregivers. He looks like he has come out of his depression, and triumphed over his separation!

Warning: This is no triumph. This perking up is the onset of what Bowlby called detachment, the 3rd stage of a child’s grief.  Here the child appears to be recovering and accepting tenderness from the substitute caregivers, but the child may show indifference or anger toward the caregiver that “abandoned them”. This is how humans cope with grief and loss in the first years, according to Bowlby. If this process is not righted and trust regained, the relationship may be irreversibly damaged, and the child set on a course of mistrust with other people. 

In extreme cases of prolonged neglect, the child may withdraw from loving relationships with others altogether (i.e., “affectionless characters”).

In John, we clearly can observe protest give way to despair, and then what appears to be the onset of the detachment process.  How long did this take?  Weeks? Months? These are the typical responses of undergraduate students who hopefully assume that a mother’s love will conquer all.

9 days.  It took 9 days.

The name of the film is, John: Aged 17 Months, in a Residential Nursery for 9 Days.

These films changed the culture of child care. In fact, as modern parents know, God forbid your young child is taken ill, most hospitals allow – even encourage – a caregiver to stay with the child. Our modern standards are in large part due to Bowlby and the Robertsons.

It doesn’t matter how well provisioned young children are in “shelters”. We have long known not to separate young children from loving caregivers because you will deny them the exact forces THAT MAKE THEM HUMAN.

Accordingly, in the last days we have received critical messages of our recent policy of separating children from their parents at the border from the American Psychological Association, the National Association of School Psychologists, the Society for Research on Child Development, and others. More will surely follow.

By separating so many children from their parents we are literally changing the course of humanity.

There’s a better than good chance you’ve either invoked some sort of balance-oriented mantra today (“It’s all about balance!”), or it’s been (judgingly, cleverly) marketed to you in a parental-scolding-masquerading-as-self-love sorta way. 

I’m personally exhausted by calls for the balance-imperative as the only “responsible,” “adult” choice for how to live and operate. The “all things in moderation” mindset is culturally pervasive — and as counter-intuitive as it may seem, I believe we’re not better off for it. 

Interestingly, when it comes to marketing, there are two repeated, contradictory tropes: on the one hand, we’re reminded how balance and moderation are the key to living a happy life  — just the right amount of sleep / food / sex / work, etc. will make for a perfect life!  And it’s a never-ending job keeping every aspect of our lives in a constant state of perfect equilibrium. 

And yet the ad most likely to follow a call for moderation whispers to us to go on and indulge, to be pampered, to let loose. After all, we’ve earned it after working so hard for this godforsaken balance, right?! 

This confusing messaging leaves us constantly striving for all-the-time moderation (which is praised for its honorable restraint), leaving us with pangs of guilt if and when we do “give in” to more extreme behavior, which is always viewed as deviant — a whim, an uncontrollable urge, rash behavior that reflects our more base instincts. The messaging is clear: Moderation is a virtue, while any extreme is at best a momentary aberration, and at worst an offensive character flaw. But here, won’t you have another artisanal truffle?

What if that whole moderation mindset is just false, or at least only a half-truth? Are we open to that possibility? We like things neat and tidy, but life and behavior are usually nuanced and messy. And the value and optimal execution of moderation is no exception.

If you’ve met me in person, you’ve likely observed that I’m a pretty intense person. I have a somewhat irrationally strong dislike for the phrase “work hard, play hard” (let’s discuss why over a drink sometime, shall we?) so I’ll not invoke it here. But suffice it to say that I like to go all-in on whatever I’m doing, be it labor or leisure.

In some respects, I’ve often envied my more moderate counterparts. Maybe you’re one of them. Those individuals for whom a veil of graceful balance seems to accompany everything they do. (Of course public appearances can be deceiving, and it’s likely there are indulgent secret pockets operating somewhere — but that’s a speculative rabbit hole we’ll not go down right now.) Regardless, there are people who embrace moderation far more easily and/or willingly than I do — and perhaps that resonates with you.

Source: Flickr: ableman / Via Creative Commons

But the question at hand is not how to be more moderate, but a) is moderation always “better” and b) if not, then what’s the right formula?

Let’s start with the concept of “better”:

Yes, what’s “better” when it comes to most things, including moderation, is largely individual and personal, but it’s also circumstantial. That is to say that what’s “better” (I’m going to stop putting that in quotes now, ok?) for you in one instance may not apply in another. Same person, different context. And I think a call for moderation on the basis that it’s better for us is something we need to challenge case-by-case throughout our lives.

We might judge what’s personally and circumstantially better by three metrics: Is moderation 1) necessary, 2) satisfying, 3) beneficial in any given context. Chances are you will be able to make a case for or against it in many circumstances, but the point is that more often than you might think, it won’t be a slam dunk in favor of moderation (or at least not perma-moderation). Which means active assessment is necessary for personal optimization.

• In the first phase of a new romance and periodically throughout any relationship. Getting lost in thought and action together with a “time out of time” mindset is crucial to the initial and ongoing bonding experience. Love without limits is not just a romantic ideal; it’s crucial to our survival.
• When deep in a project. Stopping for the sake of stopping can disrupt your concentration and work flow, which sometimes comes in fits and starts. Honor those rhythms.
• At special events, like weddings. Sometimes life should be celebrated to the extreme.  
• When traveling. Length of trip plays a role, but veering off the path of everyday moderate behavior when experiencing new and different places and people can be wildly uninhibiting and central to growth and learning.
• When launching a new venture. Startups are like birthing and raising a child, and no one ever called parenthood moderate.
• When on a creative streak. When you get that spark, it doesn’t always blossom on Tuesday from 2-3pm between conference calls. Sometimes the schedule needs to be shoved out of the way to make space for the unpredictably special and inspiring.
• When playing. This is likely the hardest one for adults to justify, but play is serious business and deserves an all-in mindset, however intermittently. Like, for instance, you can never have too much karaoke in your life. That’s just a fact.

[Quick PSA side note: Before you roll your eyes or write to me to say how irresponsible it is to toss out moderation, know that these recommendations necessitate acting with a mindful regard to your personal safety and the safety of others, and also ask that you thoughtfully consider the ethics and consequences of your actions. Further, this does not mean that you should perpetually act to an extreme in every single one of the above circumstances — personal judgement is key. And finally, the subject of moderation in diet and substance (ab)use is an incredibly nuanced discussion, and not one that can be adequately addressed in this space. Thus, it is not the intended target of this article, though you may find some use for applying this methodology to it. End of disclaimer. Phew.]

Notice that that list doesn’t include the indulgences we’re most often marketed, which come in the chocolate / spa treatment / glass of wine variety. Those are all well and good, but the indulgence of time and behavior patterns — like the list above — is often far more satisfying, with longer lasting results, though inherently more complex in their execution. When does nurturing a startup stop being ambitious and instead erode your quality of life and relationships? When does the unbridled passion of the relationship creep into unhealthy obsession, and when does not giving it enough space and time for indulgence hinder your ability to bond and connect? Are you playfully letting loose at that event or creating a cringe-worthy morning-after facepalm moment? (Though the occasional non-career-ending facepalm moment does the body and mind good.)

The answers to these questions aren’t always or usually immediately clear. But when we restrict ourselves exclusively to the mantra of all-the-time moderation, we never get to test those boundaries or discover when crossing the threshold into calculated imbalance is actually beneficial (and fun. Let’s no forget the merits of fun.)

As an antidote to the current moderation craze, I’m a proponent of “indulgent balance”: A mindfully constructed, occasionally hedonistic, sometimes lopsided approach to moderating moderation, or balancing imbalance — whichever you prefer.

Here’s my formula for creating regular outlets for indulgent balance:

1. Rotate your balancing act. Everything isn’t balanced all the time, and the sooner you give up on that impossibility the better off you’ll be. That doesn’t mean that we need to operate in a constant state of extremes. But effective, satisfying balance is a rotation. When one thing is in focus, some other things shift. Often, this is temporary. It’s when the extreme behavior becomes fixed that it crosses over from fulfilling to destructive. And there may very well be things in your life that you simply can’t ever indulge in or allow to get out of balance. Identify those things, then build your rotating indulgences around them.
2. Create constant check-ins. Keeping enough mental awareness to actively gauge the situation and know when enough is enough is crucial to thriving in indulgent balance. If you aren’t able to know when or how to put on the breaks, the indulgence quickly spirals into destructive and unsatisfying territory. Establish whatever rules and tactics you need to keep yourself in check, even while going all-in — be it a literal alarm you set or a verbal assessment with a partner. And then do the internal reflection necessary to understand what course of action is needed during the balance- and focus-shifting phases: How can you readjust your schedule to accommodate? How are your relationships affected and what actions will ease the pressure on them? Which life necessities — food/water/rest/exercise — need to be built into this temporary sprint?
3. Understand your goals. Extreme behavior simply for the sport of it can certainly be exhilarating, but it alone doesn’t often make for long-term happiness. But if you know your goal(s) — both immediately and into the future — and how any given indulgence will affect that goal, it becomes far easier to both self-police AND unrestrict.

Tolstoy may not spring to mind as your supreme happiness guru, but I’m on board with this statement: “Happiness consists of living each day as if it were the first day of your honeymoon and the last day of your vacation.” In other words, indulgence > complacency, and sometimes convincing ourselves that moderation is the only choice is more about fear (or laziness) than responsibility.

Genius often springs from periods of extreme behavior. Social change is rarely scheduled. Deep love is not born from the conditional or the convenient (and romance — a worthy indulgence if ever there was one — is not rooted in practicality). I don’t want to live in a world in which any of these things are neither prioritized nor prized, and I want to participate in all of them — often and fully.

Indulgence need not be a dirty word or a destructive action. Nor will perpetual, across-the-board balance likely lead to excellence or even happiness. Indulgent balance, however, makes space for the incubation of the exceptional within extreme circumstances, without total disregard for healthy functioning.

Contrary to popular belief, many of the most significant moments and opportunities of our lives benefit from less, not more moderation. So bring on the binge-watching. The all-night work sessions. The off-grid weekends. The hours-long discussions. Not everyday, but sometimes. Executed with exuberance and abandon, without apology or regret.

It is hard for me to believe that, while the vast majority of Americans are disturbed by the sight of immigrant parents and children being summarily separated, and babies being remanded to group care, some, evidently, are not. Yesterday, results of a Quinnipiac poll showed while 66% of Americans reject the policy, 27% favor it.

The policy has been called child abuse, torture, inhumane. Many have claimed that it will do irreparable harm to the families. Others have referred to the children’s centers as being like summer camps and have even cast doubt on the idea that these separations are causing distress, suggesting that the wailing, crying babies and children are child actors.

But what does science say about summarily separating children from parents?  We have excellent science on this subject, inspired by the many unanticipated and unwanted separations of children from parents during World War II. We know from studies inspired by observations of children and babies separated from parents that babies who receive adequate hygienic care and food, but no affection, become more vulnerable to illness, and some of them die.  Lack of affection causes developmental neurological problems as well. 

The high numbers of children separated from their parents during the war inspired a great deal of research on attachment, separation, and loss, by John Bowlby and by James and Joyce Robertson, who during World War II, worked with Anna Freud in the wartime nurseries of Hampstead. Later, the Robertsons continued to study separation. Still later, attachment was studied extensively by Mary Ainsworth.

The Robertsons developed a knowledge base of what happens to children separated from parents in times of trouble and crisis. They not only observed children, but they made several compelling—and heartbreaking—films. A very compelling film that is highly relevant to the results of separation of young children from parents with placement in group care  is called “John, aged 17 months for nine days in a residential nursery.” John’s parents believed he would get good care in a nursery setting while his mother was in a hospital giving birth to a sibling. John was placed in a nursery where there was good food, a clean environment, many toys, trained caregivers, and other children about his age. The ratio of children to caregivers was not unreasonable for a group care setting. But over nine days, he went from being an obviously happy, well-developed child who could be helped, fed, and comforted by the staff  to a child who refused food, seldom played, and simply looked depressed. He went from a child who was easily comforted to one who hardly responded to attempts to comfort him. His behavior after nine days looked like a person in despair. This is the kind of transition we can expect from many, of the young children summarily separated from their parents in a time of transition, and placed with strangers—even if they are provided the best available physical care, food, and a hygienic environment. John was fortunate to be reunited with his parents after nine days. But where is the plan to reunite parents and children separated at the border?

The Robertsons’ films about children showed children separated from parents at first protesting, then despairing, and finally detaching from others. The films led to revolutionary changes in pediatric inpatient care, from parents being only occasionally welcome to visit, to parents being part of the caretakingteam. 

Perhaps it is time to show these films to the 27% of Americans who think separating children from their parents at the border is a good idea.  Perhaps it will take 100% of us to stop this madness. 

Source: frankieleon/CC by 2.0

You will find artificial sweeteners in a broad range of foods: diet sodas, yogurts, canned fruits, chewing gum, and ice cream to name a few. You may remember that the federal government used to require a cancer warning label for the sweetener saccharine. However, research has found that saccharine does not cause cancer, so the government removed the label nearly 20 years ago.

Since then, food companies have developed many more artificial sweeteners. But what do we know about their safety?

Although there is an extensive body of evidence on artificial sweeteners, much of it is conflicting. Recently, an enormous review, published in 2017 in Nutrition Journal pulled together data from 372 studies including 15 smaller systematic reviews. The authors organized the review by looking at the evidence for individual health effects and medical problems. Here’s what they found:

Appetite and food intake in the short term: Results on whether artificial sweeteners increase hunger to lead people to eat more in the short-term were completely mixed. A total of 21 studies asked whether artificial sweeteners increased appetite: 10 studies described an increase in appetite and food intake and 11 studies described a decrease in appetite and food intake.

Cancer: The theory that artificial sweeteners caused cancer was the original concern about their use decades ago, but again the research is mixed. Originally, bladder cancer was the largest concern because saccharine was found to cause bladder cancer in some laboratory animals. Out of 32 studies looking at whether artificial sweeteners increase the risk of bladder or urinary tract cancer, eleven found a positive association and 20 reported no association. The authors also looked at evidence of whether artificial sweeteners increase the risk of six other types of cancer. They found one study published in 2014 that linked artificial sweeteners with colon cancer. The rest of the evidence found no association between consuming artificial sweeteners and developing cancer.

Kidney disease: The authors found one systematic review and four individual studies looking at whether consuming artificial sweeteners leads to kidney disease. The review found no association. Two of the individual studies found a positive association, but the others did not.

Dental health: There is some evidence that drinking artificially-sweetened beverages makes one’s saliva more acidic, which can lead to cavities. But other studies found that artificial sweeteners lead to fewer cavities and less plaque on teeth, most likely because the sweetener replaces sugar, which is significantly worse for teeth.

Diabetes: Some studies and two separate systematic reviews found links between consumption of artificial sweeteners and diabetes, although both reviews describe problems with the data used for the analyses.

Headaches: The data on headaches is split. Out of five studies, two concluded that artificial sweeteners can lead to headaches and three found no link.

Mental health: There is a limited amount of evidence that artificial sweeteners can increase symptoms of depression in people with mood disorders, but not among the general public.

Weight gain: There is evidence in a high-quality systematic review that finds replacing sugar with artificial sweeteners leads to weight loss and may be helpful for people who are dieting.

The review authors conclude that we really don’t know enough about artificial sweeteners. They write, “there is a need for both further primary research and high quality comprehensive systematic reviews” to inform public health recommendations.

In the meantime, there is solid evidence that consuming sugar leads to a variety of health problems. While artificial sweeteners may not be the best answer, based on the available evidence, they seem to be a better choice than consuming added sugar.

In a recent tweet, President Donald Trump said that Democrats want illegal immigrants to "to pour into and infest our Country”. Talk of infestation is an escalation in his already extreme rhetoric against illegal immigrants. Previously, Trump had called them criminals, drug dealers, and rapists, but the term "infest" is usually applied to swarms of insects and animals that cause damage and disease. Then immigrants are less than human.

David Livingstone Smith's book, Less Than Human, documents and analyzes numerous cases of dehumanization, the practice of depicting groups of people as lacking in the essence of human beings. Europeans and Arabs viewed Africans as subhuman in order to justify enslaving them. The Nazis depicted Jews as rats and vermin in order to encourage their extermination. In Rwanda, the Hutus branded the Tutsis as cockroaches in order to mark them as deserving elimination.

What are the psychological processes that drive dehumanization? The cognitive processes include categorization, imagery, and metaphor. The dehumanized group is classified, not as members of the human species, but as non-human animals. The categories used are not just verbal, but carry with them potent images such as long-nosed rats and swarming cockroaches. Saying that immigrants are infestations is not literally true, but metaphorically has substantial impact.

The impact is emotional. The point of the categorizations, images, and metaphors that are applied to dehumanized groups is to generate the same kinds of emotions that people normally apply to non-human agents that produce damage and disease. Dehumanization depends on emotional analogies that transfer the negative feelings that go with vermin to the group that the speaker wants to attack. Marking immigrants, Jews, Africans, or Tutsis as systematically similar to insects transfers the emotions that apply to vermin to the scorned group of people. Characterizing people as akin to animals that are unclean, prey, or predators carries over the emotions that go with those categories.

The transferred emotions include disgust, fear, hatred, and anger. These form a hideous package that can be used to inspire and justify extreme measures against despised groups, ranging from separating children from their parents to slavery to gassing. Dehumanizing groups of people produces a kind of emotional Gestalt shift, replacing the respect and compassion that normally go with recognizing people as human, with a different emotional package that applies to threatening subhuman species. Propaganda campaigns were used by the Nazis, Hutus, and other aggressive parties to bring about this kind of emotional shift.

How can dehumanization be fought? One basic tool is empathy, which is also a kind of emotional analogy. Putting yourself in someone else's shoes helps you to see others as analogous to yourself, and therefore deserving of the same kind of human rights. In turn, rights are not based on some kind of abstract human essence, but on the fact that all human beings have the same fundamental needs. These include physical needs for food, water, shelter, and health care, but also psychological needs for relatedness to other humans, autonomy, and competence. Separating children from their parents dramatically deprives them of their ability to satisfy their psychological needs. There is no such thing as an infestation of children. 

Today’s post is an interview with Ellen Rondina, the author of a new book called Self-Care Revolution. It's an important book I wish I'd had when I started my career as psychologist. 

Source: Ellen Rondina, used with permission

Barb:  What’s the story behind your new book, SELF-CARE REVOLUTION?

Ellen:  Helping professionals who have committed their life to serving others are committed to an ethical practice that includes self-care, but we are living in a time of increased violence, fear, anxiety, and a time of dwindling resources to the people and places who need them the most.

So the work of these helping professionals: teachers, social workers, mental health and other health providers, clergy, first responders, leaders supporting others, and those who are on the front lines, is getting so much harder. 

Our work stressors and demands and the lack of focus and support around Self-Care has made it difficult for helping professionals to practice Self-Care in any kind of sustained and meaningful way. 

We are: 

• working longer hours
• have more clients
• are faced with increased need of an aging population 
• a growing opioidaddiction epidemic, 
• school shootings that are in the daily news
• Just to name a few tangible stressors, and helping professionals are on the front lines.

Barb:  How did you come to write this book? What is your personal story with Self-Care?

Ellen:  I have been on my own path of Self-Care, wellness, and healing for more than thirty years, following an early childhood with a mix of wonderful love and opportunities and also significant stress and trauma. 

In response to this environment, I spent a lot of time thinking about these two opposing experiences coexisting and what it meant. I thought a lot about relationships and human behavior and wellness and spirituality and what I believed about it all. I also ruminated on social justice issues like poverty, violence, and disease, and why people might experience these. I spent hours lying in bed as a child thinking about these concepts and acting them out by myself, taking on different roles and creating new possibilities. 

I also got sick both physically and emotionally and began a biofeedback and guided imagery program at the age of sixteen. This was my first experience with meditation and learning to mindfully be aware of my body and my body’s response to my mind. I started going to acupuncture three times a week and was taking herbs and learning more about a natural way of healing. 

My very early path of search and discovery eventually led me to a master’s degree in social work, a professional coaching certificate, a ministerial degree, and expertise in several healing modalities. I have worked in universities, private schools, nonprofit organizations, public schools, and with my own business, and all of my life’s work and my formal education has a foundation of wellness and Self-Care. I have observed colleagues and agencies and the system of helping professions, and listened to others’ stories of exhaustion and overload and roadblocks to self-care and this has all given me insight. 

Barb:  Why do you call it a ‘Revolution’?

Ellen:  I believe this path of wellness and Self-Care and love is one of the most important and foundational directions we can walk to change the course of fear and violence we are on right now. Self-Care is not just some nice, warm and cozy concept where we drink tea, attend an occasional yoga class or check off ‘getting together with a friend’ from our list of Self-Care to-dos. Self-Care, if revolutionized, means a fundamental change in our way of relating to ourselves and to one another. It means a fundamental change in our health care system and in our legislation and regulations. 

If we are determined and committed to being well, to loving ourselves and to loving one another, we change the course of action. This is a Revolution!

Barb:  How do you think your book might solve this common challenge of practicing sustained self-care? How do we get out of the mode of ‘business as usual’ when it comes to the rhetoric of self-care in practice?

Ellen:  Business as usual is self-care as an intervention only when something goes really wrong and self-care is the fall back obvious response. In this scenario, Self-Care becomes a desperate attempt at a break from a too-stressful unhealthy life or work situation. 

Business as usual is thinking about self-care from a distance, as something you are supposed to do and you know it’s important, but you haven’t really thought about it or made any kind of plan for it, so there is no context or structure or accountability because there is no foundation of understanding of what self-care can be and no plan for it. 

I believe it is an act of justice to take one’s health and wellness so seriously that you build your life and work around it. This is also part of the Revolution.

The path of being of service is simply not sustainable without a self-care system deeply embedded. 

Helping professionals need permission to have self-compassion and self-love in order to be of service in the increasing ways they are being asked to be. 

Barb: Do you offer a particular system for applying these ideas into practice?

Ellen:  Yes. I provide pillars to create a foundation for self-care in a tangible, action-oriented way.

These pillars are action based, rather than theoretical.

Pillar #1: Define self-care. We cannot understand self-care or practice self-care without defining it for oneself. In all my years as a student, practicing professional, or professor I have never been asked to define self-care for myself.  That intentional step has potential to change someone’s behavior immediately. 

Pillar #2: Writing a values statement. We think and act as human ‘doings’, rather than human ‘beings’. We write mission statements and action statements. We talk about what we do. We rarely talk about why. I believe that as helping professionals, we must value wellness enough that we build our life and professional practice around self-care. If we have a value statement that includes wellness and Self-Care, that will guide our behaviors.

Pillars #3 and 5: Having a plan and supporting others with their plan. These pillars are based on things like being more than 90% likely to reach your goals if you write them down and being more than 70% likely to reach your goals if you have a system of accountability with another person. 

Part of Pillar#3: Create a plan to identify barriers. That is a crucial step to making a behavior change that most people miss. Consequently, when they come across a barrier, they fail in their intended change because they didn’t expect it and don’t have a plan to get around it. 

Pillar #4: Recognize Impairment and Focus on Prevention. If you don’t understand the red flags of burnout and professional impairment, they could be very difficult to recognize. Having a concrete knowledge and understanding of one’s professional and ethical responsibilities will help create the foundation for prevention, and self-care is at the heart of prevention.

People have a hard time getting out of theirs heads and putting into practice what they know they need to do. These self-care pillars are doable for everyone and will catapult helping professionals on their self-care path, which in turn changes how they practice professionally, which in turn provides more exceptional services to the growing needs of the people in our country.

Source: Ellen Rondina, used with permission

You can learn more about Ellen's work on her website.

You can purchase Self-Care Revolution here.

Source: Kayleen Schreiber/Knowing Neurons

In the sixth century, Pope Gregory I compiled an infamous list of seven deadly sins. Of these seven, sloth is the only sin named for an animal in English. But are these curious animals truly paragons of evil?

Sloths personify laziness in western culture through a reputation for sleeping a lot (though they actually sleep less than 10 hours a night in the wild). Indeed, seen through the value system of medieval Catholicism, this cute, furry critter must really be a demonic Snorlax hellbent on dragging humanity into a sleepy damnation.

Source: Sean Noah, source material courtesy of Javier Mazzeo/Unsplash

But is slothfulness actually wrong? If slothfulness means avoiding responsibility and failing to accomplish important, meaningful goals, then most likely yes. But if slothfulness means sleeping less than 6 hours to be more productive, then we need to rethink our values.

A 2013 Gallup poll found that the average American sleeps 6.8 hours a night, with 40 percent of Americans getting less than the recommended minimum of 7 hours. According to Nationwide Children’s Hospital, the average teenager gets a little more than 7 hours of sleep a night while actually needing at least 9 hours.

Yet society continues to function ... if only like a frail, untuned clock.

According to sleep neuroscientist Matthew Walker, “the number of people who can survive on 6 hours of sleep or less without measurable impairment rounded to a whole number and expressed as a percent is zero.” In fact, most adults need between 7 and 9 hours of sleep per night to be healthy.

Not convinced? To really appreciate human sensitivity to sleep, consider daylight savings time (DST). Each year, millions of people lose an hour of sleep when clocks “spring forward” on the first Sunday of DST. Like a cruel experiment, we watch the health consequences of this spring forward: heart attacks and even suicides spike the following week as bodies are put under stress by the sudden change.

Though it may feel like we are doing nothing when we sleep, nothing could be further from the truth. During sleep, the fluid filled ventricles of the brain open and allow deadly toxins to drain, the very same amyloid plaques that cause Alzheimer’s disease.

A recent brain imaging study by NIH researcher Ehsan Shokri-Kojor and his colleagues measured increases in the molecule beta-amyloid after sleep deprivation in volunteers by tagging key molecules with a radiotracer, or a special molecule that latches onto beta-amyloid and gives off radiation visible to the brain scanner. In this way, the concentration of beta-amyloid in different brain regions is revealed to researchers using a technique called positron emission tomography or PET.

Volunteers who were kept awake for 31 straight hours showed huge spikes in the Alzheimer’s causing molecule compared to well rested participants! The implications are clear—pulling an all-nighter is hardly harmless.

Beyond staving off Alzheimer’s, sleep generally strengthens of the immune system and protects us against cancer. Because our daily sleep cycle, or circadian rhythm, appears to regulate many biological functions, a night of light sleep throws a wrench into the gears of health and rejuvenation.

Moreover, we often fail to take sleep deprivation as seriously as alcohol intoxication, even though both immediately impair our behavior and cognition. According to Matthew Walker, “After 20 hours of being awake, you are as impaired cognitively as you would be if you were legally drunk.” Driving after 24 straight hours awake gives similar levels of sleep impairment as driving with a blood alcohol concentration of 0.1, higher than what is considered drunk driving in many jurisdictions.

Recently, Walker went on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast to share his perspective on sleep as a neuroscientist and promote his new book, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams. During their conversation, Walker and Rogan discuss what is perhaps the most appalling irony of ironies: that medical doctors—the very people who are supposed to be caring for our health—are often complacent in creating today’s sleep deprived culture.

New medical residents serve 30 hour shifts, and this sleep deprivation affects not only medical residents, but also their patients. Indeed, Walker states that“Residents working a 30 hour shift are 460 percent more likely to make diagnostic errors in the intensive care unit relative to when they’re working 16 hours.” Doctors’ lack of sleep may literally be killing patients.

We have a bit of a cultural problem in the US and other countries. From bosses to self-help gurus to school administrators, responsible and otherwise intelligent people who should know better advocate that we sleep less and accomplish more.

Even when we’re not explicitly told to sleep less, advice that often passes for wisdom leaves little space for 8 hours of sleep. Consider retired US Navy SEAL, author, and podcaster Jocko Willink, who relentlessly encourages his followers to wake up before the crack of dawn. Indeed, waking up at 4:30 am and hitting the gym can be a healthy habit—if you’re going to sleep between 8:30 and 9:30 pm. Willink himself goes to sleep between 11 pm and midnight, but admits that more sleep is healthier.

Source: Sean Noah, source material courtesy of Javier Mazzeo/Unsplash

As Walker tells Rogan, “We are with sleep where we were with smoking 50 years ago. We had all of the evidence about the … disease issues, but the public had not been aware, no one had adequately communicated the science of, you know, smoking to the public. The same I think is true for sleep right now.”

As we plow recklessly through the night, coffee cup in one hand and smartphone in the other, we curse sleep whilst slumbering in a deeper, mental sense. True slothfulness isn’t sleeping 8 hours—it’s ignoring our health and taking on important responsibilities in an underslept state. As we update our values based on empirical evidence, it may be only matter of time before society appreciates the true wisdom of the sloth.

This post also appeared on Knowing Neurons.

In her post Tap Into the Inner Genius You Didn’t Know You Had, Dr. Chris Gilbert described Acquired Savant Syndrome, a rare condition that sometimes occurs after trauma to the Left Anterior Temporal Lobe (LATL). Dr. Gilbert explained that a few patients with damage to the LATL suddenly develop artistic or musical talents that may exist in all of us, but are inhibited by a healthy LATL.

Fortunately, it’s possible for all of us —or, at least all who are females of a certain age— (more about that later) to bring out extraordinary abilities that we never knew our brains’ possessed without damaging our brains, or even temporarily suppressing the LATL by overworking it with Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS), as Dr. Gilbert reported in her blog.

Here are 5 examples. Four will work for everyone, 1 only works, as far as we know, for ovulating females.

Astonishing memory feats

If I asked you to memorize this list of 10 words, you’d normally have to repeat them in your head over and over many times before you achieved 100% recall. Even after accomplishing the tiring feat, after a few hours, you’d probably only remember a total of  2-3 words taken from the  beginning and end of the list (due to what cognitive psychologists call recency and primacy effects, where information at the beginning and end of a series “interferes” with recall of information in the middle of a series).

ladybug, comb, oatmeal, lawyer, coal, stamp, knife, worm, bell, lettuce

The difficulty remembering words stems from limitations of our verbal memory, because the linguistic portion of our brains, where we store arbitrary lists of words, has limited “buffer” (storage register) size.

But our visual brains have vastly more storage than our linguistic brains. Prove this to yourself by conjuring up an image of the inside of  your house or apartment. Notice that  as you mentally walk through the residence, you can remember where every room is and even “see” details of what is in each room, such as beds, furniture and art hanging on walls. That’s a huge  amount of information you’ve just recalled, far greater than that contained in this entire article.

Thus, when you store information visually, as opposed to linguistically, you can recall it much, much better.

And that’s the secret to flawlessly remembering each of the ten words above. Instead of repeating them in your head as words, convert each of them to images—and not just any images—but extremely vivid pictures. For instance, conjure up an image of a 6 foot long orange comb instead of a boring  6 inch long black one, or make the knife an ivory handled carving knife with a wicked blade instead of a ho-hum table knife.

Now, as you stroll through the visual memory of your residence, mentally place a visual representation of each object on the list in a different room or distinct location such as closet.

For instance, place a large ladybug, say 3 feet in diameter to make it really vivid,  where the welcome mat by the front door lies (or would lie if you had a welcome mat). Then deposit the large orange comb on the floor just inside the front door. Continue to place each successive object on the list throughout your house, preferably in the order you would walk through your house if some asked you to take them on a guided tour. As you drop each object in its unique location, pause to form an image of the object in its new location.

When you’re done, take another stroll through your house and “see” the new objects you’ve left in different places. You should have no trouble visualizing each and every object, even if you suddenly transport yourself to an arbitrary room so that you’re not recalling the objects according to their order on the list. Quite a memory feat! You can’t even recall all the letters of the alphabet without reciting them in order. If you don’t believe me, try reciting the alphabet backwards.

Telekinesis

Tie a 2-3 foot piece of string (or dental floss) through the handle of a coffee cup and dangle the cup in front of you, keeping it as still as you can. Then, using only your mind, will the cup to sway forward and back: don’t cheat by consciously moving the cup!!! After 20-30 seconds, you will see the cup start to move forward and back. Then, again using only your mind, order the cup to stop. Then repeat the exercise, except this time, by willing the cup to sway like a pendulum left and right.

No, you don’t literally have telekinesis, but this experiment—which eerily feels like telekinesis —proves that your unconscious exerts extraordinary control over your muscles, causing them to contract in subtle ways that produce tiny, but precise movements that move the cup. Although you probably weren’t  aware of which muscles you contracted to cause the cup to sway, your body knew what to do through a process called implicit memory, in which our brains unconsciously file away enormous amounts of information, such as which muscle groups will cause which kinds of subtle motions.

Perhaps such unconscious movements are what originally gave rise to the concept of telekinesis in the first place!

Echolocation 

Bats navigate in the dark by listening to returns from ultrasonic clicks, chirps and tones. But we all have an inner bat that can also echolocate. Find a long stick or pole with a hard tip (metal is ideal) and a friend to spot for you, then go to an uncarpeted area of your house—or a place with a hard surface outside your house— close your eyes and tap the stick in front of you, as blind people do. Observe that you can get a rough sense of the presence of large nearby objects, and even their distance, just by listening to the clicks. 

If you’re like most sighted people who do this for the first time, you will just “know” when you are getting close to a wall or large object without knowing exactly how you know.  This “knowing without knowing how” is another example of implicit learning from the countless number of  times you have unconsciously registered the change in the sound of your footsteps as you neared a wall. But if you carefully listen to the clicks of your stick, you’ll start to notice that clicks made from tapping the floor a few feet from a wall have a full, hollow quality due to slight echoes that immediately follow the original click of contact between the floor and stick. The echoes from the stick tapping the floor follow too quickly to distinguish as distinct replicas of the original click, but they add slightly to the original click sound nonetheless.

If you tap the stick within a few inches of  a  wall or large object, the click will sound “crisper” with a somewhat higher pitch. Some people report that clicks very close to walls sound “deader” than clicks further away from walls, because they contain fewer echoes and overtones. 

“Seeing” behind you

A close cousin of echolocation, sound shadowing, let’s you sense when someone —or a large something, like a predator— is right behind you, even when that someone (or something) makes no sound.

Stand with your eyes closed on a carpeted surface (or other sound deadening surface such as grass or beach sand), and have a friend sneak up behind you so that you don’t hear their footsteps, breathing or clothes rustling. The experiment works best when you have a conspicuous sound source, such as a radio located about ten feet behind you, to create background noise. 

As your friend approaches from behind, even though you can’t see or hear them directly, you should be able to “feel” the person’s proximity by the sound shadow (blockage of sound) that they cast. If you pay close attention to the sound shadow, you’ll perceive it has two parts: a slight lowering of volume and a deadening of echos of the radio noise off of surfaces behind you. These two effects become increasingly obvious as the person gets closer to you.

Our  unconscious ability to sense whether someone is behind us may give rise to the overworked phrases in thrillers and mysteries “He had a sense he was being tailed”  or “She felt someone’s eyes watching her.”

Although perception of sound shadows, like echolocation, is also an example of implicit memory, it may also have a hard-wired component due to its powerful survival value, helping us  fill in a large blindspot behind us that predatory animals (and nasty humans) could otherwise exploit.

Spotting hidden snakes

Speaking of detecting predatory animals, here’s one about sensing the presence of snakes that only applies, as far as we know, to ovulating women in the “luteal phase”.

Drs. Mistaka and Shibasaki of the Primate Research Institute  at Osaka University published a 2012 study in the prestigious journal Nature, showing that ovulating women can spot snakes hidden in photographs significantly faster than non-ovulating controls can spot the same slithering reptiles.

The authors suggested that attention to threats, such as snakes, increases under hormonal influences, in order to prevent lethal injury when pregnancy is likely. Such increased vigilance presumably had adaptive value during evolution, increasing the odds of successful  reproduction.

This ability could come in very handy for single women active in the dating scene. These women could simply meet new men only when ovulating so that they could tell right away which men are—and are not—snakes!

Dive deeper into the mysteries of your brain at www.drhaseltine.com and with my new book Brain Safari

Source: jagdprinzessin photo — Creative Commons License CC0

Some new research out of Hungary points out that puppies and human toddlers face similar problems when it comes to interacting with the environment. There are many things in the world which are simply not safe for young individuals. Hot surfaces, open flames, machines with moving parts and a myriad of other dangerous things populate the world. These can damage inquisitive little fingers or puppy paws and even produce injuries that may be serious or fatal. How is a puppy or a child supposed to find out about such perilous things without going through the hazards of trial and error learning?

Dogs and people share an advantage that helps in such situations because they are social animals. Both can learn by gathering information from other individuals that they associate with. For example, dogs are sensitive to emotional expressions in other dogs and also in humans. If a puppy sees another dog acting frightened or uncomfortable when they encounter an unfamiliar object, then it is probably a good idea for the pup to stay away from that object. Similarly if the object or situation produces a positive response, then it is probably safe for the pup to approach and interact with it. This is a process called "social referencing".

Social Referencing

Social referencing is the procedure in which an individual relies on emotional cues from others when they are faced with an unfamiliar situation. Using social referencing is of particular value to young individuals, mainly because, with their lack of experience, nearly everything which a young thing encounters is novel to them. The youngster's very survival can depend on his ability to read the emotional responses of individuals in his environment so that he knows how to react properly.

There are two easily seen behavioral patterns associated with social referencing. These behaviors are seen in both puppies and human kids. The first is what is called "referential looking". This is where the toddler or pup looks at the unfamiliar object or situation and then looks back at their social partner to pick up any possible emotional cues. This may be repeated a number of times. When their social partner looks at the suspect situation and then back at the youngster while expressing some emotional response, then the puppy or child should be able to pick up some valuable information. The second part of social referencing involves acting on that information. If the information which he received was negative (for example, the other individual shows fear or discomfort), then it is best to stay away from that object or place. However if the emotional response was positive then it is probably safe to go over and investigate this novel thing.

The Research Question

One important question is "Who is a puppy supposed to trust as a source for such information?" It would make sense for evolution to have wired puppies to monitor the responses of other dogs, particularly familiar dogs, such as the pup's mother. But is it possible that evolution has also modified the responses of young puppies so that they can gather information from humans about the safety of things, even at a young age? This was the question which a team of researchers headed by Claudia Fugazza from the Department of Ethology, at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest, Hungary, set out to answer.

Since the investigators assumed that social referencing would be especially valuable for young inexperienced individuals, they decided to see if it was already detectable in eight week old puppies who were still living with their mother and litter-mates.

First they needed some ambiguous objects which a puppy might consider to be suspicious. They used two different stimulus objects. One was a plastic bucket hanging from a frame which contained a speaker which could broadcast loud unfamiliar sounds such as creaking and sirens. The other was an oscillating fan with plastic streamers that flapped in the air stream. For each test trial one of these unfamiliar objects would be placed in a corner of the test area.

Information from Dogs

The first condition of interest involved social referencing using information from other dogs. One third of the group of 48 puppies tested was placed in the test area along with their mother (who had previously been exposed to the test object and had been acclimated so that she felt comfortable with it nearby). Another group of puppies had an unknown adult dog placed in the room with them. This dog was similar in breed and size to their mother but was completely unfamiliar to the puppies. The final sample of puppies was placed in the room without any dog present.

The puppies acted as expected when the mother was present. They looked back and forth between the ambiguous object and their mother. When their mother simply remained calmly sitting in the room, the vast majority the puppies clearly decided that the situation was safe and wandered over to explore the novel object. When the dog in the room with them was unfamiliar the puppies still looked back and forth between their canine companion and the test object, but they were less likely to get up and investigate that strange thing, and if they did so it took a lot longer than when their mother was around. When there was no dog in the room, the puppies acted very suspicious toward this odd thing, and were not very likely to approach and interact with it.

Information from People?

That result makes sense from an evolutionary viewpoint. It indicates that puppies gather information from observing other dogs that they know and trust, and use the emotional responses that they see to determine the safety of objects in their environment. However, next these scientists asked the question "Have dogs co-evolved with humans to the degree that these young puppies would be willing to trust information from a human about the safety of objects in the world, even at the tender age of eight weeks?"

To answer this part of the question the investigators substituted the dogs used in the previous experimental conditions with a female human. Over a period of an hour or so this woman had interacted with the puppies so they were comfortable around her. Again three conditions were used. The first involved the female experimenter in the room with the puppy and the strange object. In this scenario the human expressed positive emotions toward the unfamiliar stimulus. She did this by looking back and forth between the test object and the puppy, while smiling and making appropriately positive and happy vocal sounds. The second group of puppies had the same woman in the testing area except that she acted neutrally, expressing no emotion toward the strange object. The third group was placed in the room with the suspicious object, but no person or dog was present. [A negative emotional group was not included for ethical reasons, especially given the age of the puppies that were being tested.]

The interesting thing here is that the puppies showed referential looking when the human was present. They gazed back and forth between the person and the unfamiliar object, just as they did when their social companion was another dog. It was quite clear that the puppies were trying to pick up the emotional reaction of the person in order to learn how to respond to the strange thing in the room. When the experimenter showed positive emotions toward the unfamiliar object, the puppies were most likely to approach and interact with it, and they did so relatively quickly. When the human showed a neutral expression, the puppies were less likely to approach and explore the unusual stimulus and if they did they approached it more slowly. With no one in the room, the puppies treated the object as untrustworthy and were much less likely to attempt to approach or interact with it.

What Does It Mean?

The conclusion seems to be clear. One of the ways in which puppies manage to learn about their world in a safe way is by extracting information from the emotional responses of other individuals when they are faced with unfamiliar and ambiguous situations. The puppies respond appropriately if that individual is a trusted and familiar dog. However the truly interesting finding from this research is that the puppies are also quite comfortable using a human being as their source of information. This suggests that there is something in the nature of the evolution or domestication of canines which has predisposed dogs toward paying attention to human emotional responses. Once they have interpreted those human emotions and determine which aspects of the environment triggered them, they use that information to guide their own behaviors. Thus they don't need to actually get hurt by something dangerous in order to know that it should be avoided. The interesting additional finding is that it seems that from puppyhood, dogs are willing to rely upon the validity of the emotional responses of humans in matters that can affect their own safety.

To my mind the idea that a young puppy will look at a newly met human being, and have the faith that this person's emotional responses can be trusted to the same extent as those of its own mother, gives me a warm feeling.

Copyright SC Psychological Enterprises Ltd. May not be reprinted or reposted without permission

Several media and academic sources have discussed the growing power of social media networking and internet data collection when it comes to marketing and political influence. However, these powerful tools may have potential public health utility in tracking important health behavior trends, and could publicize initiatives and influence health behavior as well.

1.     Digital health may improve barriers to care

Technology may provide easier access to care for those who live in areas with limited provider coverage (such as rural areas where mental health providers are scarce), via telehealth and teletherapy. Technology may also encourage those who would rather ask medical questions in a more anonymous or easy access setting, via virtual clinicians or other information access points. While some laugh at the idea of Google Medical School, there is still undeniable influence in online sources for health information. The key is to offer high quality, properly informed and vetted sources of information through easy-to-use, well-designed, reputable websites and interfaces.

2.     Digital health may provide supplemental tools to enhance care

Mobile and online applications are booming when it comes to adjunctive ways to monitor health behaviors and encourage adherence to treatment regimens. Apps that track daily medication dosing, provide reminders, track physical activity or anxiety symptoms are all available with many more on the way. Some apps offer on-the-go cognitive behavior therapy exercises and relaxation techniques. Several studies show that as an adjunct to in-person or standard-of-care treatment modalities, these apps can improve health outcomes in multiple areas, everything from cholesterol levels to addiction behaviors.

3.     Digital health may offer big data to solve or inform health care issues

Tracking and pooling large sets of data available via popular online websites or apps may provide valuable insights into health behaviors. Some analyses looking at linguistic keywords have noticed previously unknown patterns in people more likely to have depression, or even suicidal thoughts. Others look at environmental or population factors via online data caches to see who tends to have higher rates of obesity or addiction and more. Certain trending online searches may indicate previously little-known side effects with a particular drug, or may indicate efficacy trends (good or bad) after interventions like vaccines during a flu season.

4.     Digital health can influence people with health messaging

By harnessing the power of rapid and vast communication, public health initiatives on social media networks can reach wider or targeted audiences for particular risk factors or messaging, such as online groups that discuss depression or alcoholism, or particular age groups at risk for certain conditions. Sharing personal stories of illness more frankly than seen in previous mainstream media can reduce stigma and enhance people’s understanding of what really happens with these illnesses.

Overall, the possibilities are just beginning and innovative analyses of health data and promotion are growing in the academic, public health, and commercial sectors. There needs to be discussion on how to maintain scientific rigor and integrity when evaluating and regulating digital health interventions and their utility and safety in people. There also needs to be ongoing ethical negotiation of how to balance these initiatives with privacy and profit motives moving forward in this brave new world.

Source: Catherine McMahon/Unsplash

In an earlier blog, I wrote about the difference between self-indulgence and self-care. This is a topic that I return to, yet again, because I maintain that self-care is more than a fancy buzzword or a reason to get a mani/pedi. Lately, I have been on a mission to combat my own preconceived notions about self-care.

On my own self-care journey, I have learned that saying “no” without apology, excuses, or justification is much easier said than done. Assertive communication has, therefore, become one of my favorite topics to discuss with clients, from young teens to older adults. In assertive communication, “I-statements” convey your intentions and needs. This style of communication involves setting boundaries using clear, decisive, and succinct language.

Early in my graduate research, I worked on a project which explored assertiveness as a communication tool to help women cope with unwanted sexual advances. This fascinating work involved real role-play activities with female participants. They would practice using “I-statements” and other assertiveness skills with a male actor, trained to verbally pressure them into participating in various scenarios from rejecting an offer to a date to an explicit sexual advance. This practice helped the participants build their confidence in their own ability to say “no” when facing the unwanted pressure. Even in a role-play scenario, saying “no” wasn’t easy. I watched participants tense up. Many would trail off into a string of excuses or apologies. “I would love to go out with you, but I just can’t right now. I’m sorry! It’s just that this semester is so busy. Maybe another time? Can we still be friends?”

I never viewed myself as an exceptionally confident or assertive person. My goal was always to make the people around me feel comfortable, satisfied, or proud of me. I would often minimize myself to accommodate the booming presence of another person. This people-pleasing mentality reduced my feelings needs to make space for everyone else. I have since learned to pay more attention to my internal process, and assertiveness continues to be a work in progress. This has been my most meaningful mission of enhancing my self-care. I hope to instill this same hope in each and every client I work with who also struggles to be assertive. Therapy, after all, can be the perfect place to find your voice.

Why do I care so much about this? Honestly, because of my own struggle with assertive communication. The research taught me that assertiveness is not a skill that you have to be born with. Assertive communication can be developed and practiced over time, just like swimming or riding a bike. Understanding this fundamental piece instilled hope in my own ability to set better boundaries. “No.” is a complete sentence. Full. Stop.

Truly believing this and training yourself to use this word allows you to achieve a sense of freedom like you may have never experienced. Saying no to one trivial thing frees up space and time for you to do something else more meaningful. How do you plan to assert and care for yourself?

© Megha Pulianda

Forgiving others is hard work that needs persistence across time to achieve.  We forgive when we are good to those who are not good to us.  In this way we are not excusing the other's behavior or abandoning the quest for justice.  Instead, we are practicing the big-hearted moral virtue of what Aristotle called magnanimity.  Too often people confuse what forgiveness is, equating it with "just moving on" or "letting it go."  These are not what forgiveness is.  Instead, when you forgive, you offer the other a second chance whether or not the other accepts this gift.

Source: KuanShu Designs

I recently talked with a person who has given me permission to share her experience in forgiving.  Alison already knows the pathway of forgiveness that we have been describing in the published literature since the beginning of this century (see, for example, Enright, 2001).  Even though she knows this pathway, her particular struggle this time was intense and needed an extra boost, which she found when she deliberately decided to be altruistic toward those who were unfair to her.  To be altruistic is to give to others without expecting anything in return.  This giving, sometimes lavish giving, is done for the sake of the other(s) and not done for any expected reward to the self.  Such altruism is not a sign of weakness, but instead of an inner strength and resolve not to be defeated by what happened.

Alison is an elementary school teacher who cares deeply for her students.  She has an impeccable reputation for care and respect toward the students.  Lately, she has grown unhappy and frustrated by the quality of the after-school program at the school.  Those whose task it is to supervise the after-school students were doing so with little attention to the students' needs.  Those who were supposed to be attending to the students in this program were not being attentive to the students, sometimes even taking brief naps in their chairs as the students were on their own.  When Alison saw this, she went to the supervising personnel and complained directly to them.  They became offended.  When Alison then went to her administrators for help, they at first had sympathy toward Alison and promised to change the situation.  After several more months of inattention by either the administrators or those whose duty it was to supervise the after-school students, Alison again complained to the administrators, fully expecting support as she thought she was receiving the first time she complained.

Instead of support, she received defensive reactions from the administrators.  Instead of stepping up and correcting the situation in need of such correction, the administrators turned toward harsh accusations of Alison.  They accused her of bullying the after-school workers.  They accused her of insensitivity and inappropriateness.  They even suggested that she needs to be monitored in her own teaching within her classroom because of her harshness and incompetence.

Needless to say, Alison was stunned.  Those who assist her in her classroom testified to her high professionalism. Further, there was developing a file of complaints toward the after-school supervisors that were coming now from others who were observing their lack of care.  Nonetheless, the administrators stood firm in what Alison termed to me the administrators'"mobbing" of her.

Alison began the forgiveness process.  She decided to do no harm to the administrators despite their very unfair "mobbing" of her.  She worked on seeing their inherent worth as persons, not because of what they were doing but in spite of this.  She decided to bear the pain of the false accusations toward her so that she did not displace her anger and frustration onto her family or onto the students she was serving.

Yet, this was not enough to quell all of the anger.  She remained preoccupied with the injustice toward herself and toward the after-school children.  And then a deep change occurred in her.  One of the after-school supervisors became unexpectedly ill and would be gone for about one month.  This so happened to coincide with a state visit from the after-school accreditation team. The administrators asked Alison if she would be willing to step into the role of after-school supervisor, which would not only help the students but also help the administrators themselves get the highly-desired state accreditation of the after-school program.  

Source: KuanShu Designs

Alison realized that this was her chance to exercise largeness of heart, or altruism, or what Aristotle called magnanimity.  She immediately said, "Yes," knowing that she had decided to give this gift to those who were "mobbing" her and falsely accusing her.  And it made all the difference.  Of course, it now was her chance to exercise justice along with the altruism as she could make some changes in the after-school program.  Her continual ruminations about the past unfairness began to fade.  Her remaining anger left her.  She now has an inner sense of triumph over a very challenging situation.  Her practice of altruism, of giving to those who refused to give to her, set her free from an inner struggle that had been ongoing for months.

Altruism as a gift to the unjust----it is part of the forgiveness process and in this case ended the struggle to overcome anger and began once again her thriving as a person.

Source: Pexels

Happiness does not consist of things themselves but in the relish we have of them.                                –de la Rochefoucauld

When I was in college, my roommates used to make fun of me for my ability to multitask. On one particular day, I literally sat on an exercise bike, pedaling to burn calories, while studying from a textbook and listening to music on my headphones. Back then, it seemed an efficient way to get things done. It’s been a long time since I was in college, and as a result of my meditation practice and my positive psychology training, I now strive to be a monotasker—to do one thing at a time. And when it’s something I enjoy and that feels good, I make an effort to bask in the moment, savoring the good feelings that go with that experience.

Chances are you’ve savored the wafting aroma of coffee brewing. Or a breathtaking glow of pink and orange hues during a sunset. Or the melody of a song so amazing that you need to close your eyes to take it all in?

Savoring is not a new idea, and its origins date back to ancient times when savoring—or fully appreciating a taste, smell, or sight, for example—was considered wise. More recent research supports this notion and reaches further, revealing that savoring positive emotions is a strategy that can optimize your health and well-being. More specifically, the benefits of savoring include stronger relationships, improved mental and physical health, and increased creativity in solving problems.

In today’s busy world, however, we are pulled in so many directions that we often forget or forego the savoring—we simply have too many emails to respond to and tweets to read, among a million other things. The good news is that savoring positive experiences can be learned, like playing the piano, and if you practice, you’ll improve. So take a deep breath, slow down and open up to your positive experiences by stopping to savor the moment. Savoring not only cultivates positive emotions in the present, but also builds resources for coping—connecting us to moments in the past, present or imagined future that give us an emotional boost when we are in need.

Strategies to Help You Savor

1. Share Your Experience

Calling attention to an experience as it’s happening is an invitation to others to participate in it with you—making it an opportunity to savor, increase connection, and deepen relationships. During a recent yoga class, my teacher suggested that we “savor the sweetness of the breath.” Her advice propelled me to close my eyes and focus on the warm feeling of my breath as it moved in and out of my body, while knowing that the other yogis were savoring the same sweetness I was. Who knows? Your positive experience may just be contagious.

2. Express Gratitude

When you feel and express thanks, you are recognizing an appreciation of something, or someone, that’s positive. Pausing to reflect on your good fortune in a particular moment is a form of savoring, as it increases your enjoyment of the good things in life. Send a text expressing your appreciation for something, or hug someone you love, and notice the positive feeling in that moment.

3. Shout it Out

“Laugh out loud, jump up and down, and shout for joy when something good happens to you,” says Fred Bryant, a professor and social psychologist at Loyola University in Chicago. Those who openly share their positive feelings tend to feel extra good, as it offers the mind evidence that a positive experience has happened.

4. Give Yourself Permission to be Magnificent

One of my teachers, Tal Ben-Shahar, explains that we focus on our flaws and forget about the ways in which we are magnificent. Don’t take for granted your own success and accomplishments. Give yourself a hug and savor the feeling of completing a job well-done.

5. Be Mindful

The definition of mindfulness is an awareness of an experience as it’s unfolding in the present moment. When savoring, you are fully absorbed in the present moment, focusing on the sensations of the experience without distractions, such as comparing this moment to another. Mindfulness can increase savoring during any type of positive experience. As you bite into a strawberry, for example, notice its texture, its shape, its flavor. The focused awareness will help you savor the taste just a bit longer.

6. Build Memories

Taking a mental photo of an experience can provide you with a tool you can pull out later, perhaps at a time when you could use a boost of positivity. Pause for a moment to focus your awareness on the specific things you want to recall later and how they make you feel, such as the softness of your child’s hand as it grasps yours, the sound of a friend’s laugh, or the smell of fresh flowers.

7. Write it Down

Reflecting on a positive experience in detail can offer you a chance to savor that moment again. Try writing about a positive experience in a journal, noting as many specifics as you can—what was happening, what did you notice, how did you feel. Deliberately remembering the details can evoke the sensation that you savored earlier.

Sources & additional reading:

·       Fred B. Bryant and Joseph Veroff, Savoring: A New Model of Positive Experience

·       Sonja Lyubomirsky, The How of Happiness: A New Approach to Getting the Life You Want

Source: Media Bakery

Anyone who regularly travels for business knows that these trips can take a toll. But a recent study suggests that it’s worse than we thought. Even more than just wear and tear, frequent business travel (defined as more than two weeks a month) has been linked to higher levels of obesity, depression, and other health problems.  

As a CEO of a growth stage company, I am on an airplane more often than in my office. In fact, I recently calculated that I travel about 200 days a year. This frequent travel is exciting, as it represents meetings with our customers and speaking engagements at events where we talk about how critical cognition is to overall health. 

Unfortunately, it also represents a disruption to the routine of diet, socialization, sleep, and exercise – all of which I have written about extensively in relationship to cognitive health.

Over the past two years of increasing travel demands, I have found there are a few key lessons and travel behaviors that have helped me stay healthy and sane as my company grows and the demand on my time grows in kind. 

Number One: Do something active every day on the road 

If I have time to get in a lap swim on the road, it is a great day. In fact, I prioritize hotels and locations that make it easy for me to get in my swim while traveling. Yet, too often the days are long, and all I can manage is a 30-minute walk on a treadmill at night. To stay active and fit, I take the stairs at hotels or office buildings. Even when a meeting is far away from my hotel, I will walk part of it and check out interesting sights in whatever city I happen to be in that day. It takes a little effort, but that effort pays off in lowering my stress levels, maintaining my fitness, and bringing some balance to a busy schedule. Last year in London, I had a meeting at one end of Hyde Park – I had the taxi drop me off at the other end and enjoyed a walk along the Serpentine before my meeting. I arrived feeling energetic and the customer commented on how “flush with sunshine and energy” I looked – not a bad impression!

Number Two: You are what you eat

Travel can seem like an excuse to throw good nutrition to the wind and eat on the fly. Having celiac disease helps me avoid the sugary and salty snacks from vending machines because they’re usually packed with gluten. But trust me, the pull of fast food is never stronger than when I am away from home and the routine of healthy cooking. To that end, I have fail-safes – things I grab that are easy and healthy. One of my favorites is the Starbucks cheese and apple box, because it’s almost always easy to find (it seems there is a Starbucks on every corner in every city – thank you Howard Schultz!) and it’s healthy and filling. Another fail-safe is a package of edamame and an apple in my bag at all times. I also travel with dark chocolate covered almonds for a mid-day pick me up that feels guilty but is actually pretty healthy. As much as I love to savor local cuisines, I find that simple familiar food is key to keeping balanced and healthy on a multi-week business trip abroad. Finally, I avoid alcohol on travel days and on all my flights. I know, I know, no fun – but the point here is that both alcohol and air travel dehydrates, so I feel better and perform better on the road when I avoid it. 

Number Three:  Prioritize sleep

There are multiple aspects to getting a good night sleep.  First, I absolutely never-ever have caffeinated drinks after 1 PM.  When people say they can sleep well on caffeine I’m skeptical– trust me no one’s brain is that special or different. You might sleep but you won’t sleep as deeply. Second, I limit alcohol. Although a nightcap might help you drift off, it interrupts healthy sleep patterns and results in a less restorative sleep. Third, I turn off all screens at least an hour before my target time to be asleep. When using screens after 6 PM, the “night shift” setting is great for eliminating evening exposure to blue light. Fourth, when it’s time to go to bed, the phone goes into airplane mode, and I turn on white noise – my favorite is ocean waves. The white noise helps to calm the brain’s desire to be active, and it also drowns out unfamiliar hotel noises with a familiar pattern of sound. Finally, it’s well documented that we don’t sleep well the first night in a new place. I try to cheat this by staying in the same hotels and even the same rooms in cities I visit frequently. This means that even when I am 6,000 miles from home, I am in familiar surroundings, and I have found it greatly improves my ability to sleep well when I travel. All of these tips are part of sleep hygiene which represents the best advice on getting a good night sleep from experts around the world.  

Number Four: Stay in touch

It’s hard being away from friends and family so often. Yet for almost every trip I take, I manage to get together with a family member or friend in one of the cities I visit. As I type this on yet another flight, I have worked a short diversion into this business trip to see my mother and several cousins. Next month, while in Boston for meetings and speaking engagements, I will have dinner with one of my nieces who is studying public health there. These dinners and meet ups keep me feeling socially connected and part of my family and network even with a 75% or more travel schedule. It can be tempting to schedule every minute of a trip to maximize value for travel dollars spent. I think that I am a better CEO when I make time for family – from my mom and aunts and uncles to my energetic nieces and nephews, and yes even my in-laws! I schedule these meetings and dinners ahead of time with every bit as much attention to fitting them in as seeing a partner of a major company. 

Putting it all together

Nothing makes travel feel as good as eating a home cooked meal and sleeping in your own bed. Several years of hitting the road have taught me how to stay mentally and physically healthy while also being a road warrior for my growing company. It’s not easy, and my at-home habits help me maintain self-care while traveling. I know I feel much better when I practice good habits even when they seem like a lot of trouble to go to in the moment. For those of us that find ourselves on a plane more often than at the office, it’s critical to form travel habits that support our health and happiness. I hope this article prompts others that travel often to share their tips for the road.  

While it is important is to expose students to ideas that contradict their current beliefs as part of teaching them how to think, an increasing event experienced by university professors is having students disagree with the professor and challenge many of his or her assertions.  The issue is how to manage closed-minded students with extreme political views, either right or left, when they comment in class. I have eight recommendations:

1. First, be respectful.  Do not discount them as people or treat them impolitely (such as cutting them off or not calling on them).  This does not mean letting them give long speeches, you need all class members to know that their time is limited by the need to cover the course content.  Make it clear that every class member has a right to his or her position, but it does not mean that any one else has to agree with them.  The more defensive a closed-minded person feels, the less he or she will be willing to consider other perspectives and conclusions.  
2. Listen to students carefully.  Make it clear to everyone (especially closed-minded students) that you are listening and comprehend what they are saying.  Paraphrasing the key aspects of their comments always helps.  If students feel understood by the professor and classmates, they may tend to be more open-minded.  
3. In disagreeing with the students, keep the focus on the issues, not on the persons commenting. Anytime the focus is on a person, step in and intervene.  Issues may be discussed in class, but not people.  Mutual respect and objective listening should be the class norms, not the character or intelligence of the students themselves.  
4. Demonstrate that you can see the issue from the students’ perspective.  To respond in an objective, non-adversarial way, you need an accurate assessment of the validity and relative merits of the students’ position. Doing so requires “standing in each student’s shoes” and viewing the situation from the student’s perspective. Perspective-taking is essential to ensure relevant information is presented in ways that class members can understand and that other members’ messages are comprehended accurately. Perspective-taking facilitates the achievement of creative, high-quality problem solving.  Perspective-taking also promotes more positive perceptions of the information-exchange process, fellow group members, and the group's work.  
5. If students are angry and personally attack you for something you said, ignore the anger and attack, and stay focused on the issue.  If you respond with an angry counter-attack, students will tend to become more defensive and closed minded.  In addition, if students succeed in making you angry and defensive, on one level they have won the debate and discredited you in front of the rest of the class.  Give them the opportunity to present their view and listen to it respectfully with neutral emotionality.  After a while, they may do the same.  
6. Periodically invite their participation.  If you think they wish to comment, invite them to do so.  The more welcome they feel in expressing their views, the less closed minded they will tend to be.  
7. Model how you want them to behave.  Whenever possible, find some aspect of their message that you can publicly agree with. This focuses on what everyone has in common, not only on the differences.  If you demonstrate a willingness to change parts of your position and see some issues from their perspective, their fear of reconsidering their views may be reduced.  It is a good idea to model what you want them to do.  
8. Finally, strive to make them your friends.  The surest way to reduce the conflict and open their minds to other points of view is for them to consider you their friend.  In addition, having a discussion among friends is far different that having a discussion among adversaries.  

Source: DepositPhotos/VIA Institute

I recall Sarah, a middle-aged woman, approaching me prior to a workshop I was about to deliver in Australia. She was excited, eager to share her news. She said she'd taken the VIA Survey six years ago and discovered her character strength of self-regulation was dead-last in her rank order of 24 strengths. She explained how this was unsettling to her. And she vowed to improve this part of herself.

Sarah went about focusing on ways she could use this character strength in her daily life. She talked about the strength with others, spotted it in action in people she respected, and monitored her use of the strength from week to week. She discovered times she was using it well, such as her keeping a discipline with her morning routine. Upon a closer look, she saw that her self-regulation in the morning centered around having a plan, feeling peaceful in her routine, and following a time schedule with it. This gave her something to build upon. When something got in the way of her routine, she called it a “happy accident” and returned to her schedule. Over the months, she monitored her daily habits such as eating, sleeping, drinking, and meditating. She made minor improvements to these healthy approaches in her life and kept a watchful eye on each to not backtrack into the world of vices and bad habits.

Sarah explained that when she took the VIA Survey again, a week prior to my workshop, her self-regulation had risen to be her number 2 strength. She explained this strength captured an important part of who she is. She had previously – unbeknownst to her – allowed self-regulation to fall dormant…underused and unattended to. There can be many reasons for this shift in Sarah’s rank-order of strengths but a highly plausible explanation is she did indeed impact one of her character strengths for the better.

Sarah is in good company when it comes to the development of character. Aristotle, the ancient Greek philosopher, and St. Thomas Aquinas, each argued that virtues can be acquired through practice. One of the founding fathers of the United States, Benjamin Franklin, set up his own personal system in which he placed his attention on improving one virtue per week, closely tracking his progress and journaling about his experiences. In his autobiography, he described this approach as contributing greatly to his happiness and life successes.

Modern day researchers have been slower on the uptake of this idea, arguing that qualities of personality and character are rigid and unchanging, as if set in stone like an engraved mark. However, new research in personality psychology shows that personality is relatively changeable and that the change is not necessarily slow and gradual as previously thought (examples of scientific studies include Blackie and colleagues, 2014; Harris and colleagues, 2016; Hudson & Fraley, 2015; Roberts and colleagues, 2017).

There are many factors that can impact our personality and character. Examples include changes in your life role, such as getting married, having a child, or joining the military, or experiencing an atypical life event such as going through a trauma. These various factors might increase or decrease your character strengths. In a study of people before and after the September 11 attack on the World Trade Center in New York City, the character strengths of gratitude, hope, kindness, leadership, love, spirituality, and teamwork all increased in a U.S. sample (but not in a European sample) 2 months after (Peterson & Seligman, 2003). And, ten months later these character strengths still showed elevations. Potentially, this tragedy unleashed positive qualities in the character of many?

Another way we can impact our character, and something we have more control over, is the use of deliberate interventions. In other words, focus on improving one of your character strengths – make a plan and stick with it. This was tested by positive psychology educator Michelle McQuaid, in collaboration with the VIA Institute, among thousands of people across 65 countries in 2015. Each individual focused on a character strength they wanted to improve and set forth with a plan to improve it. They found that the character strengths were changeable, malleable to a degree and many positive outcomes emerged such as higher flourishing, engagement, energy, and feeling more equipped to set weekly goals, name their own strengths, and have meaningful conversations at work.

The central idea here is this: If you want to improve one of your character strengths, follow the lead of Sarah and take action. Creating new habits of virtue and strength takes practice and sustained effort. Every one of us (yes, all 7.6 billion of us) can benefit from focusing on one or more of the 24 universal character strengths.

Start wherever you like. Pick one strength and improve yourself. You can learn to become more kind, more creative, more wise, or more brave today.

References

^{Blackie, L. E. R., Roepke, A. M., Forgeard, M. J. C., Jayawickreme, E., & Fleeson, W. (2014). Act well to be well: The promise of changing personality states to promote well-being. In A. C. Parks, & S. Schueller (Eds.), The Wiley-Blackwell handbook of positive psychological interventions (pp. 462–474). Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell.}

^{Harris, M. A., Brett, C. E., Johnson, W., & Deary, I. J. (2016). Personality stability from age 14 to age 77 years. Psychology and Aging, 31(8), 862–874.}

<sup>Hudson, N. W., & Fraley, R. C. (2015). Volitional personality trait change: Can people choose to change their personality traits? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 109(3), 490–507 http://doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000021

McQuaid, M., & VIA Institute on Character (2015). VIA character strengths at work</sup>

^{Niemiec, R. M. (2018). Character strengths interventions: A field-guide for practitioners. Boston: Hogrefe.}

^{Peterson, C., & Seligman, M. E. P. (2003). Character strengths before and after September 11. Psychological Science, 14, 381–384. http://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9280.24482}

^{Peterson, C., & Seligman, M. E. P. (2004). Character strengths and virtues: A handbook and classification. New York, NY: Oxford University Press/ Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.}

^{Roberts, B. W., Luo, J., Briley, D. A., Chow, P. I., Su, R., & Hill, P. L. (2017). A systematic review of personality trait change through intervention. Psychological Bulletin, 143(2), 117–141.}

Taking a position on the national crisis of separating children from their parents at the border should be easy. Yet in our increasingly polarized society, many are getting caught up in another both-sides kind of argument. As a nurse, family and school counselor--never mind as a mother—I can tell you one thing is crystal clear: Early interpersonal relationships between parents and children are the single most protective factor in shaping highly functioning children, teenagers, and later adults.

With all the news stories out there, here's my attempt to pull together some key facts with sourcing so that you can use your head, heart, and hands to support families. We have to have hope.

Source: Lynne Griffin

you have to understand,
that no one puts their children in a boat
unless the water is safer than the land.— Warsan Shire

What you need to know

— The vast majority of people coming to the border are fleeing violence, poverty, and oppression in their home communities.

— Parents with children trying to seek asylum through a legal port of entry are being denied, so many are forced to cross illegally.

— Crossing the border illegally is a misdemeanor for which this administration is choosing to separate parents from their children as young as infants. The Trump administration implemented this policy by choice and could end it by choice. No law or court ruling mandates family separations. 

— Children are processed through the Department of Homeland Security and then transferred to care under the department of Health and Human Services. Agents say there is no interagency process for keeping track of which children belong to specific parents. There is no current process for reuniting parents and children.

— Separating families as they seek asylum together is a flagrant violation of the human rights of the parents and their children and is also a violation of U.S. obligations under refugee law.

— Parents are being deported while their children are still being detained, creating a system of institutionalization of young children.

— Amnesty International is calling the execution of this policy nothing short of torture.

— The laity and clergy of the United Methodist Church issued a complaint against Jeff Sessions for this policy, charging him with child abuse, immorality, racial discrimination, and dissemination of doctrines contrary to the standards of doctrine of the United Methodist Church. 

Why you should care

— An extensive body of research shows the long shadow of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), including lifelong physical and mental health issues. 

— Research has demonstrated a strong relationship between ACEs and a variety of substance-use disorders and other maladaptive behaviors such as increased risk of suicide attempts, lifetime depressive episodes, sleep disturbances, sexual risk behavior, and teen pregnancy.

—Because they are human beings. They are families. They are all of our children ...

What can you do 

Donate

VOTE

Volunteer

VOTE

March

Resist

VOTE

Run for office

VOTE

***

Lynne Griffin is the author of the parenting guides, Let's Talk It: Adolescent Mental Health and Negotiation Generation. She is also the author of the family-focused novels, Girl Sent Away, Sea Escape, and Life Without Summer. You can find her online at her website, or follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

Source: Pixabay

An otherwise excellent recent Washington Post review of Bernice Yeung’s book In A Day’s Work: The Fight To End Sexual Violence Against America’s Most Vulnerable Workers had an unfortunate headline: “In a new book, domestic workers get their #MeToo moment. We need to listen.” (Tara Murtha, June 8, 2018) What is #MeToo a “moment”? I felt like it was a watershed, coming after many similar waves of concern, dating back at least to the Anita Hill hearings in 1991. Concerns of low-income women are unfortunately usually moved to the back of the bus, while other women are able to broadcast their trauma loudly to a cheering audience. Everyone’s concerns matter, but it’s harder for me to get worked up about someone complaining about a man’s supposed overbearing attitude or the fact that he once yelled a naughty word in the heat of an argument. Attitudes and words matter, of course, in interpersonal relationships — but how much should they take control of a story? We have to look deeper.

We also have to move deeper than the surface issues of accusations and sometimes vitriolic defenses, which particularly characterize our time on social media. We do have to assess the truth of claims and make sure power is not used to harm people. But here we have a contradiction. Power does corrupt. In Yeung’s book and other work, we see that men with even a tiny bit of power have used it to harm women under their control. Social psychologist Dacher Keltner’s The Power Paradox outlines his research showing that as people gain power and influence, they often lose empathy. The obvious awareness is that men disproportionately hold power over women, just as whites disproportionately hold power over the lives of blacks and people of color, and the rich hold power disproportionately over the poor. How would it feel to be a poor woman of color placed in harm’s way? Yeung’s book takes us there.

Junot Diaz’s unfolding personal story bears witness, though, to the complications of assigning blame, or thinking that any one of us can truly judge another. (See “Junot Díaz cleared of misconduct by MIT,” New York Times, June 19, 2018.) “He who is without sin, cast the first stone," indeed. If the “original sin” of human consciousness is self-centeredness, which leads to overvaluation of self, devaluation of others, and potential abuses of power (including MLK’s Giant Triplet of Materialism, Militarism and Materialism), then we are all guilty in some measure. There is a “healthy narcissism,” and I think nearly all of us struggle at some level with the human question of “am I for myself or for others?” (Listen to Episode 10 of my podcast, Narcissism in the American Psyche and Social Media, for an overview, on Soundcloud, Stitcher and iTunes.)

The complication is that Díaz himself is a victim of sexual trauma. (See "The Silence: The Legacy of Childhood Trauma" by Díaz in The New Yorker, April 16, 2018.) Research suggests that about 1/3 of victims of childhoodabuse end up abusing their children. Glasser et al found¹ similar rates for intergenerational transmission of sexual abuse, but the rate was much higher for men than women. Men are more at risk of passing on trauma from unhealed wounds. I would imagine that women are more likely to take out their pain on themselves, or become emotionally, and not sexually, abusive. Childhood sexual abuse is correlated with personality disorders later in life.² Being a victim-perpetrator is a particularly toxic lot in life; not only do you have the pain of the past to weigh you down, you also have the shame, guilt, rage and confusion about one’s own harmful actions. Still, it's important to note that the majority of the abused do not abuse others, even though they may suffer from trauma. Still, at least 20% of girls and 5% of boys experience childhood sexual abuse. At least 20% of children experience emotional and physical abuse. If these numbers doesn't make you sick I don't know what will.

I’ve come to believe that the core of healing comes from the combination of mindfulness, compassion, and relationship (see my article for Hyphen Magazine). Mindfulness, to develop an observer awareness of one’s emotions, thoughts, and narratives, without jumping to judgements about self or other. Compassion and relationship to develop a friendly inner and outer life. I think "These Three Things" are a way out of the traps of self-centered power.

We have good reason to want justice and equality in our relationships and institutions. Hopefully, as we reckon with who should have power and under what circumstances, we can also work on cultivating relatedness, even to the most difficult questions that weigh upon our souls. As I write in Asian American Anger, available for free download:

“This “world-defining relationship” of men and women, marred in the extreme by violence, is prime evidence of the world’s brokenness and suffering. It is also, by nature, the main hope for the world’s redemption, which must, of course, be in the triumph of love. If there is a gender war, there are many more gender collaborators. We are, after all, not entrenched enemies. We’re mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, partners, friends. Community.

With, one hopes, a mutual, common destiny.”

(c) 2018 Ravi Chandra, M.D., D.F.A.P.A.

Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislation? Why has every man a conscience, then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right — Thoreau, "Civil Disobedience"

Henry David Thoreau is now regarded as a rather benign historical figure. And Thoreau’s formula sounds, to us today, simple enough to seem banal: have the courage to follow your conscience.

But in practice, Thoreau was willing (interested even) in being arrested so that he could sacrifice in opposition to what is wrong, rather unlike his reviled neighbors, who shared his opposition to slavery but would do nothing about it. (See "Civil Disobedience.")

Scholars remind us that we misread Thoreau if we take him to be a political philosopher. (Nancy Rosenblum tells us he was no more interested in preserving a liberal order than in any order.) Ethically, he was an absolutist. Conscience was to be our guide in the sense that we can wait for it to “inspire” us to take up a cause, and then we were to be relentless and uncompromising without concern for any external impact. (See Nancy Rosenblum on Thoreau.) 

Some concerns about his view? His trusting his conscience does nothing to direct our own. And seeing someone else is guided by conscience may not help us to more generally reckon with the values at stake in any political crisis. Politics certainly requires we specify and defend general principles. 

At the same time, is there not a role for our personal limits when it comes to what we will tolerate politically? And can't we understand these limits as ethical, even though they concern politics? Vaclav Havel argued as much. In the face of corrupt political power, personal ethics is our recourse, he explained. He called it "living in truth." 

Those with political power will, of course, mock personal ethics. They will do so in a typical way. Havel explains that the "representatives" of this political power will "invariably come to terms with those who live within the truth by persistently ascribing utilitarian motivations to them—a lust for power or fame or wealth—and thus they try, at least, to implicate them in their own world, the world of general demoralization." (For Vaclav Havel's work see here.)

Today this message will be delivered by those saying that people do not really care about ethical issues, it is always political, and others are merely "virtue signaling" when pretending to care about various political outcomes. 

In response to this, we might want to retain Thoreau’s reminder about what it means to be personally and "continuously inspired" by an issue (such as children being separated from parents at the border).

And perhaps we can also retain his reminder about what is in our own power, his example waking us up to actual options.  (See Thoreau on John Brown.)

Of course, some people do not even need these reminders. For example, the flight attendants refusing to work on flights with children who have been taken from their parents at the border seem to be already doing what Thoreau (and Havel) had in mind. 

Source: NadzeyaShanchuk/Shutterstock

I’ve spent a lot of time in the past 25 years working in war zones and refugee communities with survivors of civil war, genocide, and state terror. Everywhere I’ve worked, I’ve witnessed the powerful role that parents play in protecting their children from the horrors of war and the chaos of flight and displacement. I’ve been amazed at the ways in which parents, despite their own profound distress, manage to comfort their children, ease their fears and sadness, and keep them as safe as humanly possible.

The most brutal governments and militias know that to devastate parents and traumatize children, a simple approach is to tear them apart. Imprison parents, detain children, don’t allow them to communicate with each other, don’t hint at the possibility of reunification. For parents, there’s nothing more devastating than the loss of their children. And when you forcibly remove children from their parents, you rip away the secure base that allows children to feel safe in the world despite the dangers that may surround them. In the absence of comfort, and facing both the loss of their parents and their own frightening detention, their young bodies and minds can get locked into a state of prolonged alarm. The brain’s threat system gets flipped into a permanent state of activation, flooding the body with the stresshormones cortisol and adrenaline. That’s okay for a very short-term emergency; the stress response system evolved to help us shift quickly into survival mode, and then switch off again as soon as we’re safe, so that we can return to normal functioning. States of prolonged distress, however, can be extremely harmful, leading to an erosion of our emotional and physical health, eventually even endangering our survival. Among children, this state of prolonged threat can lead to what researchers call “toxic stress”. The stress hormones wear down the body and mind, weakening the immune system, and causing lasting damage to the brain. Children may experience recurrent nightmares, regress developmentally, lose their appetite, and engage in maladaptive coping responses—desperate attempts to self-soothe, ranging from aggression to self-harm, anything to numb the state of fear.

If you want to see what I’m talking about, to get a visceral feel for it, just log in to Facebook, Twitter, or the social media of your choice. You’ll immediately be confronted by stories, sounds, and images of immigrant children weeping in fear and despair, having recently been torn away from their parents by US immigration officers and locked away in detention centers, their parents arrested and charged as criminals. You can hear the actual cries of young children separated from their parents and placed in detention, and see the horror on the faces of others watching their parents being detained. It’s terrifying and heartbreaking.

Source: studiostoks/Shutterstock

Dr. Collen Craft, President of the American Academy of Pediatricians, calls the practice “nothing less than government-sanctioned child abuse.” That’s exactly what it is. It’s state-sponsored, government-directed harm to children. In the social service and medical professions, we live by the mantra “Do No Harm.” The US government now functions according to precisely the opposite mandate: Harm intensely, as a deterrent to undocumented immigration.

The President of the American Psychological Association, Dr. Jessica Henderson Daniel, likewise condemned the policy: “The administration’s policy of separating children from their families as they attempt to cross into the United States without documentation is not only needless and cruel, it threatens the mental and physical health of both the children and their caregivers.” The American Psychiatric Association and the American College of Physicians have also taken powerful stands against this destructive practice, warning that the harm being done to children will likely follow them throughout their lives.

It’s important to consider the intentional nature of the harm being caused by the current practice of separating parents and children and detaining both indefinitely. The toxic stress being generated among so many children, some just toddlers, is not an unfortunate collateral effect of this horrific practice. It’s an intentional outcome meant to serve as a warning to any parents who might still consider making the perilous journey north to escape gang warfare and poverty in Central America: Think twice: this could happen to you and your children.

Repressive governments use terror to achieve their ends. I’ve seen it everywhere my work has taken me, from Afghanistan to Iraq, from Guatemala to Sri Lanka, and a host of other places along the way. I never dreamed I’d see it in the country of my birth.