4 Exercises to Build Trust and Confidence in Your Intuition
Whether you lean clairvoyant, clairaudient, clairsentient, or claircognizant, you can strengthen your relationship with your intuition.
Empathy and compassion, for ourselves and others.
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Take This Fun Intuition Quiz to Determine Your Intuitive Style
Do antique stores unsettle you? Do you have a great sense of direction? An intuition quiz can tell you what these and other findings say about your intuitive style.
Becoming Trauma-Conscious
It may not be PTSD, but we all experience trauma. Recognizing this is good for everyone’s mental health.
Seeing Is Empathy
Mixed-media artist Morgan Harper Nichols explores how art can lead to empathy.
Four Small Lessons
“When opened enough, it’s hard to tell what you carry and what I put down. When opened enough, it’s hard to tell where the burden begins to lift and whose it really is.”
How to Stop Taking On the Energy of Others
You are made of energy at the cellular level and you are impacted and affected by the energy of other people and your environment.
In the Thick of It
“And it is the call of each generation to make sure that we choose love over fear and kindness over cruelty, one more time.”
How to Stop Enabling a Narcissist
Putting another’s needs ahead of your own to avoid their negativity and blowback is one sign you may be enabling a narcissist.
20 Affirmations for Empaths Who Feel the Pain of the World
Self-care reminder: Just because you feel it doesn’t mean you’re responsible for it.
Podcast: Michelle Cassandra Johnson, Finding Refuge
Author and activist Michelle Cassandra Johnson discusses generational trauma, yoga, beekeeping, and more.
Empathy and Artificial Intelligence
The ability to program empathy into AI could reap wellness benefits for humans and even the robots themselves.
Podcast: Neal Allen, Discover God Inside You
Author of Shapes of Truth, Neal Allen, discusses the 35 qualities of God that each human has within them.
14 Affirmations for Getting Along With People You Disagree With
Divisiveness takes a psychic toll on humanity. Affirmations remind us that we all want to be seen, heard, acknowledged, and respected.
From Separation to Connection
We are one. There is no separation.
Empaths & Animals: A Special Relationship
Authenticity, a minimal amount of emotional work, and the ability to gain trust are just some of the reasons empaths value their relationships with animals and with nature.
What to Expect When You’re in Love With an Empath
Loving an empath—who may be more sensitive to confrontation, more introverted, and can go overboard trying to please—is about affirming their individuality as well as your own.
What Does It Mean to Be a True Empath?
Empathetic people's hearts go out to others. True empaths feel others’ happiness or sadness in their own body, which can lead to emotional overload.
Asking Questions Is Most of Compassion
What is compassion? “We believe that the word represents something that we offer to others, or to ourselves. But is that accurate?”
Reframing Our World
When it comes to trauma, many misunderstand the true meaning of forgiveness. How can you forgive, move forward, and thrive? Discover the secrets to post-traumatic thriving.
Pain, Our Greatest Teacher for Growth
“Pain can turn our world and our internal compass upside down and shove us into darkness. Simultaneously, however, pain can shock us or catapult us out of everyday autopilot.”
3 Myths of Kindness
Kindness isn't just being nice—it's a superpower.
5 Gifts of Listening With Empathy
Listening with empathy allows you to deepen your relationships with loved ones and strangers alike.
Ho’oponopono: Digesting Pain and Inviting Forgiveness
Address your spiritual wounds with the traditional Hawaiian cleansing practice of ho’oponopono.
Wiser: A Neuropsychiatrist on Consciously Increasing Wisdom
Dilip Jeste, MD, offers ideas for increasing wisdom through empathy, compassion, and belief.
Brokenness Expands Our Capacity for Non-Judgment
Empathy and non-judgment lie at the heart of the therapeutic experience. “Strength and brokenness are not opposites.”
The Hearts and Souls of Candidates: Character Matters
A political candidate's character matters just as much, if not more than their policy proposals and political philosophies.
12 Reasons to Yawn Every Day
Is a yawn simply a silent scream for coffee or is it something more? Understand why yawning is a spiritual practice, and how you can include more of it in your daily routine.
Azim Khamisa, the Tariq Khamisa Foundation
“Azim is a living example of how goodwill can lead, eventually, to peace: He found it in his heart to forgive the person who murdered his son. After extending this extraordinary act of forgiveness, Azim began a journey to promote the power of compassion, forgiveness, and restorative justice.”
4 Lessons on Forgiveness From a Rescue Dog
Maggie the Wunderdog was shot, attacked, and left for dead, but, thanks to a rescuer, survived, is thriving—and is loving. Here are four lessons on forgiveness rescue dogs like Maggie teach us.
How to Forgive Yourself by Practicing Restorative Justice
“Learning about and trying to practice a form of restorative justice can help you work toward self-forgiveness.”
Compassionate Conversations: Advice From Three Experts
Leaning how to have real conversations about important topics with people you disagree with is a skill. These days, it's more important than ever. Diane Hamilton, Gabriel Wilson, and Kimberly Loh offer useful advice and powerful stories in their new book Compassionate Conversations.
7 Steps to Emotional Perspective and Transformation
Difficult conversations are a powerful time to learn to handle strong emotions. It's not an easy practice, but it is worth the effort.
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• Compassion
4 Steps to a Good Apology
Time doesn’t heal all wounds. Here is how to address what still nags at you, and to finally right those long-standing hurts.
Examples of Toxic Positivity and How to Reframe Them
Toxic positivity goes way beyond having a positive outlook. Consider examples of toxic positivity and how to reframe them.
Escape the Trance of Busyness: A Conversation With Tara Brach, PhD
S&H's Stephen Kiesling sat down with Tara Brach, founder and senior teacher of the Insight Meditation Center of Washington and author of Radical Acceptance, to explore her RAIN practice: Recognize, Allow, Investigate, Nurture.
Dreading the Next Family Gathering?
Getting together with family, especially during the holidays, can cause a lot of stress and anxiety—even if it’s all love. In this week’s The Soul of Therapy, psychologist Kevin Anderson, PhD, gives us the tools to cope.
Overcoming Polarization
We all have a tendency to divide things into categories: “us” and “them,” “right” and “wrong,” “worthy” and “unworthy.”
Book Review: Walking Through Anger
Conte’s approach hinges on the principle of Yield Theory: the idea that anger is best defused when we meet other people where they are, as opposed to where we would like them to be.
Asking for Forgiveness During Elul
Rabbi Rami explains why he encourages everyone to take part in asking for forgiveness during Elul, whether they practice Judaism or not.
Not My Problem: A Compassionate Mantra
“Becoming clear on what is our problem and what is someone else’s is revolutionary.”
Compassion Cell Credo
Kevin Anderson offers a call to action: My membership in the human race is my truest belonging.
4 Ways to Increase Your Empathy
“Empathy will not heal the hurt world overnight, but can at least make life more interesting. Try these strategies.”
Woking Up With Forgiveness and Compassion
"I worry sometimes that outrage, even when completely justified, can blind us to spiritual values such as forgiveness and compassion, and that fury can drive us to sacrifice offenders on the altar of social change rather than treat them as individuals with the capacity to learn, grow, and reform."
The Moments That Make Us Human
"How many of us have entered a doctor’s office only to be met by an unemotional individual with very little time for us who mostly stares into a computer screen?"
10 Positive Affirmations for Releasing Guilt
These positive affirmations for releasing guilt can bring a sense of freedom—whether guilt is self-inflicted or coming from someone else.
Guided Meditation: Opening Your Heart to Compassion for Yourself
In this guided meditation, take a true self reflection of gazing into yourself with love.
The Grace of Forgiveness: Transforming Heartbreak
Adapted from The Way of Grace: The Transforming Power of Ego Relaxation, by Miranda Macpherson.
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• Forgiveness
Clearing Unwanted Energy
Clearing unwanted energy from our system is one of the most important things you can learn, especially when doing Reiki.
Book Review: The Empathy Effect
7 Neuroscience-Based Keys for Transforming the Way We Live, Love, Work, and Connect Across Differences
The Power of Practicing Forgiveness
Establish a new beginning with a refreshed outlook that can help you in your quest to release the past and embrace forgiveness.
The Power of Fierce Gentleness
Gentleness with ourselves and our others sometimes means pushing back.
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• Compassion
Clairsentience and Compassion
A 3-step approach to cultivating compassion and overcoming empathic sensitivity.
Meditation for Listening to Your Many Selves
An audio meditation to open our understanding of our different voices.
3 Steps to a Kinder Mind
How to cultivate and strengthen our capacity for kindness and compassion.
Fearless Compassion in the Face of Violence
The willingness to face suffering can give rise to compassion.
5 Ways to Deal With Difficult People
Feeling like you might throttle someone? Try these tactics instead.
Enough Is Enough
Excerpt from the book More Beautiful Than Before: How Suffering Transforms Us.
Listen with Your Heart
Use this guided meditation as a way to practice listening softly through the lens of your heart.
Coping Tips for Empaths
Being an empath is all about ‘feeling’ the emotions of others. Sometimes we need extra tools to help us stay grounded and connected.
Our Walk in the World: Original Steps
The life of a community depends on how we care for the ground we stand on and how we step lightly, walking side by side.
The Art of Caring: An Interview with Frank Ostaseski
"In Buddhism, we often talk about enlightenment or awakening, but words like that feel far away to me. I speak about intimacy."
(We're reposting our interview with Frank Ostaseski from 2017 after we received news that he's recovering from a stroke. Our thoughts are with him and his loved ones.)
5 Self-Love Exercises
Here are five self-love exercises to incorporate into your weekly routine.
Portals not Problem Solvers
As caregivers, we need to be more than problem solvers. We need to be portals to a larger possibility.
How to Overcome Stress by Seeing Other People’s Joy
If you’re feeling stressed or overwhelmed, don’t cut yourself off from other people, says Kelly McGonigal. Instead, double down on your capacity for connection.
Our Walk in the World: Distributing the Weight
I was moved by our conversation last night. I understand how you feel the presence of suffering always in the background, juxtaposed against the peaceful times and moments of abund…
Simple Human Kindness
Caring is a natural expression of our humanity.
When Is It Kind to Make Someone Feel Bad?
Sometimes, the nicest thing we can do for someone is to make them feel bad.
The Dark Side of Forgiveness: The Goddess Tara
Tara is one of the most famous and widely beloved goddesses in Buddhism. She was formed from a single tear shed by the sage Avalokiteshvara when, just before he ascended to enlight…
Radical Spirit
How Loving God Helps Us Become Better People
The Uncanny Practice of Entrainment
This key tool is employed, often unwittingly, by exceptional teachers, health care practitioners, clergy, and devoted guardians or parents.
The Empowered Empath
3 steps to get you healthy, grounded, and empowered to create a compassion revolution and save the world.
Does Spontaneous Crying Mean I’m an Empath?
Does it ever seem like you’re crying for no reason? Does watching a sad movie cause you to break into spontaneous crying? You may be an empath.
The Art of Being Sensitive
We think we’re alone, but the largest hidden population in our society is the closet authentics.
How to Be Empathetically Present for Another Person
Excerpted from Ordinary Goodness
Do Animals Have More Soul Than We Do?
Not only do animals live, they have lives—with “undiluted purity and clarity…”
The Christmas Bird
Excerpt from Upstream: Selected Essays by Mary Oliver
Book Review: A Plea for the Animals
A Plea for the AnimalsThe Moral, Philosophical, and Evolutionary Imperative to Treat All Beings with CompassionBy Matthieu RicardShambhala PublicationsAccording to a statistic cite…
Being Disconnected: Cellphones And Empathy
Cellphones may cause a lack of empathy.
Empathy: Medicine for a Wounded World
Eight ways to shift your thoughts to develop deeper empathy and help raise the vibration of our world.
Empathy for the Detestable, Compassion for the Callous
Most deeply spiritual people, regardless of their ancestral religion or their chosen path, esteem human beings who exhibit certain qualities, such as empathy, compassion, lovingkin…
The Observer
Excerpt from The Missing Element: Inspiring Compassion for Human Condition
Receiving Compassion and Generating Your Compassionate Self
An excerpt from Overcoming Destructive Anger by Bernard Golden, PhD.
How Mindfulness Can Help Us Forgive Betrayal
Is it possible to forgive infidelity and to overcome the emotional pain of betrayal?
Compassion for Dating in the Technological Age
Recently I had a young man working with me who showed me the Tinder app as a means of finding dates. Here, you could rifle through a series of pictures like speed dating online, an…
The Mechanics of Emotional Contagion: Who Affects Whom?
An excerpt from How the Art of Medicine Makes the Science More Effective: Becoming the Medicine We Practice
If You Find It Hard to Meditate…
Try the difficult path to enlightenment
Destroy Your Enemies (by Making Them Your Friends)
Hating another person and being rage-filled is like drinking poison and assuming the other person will be poisoned.
Letting Go of Being Right
Excerpted from The Power of Forgiveness by Joan Gattuso
5 Questions for Emma Seppälä
Researcher (and new S&H columnist) Emma Seppala, unpacks the latest studies on happiness and offers a new way forward in her new book The Happiness Track: How to Apply the Scie…
Waking Up is Hard to Do: The Dark Side of Enlightenment
What does it mean to wake up, to be a fully realized human being? For those of us who might consider ourselves everyday people with a spiritual inclination, enlightenment can sound…
42 Forgiveness Affirmations to Lift the Weight Off
Allow these affirmations for forgiveness to help wash away the pain of resentment and guide you into a more loving and joyful life.
We Are All Responsible for Shootings
When I was a school counselor, there was a girl in the sixth grade who was absent more than present. When she did make it to school, kids called her “Dead Girl” because of her mono…
Forgiveness from the Other Side
An excerpt from The Light Between Us
VIDEO: How to Have a More Compassionate Diet
My decision to go vegan was the result of a long journey which began with the decision to stop eating red meat. After cutting out chicken and fish, the last and hardest step was gi…
What the Woman Who’s Embraced Over 34 Million People Knows About Love
Her real name is Mata Amritanandamayi, but if you’ve ever heard of her, you probably know her as Amma (“Mother”). The name was given to her when she was just a girl because of her …
Book Review: Altrusim
AltruismThe Power of Compassion to Change Yourself and the WorldBy Matthieu RicardLITTLE, BROWNThe idea that personal interests motivate all human actions—termed “universal selfish…
Humanity in Animals
The Evolution of Empathy, Altruism, and Even the Soul
So All May Eat
Excerpted from Grow: Stories from the Urban Food Movement
A Practice to Heal Prejudice
How loving-kindness meditation taps the roots of empathy
Why Evolution Made Forgiveness Difficult
Nature endowed humanity with both revenge and forgiveness as tools of conflict resolution. But why does one seem so much harder than the other?
Book Review: A Fearless Heart
A Fearless HeartHow the Courage to Be Compassionate Can Transform Our LivesBy Thupten Jinpa, PhDHUDSON STREET PRESSCharles Darwin’s ideas have often been used to portray human…
Compassion: Brain Food for Happiness
Did you know that compassion, the act of recognizing someone else’s suffering with the inclination to want to support them, creates important activity shifts in the brain that are …
Can We Learn to Be More Empathic?
An excerpt from Empathy: Why it Matters and How to Get It
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• Empathy
Compassion Made Simple
When you’re focused on any activity, whether it’s your email, listening to a friend or sitting in a formal meditation practice, your mind is bound to wander. In The Now Effect I in…Tags:
• Compassion
For a Positive Body Image, Choose Self-Compassion Over Self-Esteem
Self-esteem is the practice of seeing yourself as above average. And in a world that's constantly comparing, keeping a high level of self-esteem may feel more like a challenge than a relief.
How to Practice Self-compassion
The secret to empowered action is learning not to beat yourself up.
The Real Roots of Vengeance and Forgiveness
To become more forgiving, we first need to understand why we crave revenge.
Empathy: It's a Win-Win
At a family holiday dinner last week, it finally dawned on me that certain people I consider smart and beautiful consider themselves stupid and hideous.Granted, I spent most of my …
How Does the Brain Process Forgiveness?
I recently attended a four-day mediation certification course. It was an eye-opening experience. In class, I studied the historic context of conflict resolution, learned mediator s…
A Challenge to Forgive
Are you hurt and suffering? As Desmond and Mpho Tutu write in their new book The Book of Forgiving: The Fourfold Path for Healing Ourselves and Our World, "Until we can forgive, we…
Does Religion Divide Your Family?
This week in Restorative Empathy: How can a former atheist tell his conservative Catholic family he's Protestant? Dear Angela, After years of obstinate atheism and combative agno…
Reading Between the Lines
New studies find that getting lost in a good novel actually makes us more empathetic in real life.
Why We Forgive
By letting go of past hurts, we can heal not only ourselves, but our families, our communities, and our world.
Music Review: The Unchanging
The UnchangingDonna De LoryDe Lory MusicDonna De Lory’s new album, The Unchanging, is a devotional banquet. Some of the flavors and fragrances here come from De Lory’s gratitude to…
You Are a Part. Not Apart.
The ideal spiritual practice fosters compassion, justice, love, and a sense of unity.
Cultivating the Values of Your Practice
Rabbi Rami shares his personal practice for elevating awareness and compassion to bring thoughts, actions, and values into alignment.
“A History of God” Author Karen Armstrong
The faith and spirituality expert shares her insight into the unifying practice of compassion.
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• Compassion
Roshi Joan Halifax on compassion, women in Buddhism, and altruism
The founder and abbot of Upaya Zen Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Roshi Joan Halifax has been a socially active leader in Buddhism for more than 40 years—as a civil rights activis…
Close to the Ground: Buddhaland
She was sitting on a bench outside the grocery store where I shop. It was 8 a.m. and drizzling—typical for spring in Eugene. I watched her sip coffee out of a well-worn Starbucks c…
Carrie Newcomer's Latest Album: Kindred Spirits
With lyrics like “God walks around in muddy boots” and “a summer tomato is a cause to rejoice,” it’s clear Carrie Newcomer has a knack for finding the transcendent in the everyday…
The Politics of Loving Kindness
I remember the day I awakened to the idea that yoga was inherently political. I was sitting in a class when one of my teachers said that yoga is inherently political because the pr…
How to Avoid “Catching” a Bad Mood
Tips to become depression-proof, because misery does love company.
What is Your Super Power?
About a year ago, I was leading a creative writing class and I gave the students this prompt: “If you could be a superhero with one power, what would that power be?” Instantly, sni…
Why We Are All Essentially Good
The most important thing for me now is reminding people that they are good. We are all essentially good. That is why we admire people like Mother Teresa or Nelson Mandela so much. …
What Are Your Charms?
Several years ago my husband and I decided we wanted to buy a home in a really nice part of Maui. The house we chose was all glass and wood and had a beautiful ocean view. We set o…
Gabor Maté: Why We're a Culture of Addicts
We're a culture of addicts, says Canadian physician Gabor Maté, whose controversial ideas just might heal us all.
Reflections on Judgment
I’m too judgmental. It is a bad habit (there I go again!), one I learned from my family, where criticism far outweighed compliments. I went to a liberal arts college to learn criti…
Create an Animal Healing Circle in Your Community
Shiri Joshua, M.A., is a psychotherapist, “animal whisperer,” and director of the Shiri Joshua Centre for Human & Animal Healing in Vancouver, British Columbia. Each month she hold…
You May Not Put Down Your Chalk!
“You may not put down your chalk. You may not return to your desk until you have correctly solved the math problem!” bellowed Sister. Once again, I was losing the math relay for my…Tags:
• Forgiveness
Neurons of Compassion: Have we found the basis for empathy and altruism?
Like most great scientific breakthroughs, the discovery of the human mirror neuron system (MNS) was a complete accident. What may end up being the most important neuroscientific di…
Got Compassion?
Let’s skip the judgment and step into love. Sometimes when I speak to people of the importance of compassion, I see a look in their eyes that I interpret as, Why? All day long we …
Empathic to a Fault?
Therapists Seana McGee and Maurice Taylor explain the dark side of compassion.
The Art of Compassion
Our local sangha wasn’t able to have our four-hour sitting yesterday because of a huge snowstorm, which knocked out power at the Unitarian church where we meet. I just got back fr…
I Am
The Shift is About to Hit the FanBy Tom ShadyacFilm director Tom Shadyac had it all — a successful film career (Ace Ventura; Liar, Liar; Bruce Almighty), a series of California man…
The Force of Kindness
Change Your Life with Love and Compassion By Sharon Salzberg There is a thread that runs through all the world’s great wisdom teachings and religions, crossing the barriers of ti…Vengeance 101
Throughout history, we’ve had an insatiable fascination with stories of vengeance. From the earliest Greek tragedies, to the Bible, to Shakespeare, to recent movies like Atonement,…
Neurons of Compassion
Have we found the basis for empathy and altruism? Like most great scientific breakthroughs, the discovery of the human mirror neuron system (MNS) was a complete accident. What may…Wired for Compassion
In the mid-seventies, psychologist Daniel Goleman, Ph.D., left teaching at Harvard to write "The Brain" column for Psychology Today. He then joined the New York Times, where he mad…
Four Awakenings to Compassion
In 1965, a marine biologist named Roger Payne found himself relaxing on the stern deck of a sailboat on the expanse of the Pacific Ocean. Headphones snugly in place, he recorded th…
Indulging the Totally Selfish Joys of Selfless Giving
Here’s the science behind creating a chain reaction of goodnessThough economists and grumps have long argued to the contrary, many spiritual traditions teach us that, at our core, …
Self-Compassion: How to Value Yourself
The secret to empowered action is learning not to beat yourself up.
Complicated/Simple Compassion
“This compassion thing is so much more complicated than I thought,” said Mary Elizabeth as our local group continued with the chapter in One Dharma on “Compassion.” We think we’ll …
Finding Freedom in Forgiveness
The capacity to forgive reveals a soul that is free of anxiety, one that is mature and equal to the complexity of human interaction.
The Quest for Justice
As any detective knows, when something is missing that should be present, a void where there should be a plenum, it is an important clue. Like the archetypal philosophical detective Socrates, I set out to discover what had happened to justice. Had it disappeared from modern minds, hearts, and conversation? Or merely from the consciousness of New Age pilgrims?
The Magic of Dialogue
Real dialogue is more than just talk—it’s work. But the payoffs are incredible. One of America’s best listeners shows how it’s done.
The Forgiveness Teacher’s Toughest Test
Everett Worthington taught others how to forgive. One night, he had to become his own best pupil.
