Friday, August 21, 2009
Better Health Care Depends on a Stronger Democracy
A Statement from Everyday Democracy, AmericaSpeaks, Demos, and Professor Archon
Fung of Harvard’s Ash Institute for Democratic Governance and Innovation
August 13, 2009
excerpts:
A key founding principle of our democracy is that the voice of the people should have an influence on public policy, at elections and in between them.
Beyond simply having a voice, people should have a chance to be informed, to hear each other, to work through tough decisions with each other and their elected officials, and to use democratic processes to figure out how to solve the problems that face us.
At a bare minimum, efforts to spread misinformation and to insult people who have different views and concerns harm our social fabric and weaken our democracy. We must find ways to move beyond stereotyping and preconceived notions of what “the others” believe and care about.
As critical as this is, we need to go further than encouraging more civil behavior. What we urgently need is a vibrant, inclusive democracy where people from different views and backgrounds can routinely meet, hear each other out in productive ways, and find ways to move forward.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
22 ways to de-stress
Although it is annoying to have to click anew for each one, a very fragmenting reading experience, these 22 tips are great!
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Developing resilience intentionally
(The following is Copyright © 2009 Alexander M. (Sandy) Davis. To find out more about Sandy Davis and the resilience-related manuals, programs, services, and newsletter he offers, visit http://www.resilienceworks.com.)
Developing Resilience-Readiness via Ongoing “Micro-Preparation”
The process of continually meeting small daily challenges that you intentionally set for yourself [i.e., handling well-chosen micro-disruptions] amounts to “micro-preparation.” It is akin to lifting weights.
If you want to strengthen your muscles, all you need to do is to start working with weights in such a way as to stress your muscles repeatedly, in small daily ways. At first, you won’t see much change. But as you methodically develop an ability to lift heavier weights and increase your repetitions, you can both strengthen your muscles and increase your overall physical power. The results of stressing your muscles in this slow, steady, and deliberate manner are predictable, and, indeed, they are all but inexorable.
In a similar way, you can strengthen your figurative resilience-readiness “muscles.” Instead of lifting physical weights that stress your body’s actual muscles, you can use intentional micro-disruptions to gently stress your whole self in whatever worthy ways you choose.
Once you make the process of enhancing your resilience-readiness through micro-preparation a longstanding daily habit, when “the big one” (i.e., a full-scale catastrophe) finally comes along, you will find yourself to be well-practiced and fully prepared to handle just about any disruption with surprising ease. Your resilience-readiness “muscles” will be strong.
Why Choose Self-Care Challenges?
If you decide you would like to use this process of micro-preparation to strengthen your resilience-readiness, the most effective and rewarding small challenges to practice on are those that pertain directly to your own daily self-care.
When it comes to taking good care of ourselves, most of us tend to cut corners. Because we tend to assume that we are virtually invulnerable, we imagine we can afford to neglect the very things that are most central to leading a long, healthy, and fulfilling life. We are prone to overlook the importance of making ongoing investments in our health, our well-being, and our natural creativity. This oversight can land us in big trouble.
When you fail to take good care of your own “power plant,” you can expect to live a life in which you will likely face major setbacks such as significant health challenges, a chronic lack of energy and stamina, a discouraging lack of engagement with your work, debilitating boredom, depression, and/or a near-total lack of personal fulfillment. In other words, you will most likely be neither healthy nor happy.
The good news is that all of the above personal setbacks are largely avoidable. By making small daily investments in your own self-care, you can safeguard yourself from being set back by these and other personal misfortunes. Moreover, you can do so relatively quickly, painlessly, and in a manner that is easy to sustain. (If you are already experiencing any of the above misfortunes, sustained improvements in your self-care can greatly accelerate your recuperation.)
The bad news (or at least it may appear to you at first to be bad news) is that you first have to choose worthwhile self-care “practice” challenges, and then you have to actually do the work required to meet those micro-challenges successfully. When you do, how you experience your own life will start to shift in positive ways—more often than not both quickly and dramatically. And you will be pleased.
"Disruptions are inherently stressful. They seed change.
Intentional disruptions seed intentional change."
– Sandy Davis
Developing Resilience-Readiness via Ongoing “Micro-Preparation”
The process of continually meeting small daily challenges that you intentionally set for yourself [i.e., handling well-chosen micro-disruptions] amounts to “micro-preparation.” It is akin to lifting weights.
If you want to strengthen your muscles, all you need to do is to start working with weights in such a way as to stress your muscles repeatedly, in small daily ways. At first, you won’t see much change. But as you methodically develop an ability to lift heavier weights and increase your repetitions, you can both strengthen your muscles and increase your overall physical power. The results of stressing your muscles in this slow, steady, and deliberate manner are predictable, and, indeed, they are all but inexorable.
In a similar way, you can strengthen your figurative resilience-readiness “muscles.” Instead of lifting physical weights that stress your body’s actual muscles, you can use intentional micro-disruptions to gently stress your whole self in whatever worthy ways you choose.
Once you make the process of enhancing your resilience-readiness through micro-preparation a longstanding daily habit, when “the big one” (i.e., a full-scale catastrophe) finally comes along, you will find yourself to be well-practiced and fully prepared to handle just about any disruption with surprising ease. Your resilience-readiness “muscles” will be strong.
Why Choose Self-Care Challenges?
If you decide you would like to use this process of micro-preparation to strengthen your resilience-readiness, the most effective and rewarding small challenges to practice on are those that pertain directly to your own daily self-care.
When it comes to taking good care of ourselves, most of us tend to cut corners. Because we tend to assume that we are virtually invulnerable, we imagine we can afford to neglect the very things that are most central to leading a long, healthy, and fulfilling life. We are prone to overlook the importance of making ongoing investments in our health, our well-being, and our natural creativity. This oversight can land us in big trouble.
When you fail to take good care of your own “power plant,” you can expect to live a life in which you will likely face major setbacks such as significant health challenges, a chronic lack of energy and stamina, a discouraging lack of engagement with your work, debilitating boredom, depression, and/or a near-total lack of personal fulfillment. In other words, you will most likely be neither healthy nor happy.
The good news is that all of the above personal setbacks are largely avoidable. By making small daily investments in your own self-care, you can safeguard yourself from being set back by these and other personal misfortunes. Moreover, you can do so relatively quickly, painlessly, and in a manner that is easy to sustain. (If you are already experiencing any of the above misfortunes, sustained improvements in your self-care can greatly accelerate your recuperation.)
The bad news (or at least it may appear to you at first to be bad news) is that you first have to choose worthwhile self-care “practice” challenges, and then you have to actually do the work required to meet those micro-challenges successfully. When you do, how you experience your own life will start to shift in positive ways—more often than not both quickly and dramatically. And you will be pleased.
"Disruptions are inherently stressful. They seed change.
Intentional disruptions seed intentional change."
– Sandy Davis
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Vicarious Trauma -- Video Explanation
Dear viewers,
Do let me know if this video's language and flow work for you. Also, let me know what else you would like to know in future videos.
Monday, June 8, 2009
...circumstances don't determine happiness...
From a piece called The Joy of Less by Pico Iyer
“The beat of my heart has grown deeper, more active, and yet more peaceful, and it is as if I were all the time storing up inner riches…My [life] is one long sequence of inner miracles.” The young Dutchwoman Etty Hillesum wrote that in a Nazi transit camp in 1943, on her way to her death at Auschwitz two months later. Towards the end of his life, Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “All I have seen teaches me to trust the creator for all I have not seen,” though by then he had already lost his father when he was 7, his first wife when she was 20 and his first son, aged 5. In Japan, the late 18th-century poet Issa is celebrated for his delighted, almost child-like celebrations of the natural world. Issa saw four children die in infancy, his wife die in childbirth, and his own body partially paralyzed.
“The beat of my heart has grown deeper, more active, and yet more peaceful, and it is as if I were all the time storing up inner riches…My [life] is one long sequence of inner miracles.” The young Dutchwoman Etty Hillesum wrote that in a Nazi transit camp in 1943, on her way to her death at Auschwitz two months later. Towards the end of his life, Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “All I have seen teaches me to trust the creator for all I have not seen,” though by then he had already lost his father when he was 7, his first wife when she was 20 and his first son, aged 5. In Japan, the late 18th-century poet Issa is celebrated for his delighted, almost child-like celebrations of the natural world. Issa saw four children die in infancy, his wife die in childbirth, and his own body partially paralyzed.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Finding Stillness
A voice coach on Robert Frost's poem re being in the woods:
http://www.judyringer.com/media/StoppingByWoods.mp3 *
*Copyright © 2009 by Judy Ringer
From: Sandy Davis | Sandy@ResilienceWorks.com | 207-563-7263
Author | Speaker | Authority on Zillience/Resilience | Resilience Trainer
ResilienceWorks LLC | P.O. Box 1011, Damariscotta, ME 04543-1011
http://www.ResilienceWorks.com | http://www.ResilienceCircle.com
http://www.judyringer.com/media/StoppingByWoods.mp3 *
*Copyright © 2009 by Judy Ringer
From: Sandy Davis | Sandy@ResilienceWorks.com | 207-563-7263
Author | Speaker | Authority on Zillience/Resilience | Resilience Trainer
ResilienceWorks LLC | P.O. Box 1011, Damariscotta, ME 04543-1011
http://www.ResilienceWorks.com | http://www.ResilienceCircle.com
Friday, May 8, 2009
Surrender
Willing to experience aloneness, I discover connection everywhere.
Turning to face my fear, I meet the warrior who lives within.
Opening to my loss, I gain the embrace of the Universe.
Surrendering to emptiness, I find fullness without end.
Each condition I flee from pursues me.
Each condition I welcome transforms me,
and becomes itself transformed into its radiant jewel-like essence.
I bow to the one who has made it so; who has crafted this Master Game.
To play it is pure delight.
To honor its form, true devotion.
Jennifer Wellwood
Turning to face my fear, I meet the warrior who lives within.
Opening to my loss, I gain the embrace of the Universe.
Surrendering to emptiness, I find fullness without end.
Each condition I flee from pursues me.
Each condition I welcome transforms me,
and becomes itself transformed into its radiant jewel-like essence.
I bow to the one who has made it so; who has crafted this Master Game.
To play it is pure delight.
To honor its form, true devotion.
Jennifer Wellwood
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