Know that We are Connected

“Know that we are connected
in ways that are terrifying and beautiful.”

~ Lynn Ungar

Airport Insecurity

Flying provides a steady stream of frustrations: the crowded isolation of DIY check-in, the sock-footed walk on eggshells through TSA, the hypervigilant tracking of an elusive ETA.

All the inevitable discomforts of air travel make it a fertile attentional fitness opportunity. I’ve been developing a strategy that transforms the situation from hell into heaven. Okay, maybe more like a really productive purgatory.

Friendliness Resistance, Magnanimity, Practice in LifeDaron LarsonNovember 21, 2017friendliness, metta, empathy, self/other, compassionComment

Just Be Kind

"You're going to die, too! Someday. And how will that be? Have you thought about it? What would you die for? Who I am is where I stand. Where I stand is where I fall."

~ Doctor Who

Well-Being is a Skill

"If one practices the skills of well-being, one will get better at it."

~ Dr. Richard Davidson

To Be Fully Alive

Daron LarsonJuly 9, 2014Phillip Moffitt, compassion, complete experience, equanimity, impermanence, life, mysticism, paradoxComment

The Important of Kindness and Hush

"There's a thing when we're children we experience. It usually exists in libraries and it's called the hush. Like this magic world called Hush. There's not many places now to find hush. Somethimes I really do think if every person would experience hush—even if they almost have to force it on themselves for a while—just the bird, just the wind, nothing else, hush—there would be less violence."

Pain and Response to Pain Teaches Understanding

"The more personal you are willing to be and the more intimate you are willing to be about the details of your own life, the more universal you are."

~ Sherwin Nuland

Daron LarsonMarch 10, 2014Sherwin Nuland, body, compassion, connection, death, feelings, life, love, medicine, obituary, pain, self/otherComment

Strengthen Emotional Warmth

One of the things I’ve come to appreciate about mindfulness strategies is the way some core internal obstacles can be unraveled without necessarily needing to solve a related narrative puzzle.

Qualities of Mind are Skills We Can Cultivate

Daron LarsonJanuary 23, 2014Carrie Heeter, Willoughby Britton, attention, compassion, exercise, happiness, kindness, neuroplasticity, neuroscience, practice, research, skillComment

Bombarded

Daron LarsonJanuary 10, 2014Antoine Lutz, Joan Halifax, On Being, Richard Davidson, boundaries, compassion, empathy, neuroscience, numbing, self/other, sufferingComment

Practice Like a Devoted Mother

Daron LarsonNovember 12, 2013Buddhism, Jack Kornfield, compassion, effort, liberation, meditation, practiceComment

Standing Strong Together

Daron LarsonSeptember 14, 2013TED, acceptance, compassion, depression, empathy, hope, pain, sadness, self, shadow, suffering, suicideComment

Never a Comedy

Friendliness ResistanceDaron LarsonJuly 9, 2013Dustin Hoffman, actors, compassion, empathy, identity, self/otherComment

Would You Treat Them Differently?

Daron LarsonMarch 8, 2013compassion, empathy, friendliness, imagination, medicine, observations, self/other, sufferingComment

The Ego Will Be Asked to Open to Something Larger

"The ego wishes comfort, security, satiety; the soul demands meaning, struggle, becoming. The contention of these two voices sometimes tears us apart. Ordinary ego consciousness is crucified by these polarities. Again, the paradox emerges that in our suffering, in our symptoms, are profound clues as to the meaning of the struggle, yet the path of healing is very difficult for the apprehensive ego to accept, for the ego will be asked to be open to something larger than itself."

~ James Hollis, from Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life: How to Finally, Really Grow Up

Daron LarsonOctober 22, 2012James Hollis, aging, compassion, ego, freedom, growing up, maturity, sacrifice, safety, self, suffering, wisdomComment

Feeling Slightly Out of It Most of the Time

"actually, it may be that just being yourself as a human being means feeling slightly out of it most of the time. And that a form of enlightenment is to understand that you'll never feel quite at home in the world and you're not meant to, because your sense of compassion for the rest of creation and for others depends on your understanding of exile — how far a creature, especially a human creature, can feel from true parentage, from their true inheritance, from their true home."

~ David Whyte

Daron LarsonJanuary 15, 2012David Whyte, belonging, compassion, enlightenment, feeling, gone, grief, home, imagination, loneliness, self/other, yearningComment

Traveling Light

Five strategies for reducing travel stress -- especially around the holidays -- by Allan Lokos, from "Peace While Traveling? Not Impossible," by Rachel Lee Harris, The New York Times, December 15, 2011.