Empathy doesn't make you a sentimental softy without discernment. It allows you to keep your heart open to foster tolerance and understanding. In my new book The Empath's Survival Guide , I discuss the following intriguing scientific explanations of empathy and empaths. These will help us more deeply understand the power of empathy so we can utilize and honor it in our lives. The Mirror Neuron System Researchers have discovered a specialized group of brain cells that are responsible for...

On March 2nd PESI recorded a full day presentation on Trauma Informed Education. It is available at https://www.pesi.com/store/detail/19910/trauma-informed-education It is a convenient way to learn more about trauma informed education and to gain ceu's for recertification. I hope you like it Bob and Crew

We are working with PESI, a leader in professional development, to offer a full day training in trauma informed education. This content follows the content of our book on Supporting and Educating Traumatized Students. We will be in Michigan April 19, (Sterling Heights) 20, (LIvonia) and 21 (Ann Arbor) See the attached brochure If this goes well they will continue to offer this next year. Hope to see you there

Use these novesl to teach learning from loss and overcoming adversity to your middle schoolers and high school freshmen. [For more of this story by Robert Ward, go to https://www.edutopia.org/article/young-adult-novels-teach-growth-mindset-robert-ward?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=socialflow]

I have written before about how I was a self-help book addict. I read every book I could find, re-reading several of them and even going as far as getting them on audiobook so I could re-listen to them hundreds of times. I did this because I absolutely believed in their base principles, and, frankly, I needed a constant reminder. I would listen — and would feel good for 10 to 30 minutes afterwards. But, then life would happen; I would forget everything I learned and I would be right back to...

Dr. Lissa Rankin, New York Times bestselling author of Mind Over Medicine, The Fear Cure, and The Anatomy of a Calling, is a physician, speaker, founder of the Whole Health Medicine Institute, and mystic. She is on a mission to merge science and spirituality in a way that not only facilitates the health of the individual, but also uplifts the health of the collective.

Parenting Through the Storm: Find Help, Hope, and Strength When Your Child Has Psychological Problems , is written by Ann Douglas. The author, a member of this group and network , has a warm, open and honest tone. She's a parent and gets that parents and kids are sometimes or even often scared, struggling and in crisis. She knows. She writes about the time she almost lost her daughter, thirteen at the time, to death by suicide. Her daughter was vomiting and sleeping, restlessly, all night...

Jane Stevens posted a descriptive blurb about this title, How Your Survival Instinct Is Killing You , back in January, and I thought, “Why the heck not?” After all, I read everything I can get my hands on, searching for that magic elixir that will fix the feeling that I’ve called by many names over the years: Despair. Fear. Hole in the soul. Nameless dread. Whatever you want to call it, some of you with a high ACE score might know what I’m talking about. (I also experienced a very traumatic...

“Poetry can break open locked chambers of possibility, restore numbed zones to feeling, recharge desire,” Adrienne Rich wrote in contemplating the cultural power of poetry . But what is a poem, really, and what exactly is its use? Every once in a while, you stumble upon something so lovely, so unpretentiously beautiful and quietly profound, that you feel like the lungs of your soul have been pumped with a mighty gasp of Alpine air. This Is a Poem That Heals Fish ( public library ) is one...

One’s kicking himself over an unrequited lifelong crush. One dreams of being a Navy SEAL. Another leads you on a mocking tour of his new home. They’d seem like typical teenage boys — if they weren’t awaiting trial for violent crimes. Juan Gamez, Antonio Hernandez and Jarad Nava are the youthful offenders at the heart of “ They Call Us Monsters ,” a new documentary that follows their lives in a Los Angeles juvenile detention center. They’re held in a special wing of the lockup reserved for...

' Hey Warrior' is written for kids to help them understand anxiety and to find their 'brave'. It explains why anxiety feels the way it does and it will teach them how to 'be the boss of their brains' during anxiety, to feel calm. It's not always enough to tell kids what to do - they need to understand why it works. ' Hey Warrior' does this, giving explanations in a fun, simple, way that helps things make sense in a, 'Oh so that's how that works!' kind of way, alongside gorgeous...

Last week I posted an article about the Harvard study on happiness, which found that strong social connections are the primary driver of happiness. No surprise there. What struck me, however, is how these findings relate to ACEs. I had just finished reading Healing Developmental Trauma: How Early Trauma Affects Self-Regulation, Self-Image, and the Capacity for Relationship , which addresses this very issue. From the back cover: “Although it may seem that people suffer from an endless number...