Mindfulness

Mindfulness

If you want to be more successful with holding onto a positive goal change, current research reports the key will be goal adaptation. Goal adaptation, also known as goal flexibility, refers to the ability to view setbacks with patience and kindness. Approaching your New Year resolution this way allows for wiggle-room, so adjustments can be made to your desired outcome. Goal flexibility also leads to greater feelings of success and well-being.

For as long as I can remember, I've been the kind of person who plans everything. My calendar was color-coded, my to-do lists perfectly alphabetized, and I could tell you what I'd be doing six months from now almost down to the hour. I thought control meant safety. If I could organize my world tightly enough, maybe nothing bad would happen.

I bring this up because I seem to be in the middle of one, an inflection point that manifests in the number of times on the walk back from the school drop-off I stop to look at a bird in a tree, or a snail on a wall, or any number of other overwrought visual metaphors that allow me to feel momentarily like I'm inside a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins.

Life as a journey; life as a quest; life as a purpose; life as... life? We have different ways of trying to make sense of what passing through time means-this doing-what-we-do within this box of years. For many of us, the answer is simple-it's about doing what we do, building a life, making the best decisions we can, which we may later regret or be proud of.

In making an idea together, you are trying to build a shared reality. We are both building a non-existent thing. Because improvisers are creating something out of nothing, they are forced to listen to each other, to pay attention, in a deeper way than in their ordinary lives. People can make assumptions and skim over details in their day-to-day lives, but while improvising, they have to catch every word and even catch details that go beyond their partner's words.

About a year into his job as an interfaith chaplain at Tampa General Hospital in Tampa, Fla., J.S. Park began to have what he calls "really awful death anxiety." "I saw all the ways people could be injured, especially working at a trauma center," he says. When he was around his wife and kids, he'd think, "this could be the last time that I get to hear their laughter and see their faces like this," he says.

A study found ChatGPT responds to mindfulness-based strategies, which changes how it interacts with users. The chatbot can experience "anxiety" when it is given disturbing information, which increases the likelihood of it responding with bias, according to the study authors. The results of this research could be used to inform how AI can be used in mental health interventions. Even AI chatbots can have trouble coping with anxieties from the outside world, but researchers believe they've found ways to ease those artificial minds.

Some days, work starts at a sprint: meetings stack up, emails multiply, and every task claims to be urgent. Many professionals feel the strain; introverts often pay a higher toll-their energy fades, priorities blur, and the best ideas get buried. I've been there. So I'm back with Nil Demircubuk, Ph.D., author of Down to Earth: Demystify Intuition to Upgrade Your Life, to talk about how quiet professionals can find more calm in a noisy workday.

It's Capricorn season for the majority of January, and communication-oriented Mercury zooms into this cardinal earth sign on Jan. 1, kicking off the month with a serious blast of down-to-business discipline. Mercury joins the sun, lover Venus, and go-getter Mars - all of which are already in Capricorn as the month begins - amplifying the ambitious vibe of this Capricorn stellium and setting the perfect energetic tone for buckling down and making good on your New Year's goals.

Hi! It's almost time to ring in the new year... and a lot has been happening here at YogaRenew HQ. We're celebrating our 3rd year of having a physical studio and just about 6 years in celebrating our online company! What a journey it's been. In the mood of celebration, we figured we'd tackle some free online yoga resources for you on your yoga journey - whether it's for your personal practice or teaching.

Sometimes we feel like we're not progressing in our personal development if we don't have an Etsy shop that makes six figures a year, haven't done an Ironman, or still feel upset about a friendship that broke down five years ago. But there are all sorts of ways we mature and develop that we barely notice. When you give yourself credit for quiet ways you've matured psychologically, it can help you feel more settled within yourself and build on these wins.

Just over a year ago, my mother died. It was a few months after my second baby was born and a month before Christmas. She was the last in the generation above me, and this fact reordered things in ways that are only just revealing themselves. This time last year, I was still unravelling months of hospitals, grief and the unmanageable weight of suffering pressing into my postpartum body.

As a scientist and clinician, I've long been struck by how trauma, chronic pain, and addiction often travel together. For many patients, these conditions form a tangled knot that is difficult to unravel with traditional therapies. Most psychotherapeutic approaches treat trauma, pain, and addiction in isolation, yet what patients truly need is an integrated approach that addresses them simultaneously. Post- traumatic stress disorder ( PTSD) is highly prevalent among people with chronic pain.

It's easy to fall prey to recency bias, focusing on the last few weeks and forgetting earlier events. We also tend to fixate on where we fell short—goals unrealized, tasks unfinished, issues unresolved. These linger in our minds precisely because they remain incomplete. What we often overlook, though, is what we've already achieved. To get a more accurate picture, use your phone's camera roll, online calendar, journals, work self-evaluations, and social media accounts to reacquaint yourself with the full year.

Let's move from doing movement to a little bit of vocalizing. Normally we do some either mantras or syllables. Tonight we'll do the seed syllable of seed syllables, the maha bija of simply "Om." So chant with me for a few minutes and just relax. You don't need your brain to do this. You can just actually decorticate yourself and just sit and chant. Just let the energy come out in the oms and feel the energy in the room.

The day after Christmas can be a letdown. After weeks of preparation, parties, and anticipation, the festivities end, and we are left facing the demands of a new year. Unlike the British, Americans don't celebrate Boxing Day, and most of us don't have 12th Night celebrations either. Instead, we clean up wrapping paper, put away the leftovers, and wonder what the new year will bring.

Close out 2025 with active compassion at Kadampa Meditation Center San Francisco before ringing in 2026. Our Resident Teacher Gen Kelsang Choma will give a talk on cultivating peace in our world by developing our own inner peace, and the power of making dedications for our loved ones and world. We will then chant short Prayers for World Peace before gathering in our community space for light bites and a non-alcoholic New Year's Eve toast.

You're lying in bed, staring into the darkness, and suddenly an urgent work email pops into your head, unbidden. Or maybe it's that shampoo you forgot to add to your shopping list, or the need to fill up your gas tank in the morning. Your lower back is twinging and your shoulders are tensing in response to your thoughts of all the things you need to do, or already did, or didn't do. It's a pretty universal experience.

Death also always makes me contemplate three things: 1. The privilege of community; 2. Whether I've sufficiently upskilled my children at life so they'll be OK if I died tomorrow; and 3. Hinduism. All three of these things community, debilitating anxiety and religion are gifts from my family. I know it's not cool to talk about religion. Throughout human history, we've used it to justify mass murder, colonisation and its related crimes.

Calendars fill, inboxes overflow, and suddenly you're juggling festive plans, family logistics, travel costs, year-end deadlines, and a swirl of expectations. It's no surprise that even the most grounded financial intentions can get pushed aside this time of year. But December doesn't have to be the month where your financial confidence takes a back seat. With a little clarity and a few intentional practices, you can enjoy the season fully while still honoring the goals you've worked hard to set.

I've never believed that change should be reserved for special days, but the New Year tends to carry a sense of promise. It often brings a surge of clarity, motivation, and hope that maybe things really could be different. And then, as January moves along, that initial energy fades. Responsibilities pile up. Our bandwidth shrinks. And before we know it, we're pulled back into the familiar current of obligations, far from the shore we were hoping to reach.

There's no shortage of apocalyptic headlines about the future of work in the era of artificial intelligence. For workers, the technology has inflicted anxiety and uncertainty, provoking questions of when, how many, and which kinds of workers will be replaced. Companies have been propelled into a FOMO fury to integrate AI expediently or miss out on efficiency, cost savings, and competitive advantage. The disruption is inevitable, but from where I sit at the nexus of employee mental health and technology, we're asking the wrong questions.

Early in my career, I found conferences to be so overwhelming that I'd sometimes just hide in the bathroom, go into an anxious spiral of fear and guilt, and then try to convince myself to get out and talk to at least one person. Watching how other people seemed to enjoy these events and easily talk to everyone made me think something was wrong with me.

Despite spending the last 15 years studying behavior change, personality development, and developing evidence-based treatments, I still feel the pull. Why? Because wouldn't it be wonderful if meaningful change were quick and easy? The idea that a single insight, habit, or system could instantly transform how we think, feel, and behave is deeply appealing, especially when we're tired and overextended (which, of course, we are as the holidays come to a close).