Deepak Chopra, the doctor and self-help guru, who turns seventy-three next week, has written more than one book for every year he has been alive. Chopra was born in New Delhi and studied medicine in India before moving to the United States, in 1970. After practicing as an endocrinologist in Massachusetts, he became involved in the Transcendental Meditation movement. He eventually relocated to the West Coast, left T.M. behind, and became a spiritual adviser to Michael Jackson and other celebrities. A quarter century later, his books have sold millions of copies, and his television appearancesespecially alongside Oprah Winfreyhave made him perhaps the most prominent advocate for alternative medicine recognizable around the world.

Chopras work evinces a consistent skepticism toward the scientific consensushe has called into question whether evolution is merely a process of the mindand a firm belief that mental health can determine physical reality. He has written of a place called perfect healththe title of one of his books, and now the slogan for one of his wellness retreatsin which human beings can go somewhere internally that is free from disease, that never feels pain, that cannot age or die. These beliefs have made him controversial among doctors and scientists. In 1998, Chopra was awarded the satirical Ig Nobel Prize for his unique interpretation of quantum physics as it applies to life, liberty, and the pursuit of economic happiness. A random Chopra-quote generator is popular online, and Chopra has been called out for tweeting and writing phrases that, in the words of one paper, may have been constructed to impress upon the reader some sense of profundity at the expense of a clear exposition of meaning or truth. (Example: Attention and intention are the mechanics of manifestation.)

Chopras latest book is Metahuman: Unleashing Your Infinite Potential, and it touches on a number of themes that have been present throughout his career: that human beings can become metahuman by reaching a new place of awareness; that science has served to block the way to the absolute freedom that metahuman holds out; and that self-improvement can move creation itself. I recently spoke by phone with Chopra. During our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, we discussed controversial remarks he has made about cancer and AIDS, his claim to have never been even a tiny bit sick, and whether there is a reality that exists independently of our own minds.

How do you define yourself and what you do?

I would say that to define oneself is to limit oneself. But Ive had various roles through my life. Im an internist, an endocrinologist, a neuro-endocrinologist; a teacher of integrative medicine and an author; a husband, a son, a father, a child.

I know you are a doctor, but does thinking about yourself as a doctor seem limiting to you in some way?

It seems limiting to me, but I would say I think of myself closer to a healer. Because, when I look at healing and the origins of the word healing, its related to the word whole. So wholeness means everything, including body, mind, and spirit, and the environment. I think of myself as a doctor who is interested in the physical body, but also in all aspects of human experiencehuman emotions, human thinking, human experience, and, ultimately, in understanding ourselves beyond the conditioned mind. So I would say I want to be a healer. Thats my aspiration.

At what point in your career did you become famous?

Some people think it happened with The Oprah Winfrey Show, in 1993, when she did a one-to-one with me for a book called Ageless Body, Timeless Mind, which then stayed on the New York Times best-seller list for thirty-some weeks. Actually, my most well-known book is The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success. But I have to say that Oprah helped me a lot with the launch of my career, and shes been an ally ever since. Weve taught six million people meditation online together.

How many books have you written now?

This is my ninetieth book.

Would you say your writing process has changed between your first and your ninetieth?

Yes. My process was more structured in the past. And now I feel its more a flow than anything else. I used to always be told by media and publishers, and even the BBC when I was in England, to dumb everything down, and I used to, and I dont anymore. I feel free to say whatever I want to.

Ive been looking for a through line in your work, and the one that Ive noticed most is the idea that our minds can determine reality, or that theres a connection between our minds and reality. Is that a fair way of phrasing it?

Yes. The correct phrase would be that our experience of the world, and of our body, is a projection of our conditioned mind. So, when youre born, you have no human constructs. Youre looking at the world as a messy, gooey experience of color, form, shapes, sounds, pictures, smells, tastes, and random thoughts, which are yet not clear. But then a construction process begins. And so youre told, Youre male, youre of a religious background, ethnic background, nationality, gender. And that begins to create a provisional identity. And then that provisional identity has perceptual experiences but interprets them as the physical body and the world. But, in the deeper reality, theres no such thing. All there is is consciousness experiencing itself perceptually, as perceptual activity, which is species-specific. You dont see the same world as a painted lady, a species of butterfly that smells the world with an antenna, tastes the world with her feet. So what is the picture of the world to a snake that navigates through the experience of infrared?

If you and a snake perceive the world differently and experience it differently, does that mean that the world is actually different? Or does it just mean that we perceive it differently?

We can only experience a narrow band with our perceptual reality. So there is no such thing as a physical world. Thats where Im going. Our experience of the world is species- and culture-specific. And that is what we interpret as fundamental reality.

You once said, Consciousness is key to evolution and we will soon prove that. What did you mean?

You know, Ive said in the past that Darwinian evolution is a human constructthat, ultimately, consciousness drives at least human evolution. We can direct our evolution by the choices we make. And now that we know the science of epigenetics and neuroplasticity, we can see very clearly that, because we are self-aware, unlike other species, we can consciously direct our evolution. And that is what epigenetics and neuroplasticity are showing us.

Epigenetics is not that we can direct our evolution, though, is it?

Well, we can trigger the activity of certain genes and decrease the activity of certain other genes. So, when people practice self-reflection or mindful awareness, or they have the experience of transcendence, you can actually see which genes get activated and which genes get deactivated. Theres a mechanism to that. So you can actually activate the genes that cause self-regulation or homeostasis, and actually decrease the activity of the genes that cause inflammation. So what is healing? It is nothing but self-regulation or homeostasis. And what is disease is mostly linked to chronic inflammation. Only five per cent of disease-related gene mutations are fully penetrant, which means they guarantee the disease. That includes everything, from Alzheimers to cancer to autoimmune disease. Only five per cent is related to genetic determinism. The rest is influenced by life style. [Gerard Karsenty, the chair of the Department of Genetics and Development at Columbia University Irving Medical Center, says, Those assumptions include non-Mendelian diseases. It is for now hard to precisely assess in multigenic diseases the extent of the contribution of gene mutations and the one of lifestyle taken in a broad sense. This is particularly true for autoimmune diseases that hit at all ages, including during childhood and with a higher incidence in women.]

You tweeted, An emerging view, alternate to Darwins random mutations & natural selection is that consciousness may be the driver of complexity/evolution.

Correct. But there are a few people who agree with that.

So, you know, scientists generally are nave realists. Which means they look at the picture of the world, and thats what it is.

What do you do, if not that?

Ive become aware of that which is having the experience rather than the experience, which in spiritual traditions is called the self. The body, the mind, and the world are the self.

It seems like all of these things are fitting under the rubric of what we were talking about earlier about consciousness and reality. I know you once said something like, The moon doesnt exist unless someone sees it. Is that right?

No, no. That was Einsteins quote, by the way. He actually said, I refuse to believe that the moon doesnt exist if no one is looking at it. [In his biography of Einstein, Abraham Pais recounted an interaction he had with the physicist who asked me if I really believed that the moon exists only if I look at it.] Thats a statement coming from a nave realist. The moon that you and I see is a human experience. A horseshoe crab doesnt have that experience living in the depths of the ocean.

Einstein was incredulously asking someone whether they really believe that the moon only exists when its looked at. Correct?

Yes. The moon is an experience in human consciousness. The moon that you and I see is an experience in human consciousness. If there was no human consciousness, no body, mind to go with it, there would be no awareness of the moon.

But the moon would still be there, correct?

How do you prove that? How do you validate that? How do you disprove that? How do you prove an unobserved phenomenon?

The moon is a human story. The universe is a human story. Its a human construct, or human experiences, and interpreted by the human mind.

So this would be akin to the question, which Im sure weve all heard, that if a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound?

Correct. The sound is only in consciousness. Before that its a vibration of air molecules.

But the vibration of air molecules are occurring. Correct?

The vibration of air molecules is a human construct for a human mode of knowing and experience in human consciousness, so yes, they are constructs. The air molecules are as much of a construct as latitude and longitude, as The New Yorker, as Greenwich Mean Time, as money, as Wall Street, as Manhattan.

Im not sure what that means.

Human constructs are human ideas around modes of human knowing.

I see.

So an atom, a molecule, a force field, vibration of moleculesthese are all human constructs.

So its not that the tree is making a sound and we just happen to be there or not there to hear it. Its that the sound is only present to the degree that we are also present.

Actually, there is no tree and there is no sound and there is no body and there is no mind. Theres only consciousness thats having an experience. The rest is human constructs.

In your book Quantum Healing, you wrote, Research on spontaneous cures of cancer conducted in both the United States and Japan has shown that just before the cure appears, almost every patient experiences a dramatic shift in awareness. He knows that he will be healed and he feels that the force responsible is inside himself, but not limited to him. It extends beyond his personal boundaries throughout all of nature. Suddenly he feels, I am not limited to my body. All that exists around me is part of myself. At that moment, such patients apparently jumped to a new level of consciousness that prohibits the existence of cancer. Then the cancer cells either disappear, literally overnight in some cases, or at the very least stabilize without damaging the body any further.

So if you were a scientist and you saw one case of that, one in a billion, youd want to know the mechanism. And I feel the mechanism is a return to fundamental homeostasis, which means self-regulation, and total absence of fear, including the fear of death. Because your identity is no longer your body-mind.

And so is that more important than medicine?

No, I think medicine is very useful for acute illness. If you have pneumonia, I certainly tell you to take an antibiotic. You break your leg, Id have you see an orthopedic surgeon. If you have cancer, there are many types of chemotherapy and radiation and stem-cell therapies and immunotherapies that will help you. But, in todays age, if you dont understand that integrating that with good sleep, with meditation, with stress management, with mindfulness, with healthy emotions, with good food that actually changes the activity of your microbiomeif you dont conform to that, then youre out of date.

This is from your book Perfect Health: There exists in every person a place that is free from disease, that never feels pain, that cannot age or die. When you go to this place, limitations which all of us accept cease to exist. They are not even entertained as a possibility. This is the place called perfect health. Visits to this place may be very brief, or they may last for many years. Even the briefest visit, however, instills a profound change. As long as you are there, the assumptions that hold true for ordinary existence are altered. If you can be in this place, why would you necessarily need medicine to stay healthy?

We dont. Ive never used medicine myself. Im seventy-three years old, never been in the hospital, never had surgery. Cant even remember having a cold.

You would vaccinate your children, correct?

Of course I would, if Im in a surrounding where there is... You know, I would not vaccinate a child in New York City for polio, because it doesnt exist. But I would for measles, because it does exist.

Even if the child was in this state that you call perfect health?

The child is in a state of perfect health if its born normally. Its in a state of homeostasis. But we also live in a world that has environmental toxins, that has climate change, that has extinction of species, that has poison in our food chain, and that is ready for extinction. And all of that is the projection of our collective insanity.

You say, The cause of disease is often extremely complex, but one thing can be said for certain: no one has proved that getting sick is necessary.

Right. My own situation says that.

Because youve never been sick.

Yes.

Because youre in this place called perfect health?

Because Im aware of being aware and I can choose the experiences I want and I focus on love, compassion, joy, equanimity, and Im beyond the fear of personal death because I dont identify with my provisional, personal, so-called identity. The question you asked me when we started, How do you define yourself?I dont.

If we were all in this place, would we need medicine?

Yes. Because of the world weve created, we would, yes.

But not because

And, besides that, the ecosystem is a predatory play of consciousness where, you know, its a recycling of experience. Birth, death, illness: they are part of our provisional identity, but I dont identify with that identity. If you do not identify with the experience, if consciousness that is aware of experience, if the awareness of experience is not the experience, then youre intrinsically free of the experience. Do you know what Im saying?

Im not sure.

O.K. If you are aware of a thought, then youre not the thought, youre the awareness of the thought.

Dr. Stacia Kenet Lansman, whos a leading vaccine skeptic, cited your work as an inspiration. Do you

I have never been against vaccination.

I know you havent.

I have never spoken against medical treatment or intervention. You should do whatever works.

But do you worry that the idea that we can achieve this place of perfect health based on our own mental state can give license to anti-scientific thinking, like we see in the anti-vaccine movement?

You asked me if I worry about that. I dont worry about anything.

Which is why you havent gotten sick.

But people can take what I say and interpret it how they want to. Theres also a difference between scientism and science. Science is a very neutral activity: theories, observation, experiments, validation or invalidation. Period. I am a big proponent of science as the greatest adventure that human consciousness has taken. With scientism, its a different thing. Its being a fundamentalist and believing that science has all the solutions for human problems, including the existential dilemmas we have about our identity, our fear of old age, infirmity, and death.

There was an interview you gave many years ago, with Tony Robbins, about AIDS. Hed put forth the idea that H.I.V. is not the source of AIDS. You said, H.I.V. may be a precipitating agent in a susceptible host.The material agent is never the cause of the disease.It may be the final factor in inducing the full-blown syndrome in somebody whos already susceptible. He then asked,Butwhat made them susceptible? You answered, Their own interpretations of the whole reality that theyre participating in. Do you still feel that way about H.I.V. and AIDS?

I still feel that pathogens are precipitating factors in susceptible hosts, and that the outcome of illness and recovery is very complex. Now, having said that, when you can find a single agent that you can either attack or get rid of, then, of course, thats the solution. You know, you and I can be exposed to a pneumococcus and one person gets pneumonia and the other doesnt. So you can see that illness is not just one mechanistic happening, an encounter with the pathogen. It has to do with everything. Are you deeply rested, are you stressed, whats your nutrition, what are your personal relationships, what is your emotional stateall of these things have an influence. Every experience we have is ultimately metabolized into a molecule in the body. If I gave you bad news right now, your blood pressure would go up. In fact, if I sent a mean tweet to Mr. Trump, his blood pressure would go up even further.

You went on to say, I have a lot of patients with so-called AIDS, this label that weve given them, that are healthier than most of the population thats living in downtown Boston. They havent had a cold in ten years. And then Robbins said, But someone has told them they have this disease. You said, Yes, somebody has told them that. And Robbins says, And they bought into it. And you said, Exactly.

Listen. You can do a five-hour interviewyou can edit it into any way you want. You can take statements out of context.

No, thats the whole context.

And then you can say, This is what you said. Right? I had that experience myself as a physician. I said to the patient, You have cancer. Immediately, he looked like he was going to have a stroke. He was going to faint. And then I realized I read the wrong chart and I said, Sorry, that was somebody else. In two seconds I could see him recover from high blood pressure, sticky platelets, a jittery heart, and so on. So, you know, there is a lot more to reality than just a simple diagnosis and the label.

But to go on to the point youre just making now, about diagnosis, when Robbins said about the diagnosis of AIDS, People are accepting this, and when they accept this, what happens to them? You replied, When they accept it, then they make it happen. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Is that what youre saying?

Yeah. I might have said that. And, if I did, I regret it.

What I say today is, Believe the diagnosis, but dont believe the prognosis.

Youve been criticized before for selling products that people claim can help cure cancer or other diseases via meditation.

No, Ive never claimed that. No.

Never?

If you find a reference of that, let me know.

Well, there was a video called Return to Wholeness: A Mind-Body Approach to Healing Cancer. And the release about it says, Meditation and visualization are two of the most

Right. That video was a program to help people visualize and get into a relaxed state. I believe it was promoted as that on my Web site until I became aware of it, and then it was taken off.

And then you took it down?

Yeah. It was actually an artificial-intelligence program for meditation and self-regulation. And, by the way, used at many cancer-therapy clinics across the world as an aid to relaxation. [A member of Chopras staff named Cancer Treatment Centers of America as one of the clinics that use the video, but a representative for the treatment centers was unable to verify this.]

So, when you say in your best-sellers, like Super Brain, that increased self-awareness can reduce the risks of aging and help people achieve freedom and bliss, do you feel that youre doing that at all, or not?

I am. Of course. Im seventy-three years old, and I dont think my biological age is seventy-three. In fact, I have publicly declared that I am slowing down my aging process. And I think you can go on social media and look at all the pictures over the last few years and you can see, physically, that I am not looking as old, or feeling as old, as I was twenty-five years ago. I know what Ive said is outrageous, but, if people actually listen carefully, they will see that they determine a lot of what goes into well-being and health. And, ultimately, I dont think that health is physical at all. Because, ultimately, we are all going to die, and all going to have some kind of infirmity. But most of what we do is creating anxiety from living a full life in the present moment.

So you feel that youve reached a different stage of human existence?

Im just following the example of people who have lived long, healthy lives without any infirmity and died peacefully in meditation. In the Indian tradition, its called mahasamadhithe big meditation.

When youre selling books by saying that theres a network of intelligence in the human body that has the potential to defeat cancer, heart disease, and even aging itself, is that not selling to people that cancer can be beaten by something other than medicine?

Have you read the book? Or have you read criticisms of the book?

Ive read several of the books, and some criticisms.

So then you have to make up your own mind. Im not a purveyor of false hope. In fact, I think the term false hope is an oxymoron. Either you have hope or you dont. And those that have hope do better than those who dont.

So there is no false hope?

Its up to you how you interpret this, and it doesnt actually affect me. You know, Im at a stage in my life where Ive gone beyond criticism and/or flattery. I dont need that.

Read the original post:
Deepak Chopra Has Never Been Sick - The New Yorker

Gene BoccialettiNew York

To the Editor:

Both of my paternal grandparents were born in Ireland and emigrated to the United States around 1900. I remember their describing Irish Need Not Apply signs and being discriminated against in many ways. Their story is quite similar to what you have described for Italians.

As a country we have a very checkered history of our treatment of anyone not of British ancestry. Asians, Africans, South Americans, Southern Europeans, Eastern Europeans, Irish, Catholics, Muslims, Jews, Hindi all were treated as inferiors at one time (most still are).

Only when the accents disappeared and it became impossible to tell that someone was Italian or Irish were we accepted as white. Unfortunately, many still fall under the label of them inferior and to be feared.

President Trump has done a very effective job of bringing out into the open how deep and alive racism still is in America. For a Christian nation we fall quite short of the values that Christianity stands for; we have a lot of repair and repentance to do, a lot of forgiveness to be earned.

John TwomeyRaleigh, N.C.

To the Editor:

Even as a third-generation half-Italian-American, I still feel a surge of nausea whenever faced with choosing an ethnicity on official forms or job applications. The only choice allowed for my mixed European heritage is white, but checking it feels like a betrayal of my ancestors and a forced whitewashing of this countrys true microdiversity.

I resent, every time, that my identity will be assumed into a featureless, monolithic bloc of whiteness and ascribed to an established majority I neither identify with nor aspire to. And leaving the box unchecked in protest feels even worse, like choosing voluntary self-erasure over involuntary state erasure.

Paul LeoNew York

To the Editor:

My father, whose parentage was Irish and Italian (two immigrant groups that were each reviled at some time), instilled a pride in us about our southern Italian ancestry. He didnt talk about the discrimination, perhaps because he was of the generation that produced Italian-American entertainers like Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Tony Bennett. Much had improved by the mid-20th century.

See original here:
The Bigotry Toward Italian Immigrants - The New York Times

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. Opioid addiction can be a debilitating affliction with potentially fatal consequences. To make matters worse, its an incredibly hard habit to break, which forces many people to seek out numerous treatment methods such as counseling or rehab. Now, a new study conducted at Rutgers University finds that a combination of mindfulness techniques and medication may help those suffering from opioid addiction and chronic pain experience fewer cravings and less pain.

Researchers analyzed the effect of mindfulness and methadone therapy on 30 patients dealing with opioid addiction coupled with chronic pain. To be clear, mindfulness is a meditative technique centered on clearing ones mind of all intrusive thoughts and focusing completely on the present moment.

The results of the analysis revealed that patients who received a combined treatment of methadone along with mindfulness training were 1.3 times more capable of controlling their opioid cravings than patients who received a more traditional combination of methadone coupled with regular counseling. These meditative patients also displayed lower levels of pain and stress, as well as more overall positivity.

Interestingly, the studys authors noted that the patients who received mindfulness training were more aware of the opioid cravings they experienced, but due to the calming nature of the meditation, they were better equipped to deal with and suppress those feelings.

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Methadone maintenance therapy (MMT) has been an effective form of medication treatment for opioid use disorder, comments Associate Professor Nina Cooperman, a clinical addiction psychologist at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, in a release. However, nearly half of individuals on MMT continue to use opioids during treatment or relapse with six months.

Cooperman would go on to say that most people with opioid addiction suffer from some combination of chronic pain, depression, or anxiety. With this in mind, mindfulness training is an ideal treatment method as it has been shown to be helpful in alleviating all of these conditions.

According to the study, mindfulness-based interventions can help patients become more aware of their bodies, allowing them to institute greater self-control over their cravings. This increased self-awareness can also help opioid addiction patients hold back from making hasty, poor decisions in the event of physical or emotional pain.

Meditation has also been shown to help people reduce their negative thoughts and focus on the positive events in their life, which may also prove very beneficial for patients as they struggle to control their emotions while dealing with addiction.

The study is published in the scientific journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence.

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Link:
Meditation + Methadone: How Mindfulness Can Reduce Opioid Cravings, Reduce Pain - Study Finds

Something is rotten in the state of Zombieland. In the opening monologue of Zombieland: Double Tap, Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg) wonders why anyone would show up for a sequel a full decade later. The self-awareness is funny, but, like the film itself, its the comedy equivalent of a long-deceased friend rising from the dead; you want there to still be some inkling of the person you knew, but 10 years of decomposition didnt do them any favors.

The sequel, directed by Venoms Ruben Fleischer, sees the original quartet from 2009 Columbus, Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), Wichita (Emma Stone), and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin) enjoying the zombie apocalypse version of domestic bliss. The peace doesnt last long. Little Rock wants to meet people her own age, and Wichita gets spooked by Columbus marriage proposal. The two of them bolt, only for Little Rock to leave Wichita in the dust when a guy her age (Avan Jogia) appears with news of a commune of people their age who have forsaken the use of guns.

With a particularly strong new breed of zombie on the rise, it falls to Columbus, Tallahassee, and Wichita to get Little Rock back, though the group dynamic is put under a little strain by the addition of Madison (Zoey Deutch), whom Columbus shacks up with after believing Wichita to be gone. Double Tap should be a fun ride all of the cast are charming enough that just watching them hang out would at least be a little entertaining but if you feel a creeping, uncomfortable sensation crawling up your spine as they turn zombie after zombie into bloody pulp, its not just because of the thought of impending doom. The movie, zippy as it is, houses the kind of misogyny that went out of style around the time the first movie came out.

Deutchs total commitment to the part of air-headed blonde almost saves the role, but the degree to which the script (written by Rhett Reese, Paul Wernick, and Dave Callaham) seems to resent both her and Wichita drags the whole enterprise down. Every female character including Rosario Dawson as Nevada, who runs an Elvis-themed motel exists to be a love interest, fulfilling either the emotionally unavailable cool girl or sexually available hot girl trope. Whats worse is that the Madonna-whore dichotomy is used as a weapon; Madison and Wichita are pitted against each other, with Wichita made out to be a killjoy for being uncertain about commitment and Madison a meaningless fling for being sexually liberated.

Neither can win, and both are thrown under the bus though no one is more trampled and mistreated than Madison, who is the butt of almost every joke. In the year of our lord 2019, I kept expecting there to be a turn: for Madison to reveal some unexpected talent, or for her and Wichita to get over their shared relations with an ultimately kind of eh guy, but no go. Zombieland: Double Tap is firmly stuck in 2009, antiquated gender politics and all. And thats not to mention a belabored scene in which a driveway is used as a metaphor for Nevadas nether regions.

Those dynamics feel rotten given how entertaining the rest of the film can be. Deutch seems to be having fun despite everything, and Harrelson turns his hambone comic chops up to 11 as he kicks and screams his way through the wasteland, even briefly dressing up as Elvis. Luke Wilson and Thomas Middleditch have some obvious fun, too, as doppelgngers for Tallahassee and Columbus who show up halfway through the movie to cause a little chaos.

A demented final (or mid-credits) scene that capitalizes on the biggest celebrity cameo in the first movie is the cherry on top of the very sour cake. Set during a press junket, it casts film critics as the enemy, effectively defying anyone who dares to criticize its shallow sense of humor. The scene also makes it clear that Double Tap doesnt have anything to give that wasnt in the original movie, which Im now afraid to revisit lest it turn out to be as bad as the sequel it spawned.

Zombieland: Double Tap hits theaters this weekend.

Excerpt from:
Zombieland: Double Tap review: The real monster is 2009-era misogyny - Polygon

Woodward Childrens Center, on Merrick Road in Freeport, is among the first schools in New York state to be certified as a trauma-informed school. Woodward officials announced the certification at a Sept. 26 assembly.

Woodward, a private, nonprofit school, is a prototype, said Erin Reed of Michigan-based Starr Commonwealth, the organization that trained and certified the staff. In the U.S., according to Starrs website, there are about 3,000 other institutions, many of which are not schools, that have the certification.

Principal Danielle Colucci said that Woodwards new certification means that the entire staff administrators and teachers is trained to recognize and respond to students who have been affected by trauma or traumatic stress. The goal of trauma-informed practice, Colucci said, is to provide students with physical, psychological and emotional safety and support, while helping them rebuild a sense of control and empowerment.

Our students nowadays have so much they have to deal with, she said. And as a school, we asked, What can we do? This action will better equip students so that they can be successful learners and successful at life.

Students were also involved in the effort, taking part in an essay-writing contest in which they shared how Woodward has helped them on their personal journeys. Almost all of the students participated in the contest, and 11 were named winners.

At the assembly, those 11 students shared their stories and read excerpts of their essays. One of them, Noemie Gonzalez-Sosa, spoke candidly of her anger issues. Ive learned to love others and allowed others to love me, she said. I learned how to be patient with others.

Noemie added that attending Woodward provided her with an environment in which teachers saw the good in her. I was able to grow mentally, she said with a smile.

The other 10 students shared stores that were similar to Noemies. Their common thread? Woodward was the place where they found hope. It was their safe haven. Now that it is a trauma-informed care school, teachers will be able to address stress and trauma issues in the classroom more quickly.

The schools Shield of Resilience is a game changer on the path of resilience, said Donna Marinelli, a special-education teacher.

The shields four key principles are engagement, self-awareness, empathy and citizenship. Marinelli explained that the shield also provides students with key features for personal growth and resilience, which will become a school-wide initiative. The guidelines on the shield, in addition to each students personal goals, will promote long-lasting and measurable goals to personal and academic success.

On Long Island there are two trauma-informed organizations Ades Integrated Health Strategies and the Crime Victims Center, according to the New York State Trauma-Informed Network directory.

Woodward teachers are now Certified Trauma Practitioner-Educators, and the social workers are recognized as Certified Trauma Practitioner-Clinicians.

Woodward will now be the model for trauma-informed care in New York state schools, Reed said. What they are doing here is not the norm.

See the original post here:
Confronting the traumatic: Woodward School receives special certification - liherald

The concept of emotional intelligence, also called emotional quotient (EQ), took the business world by storm when it was popularized in the 1990s, and its showed no signs of leaving the limelight anytime soon with employee experience now on the lips of every HR manager looking for an edge in an increasingly tight talent market.

And that should come as no surprise. When we think about the most inspirational, successful leaders weve worked with, they clearly have EQ. They have a natural ability to read teammates' emotions, understand what motivates and hinders them, and use all of that to drive results.

Unfortunately, though, EQ and IQ do not always go hand in hand. Many individuals develop intelligence related to the nuts and bolts of their jobs and rise the ranks to management, but their EQ gets left undeveloped.

Thats concerning, considering that managing people is a leaders biggest responsibility. The connections between leaders EQ and a companys employee retention rate, productivity and ability to achieve goals are astounding. On the flip side, leaders with poor EQ have a resoundingly negative impact on culture, burnout and turnover.

This is why I believe that while incredibly challenging, nurturing EQ and emotional intelligence should be a priority for every leader, and especially HR leaders.

First, understand what EQ looks like.

The first step in driving emotional intelligence at your organization is for you and your managers to understand the attributes of EQ. Psychologist and author Daniel Goleman offers one of the most comprehensive frameworks for definition, breaking down EQ into four areas of personal ability, each with its own set of competencies:

Self-awareness includes the recognition of ones own emotions, strengths and limits as well as their impact on others.

Self-management is made up of emotional balance, impulse regulation, adaptability, positive outlook and achievement orientation.

Social awareness is the ability to empathize and read a groups emotional state.

Relationship management is influence, inspirational leadership, conflict management, teamwork and the ability to coach and mentor.

EQ is the sum of all these parts. It is a lot to unpack, teach and work on, but not all of it needs to be tackled at once. People have strengths and weaknesses within EQ, so the next step is to identify which competencies to prioritize.

The best tool isnt training its 360-degree feedback.

There are countless personality tests and EQ self-assessments out there, and HR should use these tools to help leaders gain a baseline understanding of their own EQ. However, I believe the best tool for developing emotional intelligence is 360-degree feedback.

Feedback from subordinates, peers and managers should be collected on each manager or leader a minimum of once per year during an annual review. Ideally, it would happen more frequently, with both a written element and a follow-up interview to dig deeper. This 360-degree feedback helps get to the heart of whats really great or lacking in a leader and is a powerful way to help leaders identify their gaps.

The strength of this method is in the show, dont tell approach. Firsthand accounts from real people and valued teammates are much more likely to hit home than, say, responses to an automated quiz. Theyre often transparent, unvarnished and balanced assessments of someones leadership abilities. And while they sometimes can be jarring, they often provide the tough love that some managers may need to truly understand the gravity of poor EQ and the importance of improving it.

With EQ, practice and accountability make perfect.

Once youve helped make a leader aware of where their EQ gaps are and develop a willingness to correct them, you can work with them on becoming more empathetic and emotionally aware.

First, help managers and leaders identify what types of scenarios are prime for them to practice and hone EQ. Perhaps it's the review of a direct reports work they didnt find up to snuff or a team meeting to push for results before the close of a quarter.

Helping leaders identify these opportunities where they should be taking a step back to come up with a game plan before engaging with subordinates will inevitably drive growth. HR can help leaders role-play these scenarios either ahead of time or after the fact, recounting EQ competencies that were or were not used or pair them with a mentor to do so.

HR should also encourage leaders working on EQ to be transparent with their team and involve them in the process and this may be one of the hardest parts. Leaders with low EQ are often defensive or even embarrassed about it. Helping them find the self-confidence to address it with their teams in a productive way is critical. Direct and to the point is the best approach here, and it can be something as simple as a quick message to the team, saying, I have a lower than average score in this EQ area and am actively working to improve it. I know it will help our team, so please help by holding me accountable.

To change the way someone understands, manages and reacts to their own and others emotions is a large undertaking, but it is achievable. It is one of the most challenging and rewarding jobs for a human resources professional, and one to which all HR leaders should hold themselves accountable.

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Three Ways To Drive Emotional Intelligence At Your Organization - Forbes

Like many career decisions, the answer isnt straightforward. As we discuss in this weeks episode of Secrets Of The Most Productive People, some signs are more obvious than others. For starters, a toxic workplace is almost always never worth staying in (there are exceptions, but not many). When a role or company no longer offers you the opportunities to grow, it might be time to look elsewhere. And when your job starts to impact other areas of your life in a negative way, you should, at minimum, assess the possibility of change.

Its not an easy decision to make, and what makes sense for one person may not necessarily be the right course of action for another. As with anything, the key lies in self-awareness and honesty with yourself. Start by asking yourself these three questions:

1. Why do I feel the need to quit? You accepted your job for a reason, so its worth examining why you feel the need to move on. We tend to quit something when something makes us unhappy and uncomfortable, but to ensure that quitting will really make you happier, you need to look closely at your reasons. If its pride and ego, think twice. But if you find that you want to quit because your motivations no longer align with your job, then thats a valid reason to leave.

2. Have I done everything to make this work for me? Sometimes, your frustration with a job may be because of a major change. It might be to your benefit to try and embrace it first. Sometimes it requires you to try different things to get different results. Of course, there is a point when no amount of change is going to give you the results you want. So when that happens, it might be best to move on.

3. What do I have to gain by quitting? Everything has an opportunity cost. And sometimes, quitting something means you gain more resources to do something thats more important to you. If you have a lot more to gain by quitting than you do to lose, then thats a sign that you should at least seriously consider leaving.

This will be the last regular episode for season 3 of Secrets Of The Most Productive People,but well have several special bonus episodes during November and December (including a live episode at the Fast Company Innovation Festival), and well be back with Season 4 in 2020.You can findSecrets of the Most Productive PeopleonApple Podcasts,Google Play,Stitcher,Spotify,RadioPublic, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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Work Life When is it the right time to quit your job? - Fast Company

Was it a pep talk, a military psy-op, a lecture, or a paranoid rant on an epic scale that we witnessed from army chief Gen. Apirat Kongsompong last Friday?

It depends on whom you ask, but Apirat was apparently concerned about young Thais, and he seems to have failed to convince them.

Let me ask students if one day a disappointed person incites you and uses propaganda to mess with your brain to come out onto the streets like in Hong Kong. Will you come out? Apirat said.

The answer from Twitter users, who are mostly the younger generation, was loud and clear. Within hours by Saturday hashtag #redbuffalo was trending to the with over 226,000 tweets. You see, Apirats nickname is Daeng, or red in Thai, and to compare someone to a buffalo is akin to calling the person dumb. Its also dehumanizing.

Read:Apirat Revives Red Scare in Epic Rant Against Opposition

On conservative Nation TV, however, a poll among the viewers showed 97 percent support for Apirats speech which touched on threats of Communism, sabotage against the monarchy, and dangers from political parties supported by the youth like the Future Forward.

If a 97 percent approval rating is not enough, one of Apirats friend-cum-sycophants, Chuwit Kamolvisit, a massage-parlor-king-turned-politician-turned-TV-talking-head, gave him a score of 100.

But even a perfect score could not hide his incoherence and confusion.

In his 90-minute speech, Apirat attacks some Thais for holding onto Communist ideology while also attacking Joshua Wong, the young Hong Kong protest leader who took a stand against the Communist regime in mainland China.

Was Apirat aware that the threat of Communism, including anti-Communist laws, has been obsolete and abolished for decades now?

Was Apirat also aware of the cordial relations between Thailand and the biggest and most powerful Communist states on earth China?

Did he recall that three years ago, it was his boss, Prime Minister Gen Prayuth Chan-ocha, who publicly advised his Cabinet to read Chinese Communist leader Xi Jinpings book The Governance of China, and who went as far as saying that the book is suitable for Thailand?

Apirat cant seem to make up his mind if he is truly for, or against, Communism.

Whats clear, however, is Apirat tried to revive Cold War fear of Thai monarchy being at risk. He needs the royalists to fear, to develop ideological insecurities. This is how he hopes to unite and rally his support base possibly in the event of another military coup, which he infamously refused to rule out.

Whether you agree or laugh at what Apirat said for an hour and a half last week, its clear that the army will not return to the barracks, even though its been six months after the general elections that supposedly restored civilian rule.

The army chief whose late father Gen. Sunthorn Kongsompong led a coup in 1991 doesnt feel or think he has overstep his duty by attacking political parties and feeding the public with his fear mongering doctrine.

In a democracy, and even in a Communist state like China, the army chief doesnt have the authority to talk politics. If last Fridays spectacle took place in those countries, the army commander would have faced disciplinary actions, if not an immediate dismissal.

But Thailand, even after the elections, is still a militarized Thailand. There is no remorse or a sign of self-awareness from Apirat that he conducted himself unprofessionally.

Forget what he said, his arrogance is one of the most serious threats Thai democracy is facing. Apirats rant was in essence the armys show of superiority over civilian affairs, which made the need to send the military back to the barracks and have its influence contained all the more urgent.

And as long as that goal is still not achieved, democracy and civil liberty will continue to be at risk from military men in power like Apirat, even if his mind is so confused and incoherent. That is the real lesson we can learn from the whole debacle.

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Opinion: The Real Message in Army Chiefs Tirade - Khaosod English

"The more you know about Donald Trump, the less likely you are to vote for him. The more you know about his business enterprises, the less successful he looks. The more you know about his political giving, the less Republican he looks."

-- Lindsey Graham, March 7, 2016

We used to know who Republicans were.

They were squares, fuddy-duddies, in suits and ties and good cloth coats, overdressed on parent-teacher night. They knew about mortgage rates and not only kept their lawns mowed but maintained clean edges along the sidewalk. They were the bankers and the business owners, the ones who understood amortization and worried about the government just printing money to pay its debts. They were the ones who worried about governmental over-reach, who thought taxes to be unpleasant but necessary.

They were the ones who counseled you to never quit a job until you had another job in hand. They warned you about getting into trouble with credit cards. They were advocates of taking things slow and steady and accepting responsibility. They believed in the chain of command, in the wisdom of working hard and waiting your turn.

They weren't always right or much fun, but they weren't monolithic either. There was a time when "liberal Republican" wasn't an oxymoron. There was a time when Republicans stood for "good government," by which they meant government that wasn't corrupt or machine-run. There was a time when they could claim as a hero Benjamin Disraeli, the conservative prime minister who held that the "one duty" of those in power was "to secure the social welfare of the People."

("Courage is fire, and bullying is smoke," is something else Disraeli said.)

When people bring up "liberal Republicans" these days, they often call them Rockefeller Republicans, which alludes to Nelson Rockefeller, governor of New York throughout the '60s and vice president under Gerald Ford.

But while Rockefeller was widely seen as the archetype, in fact Richard Nixon--who considered himself a conservative reformer in the mold of Disraeli (to the point of evoking Disraeli's "One Nation" in his first inaugural speech)--was arguably more liberal than Rockefeller on some domestic issues. And Spiro Agnew wrote that Rockefeller "was harder than Nixon, and a lot more hawkish about the mission of America in the world."

When the term Rockefeller Republican is brought up locally, Arkansans are more inclined to remember Nelson's little brother Winthrop, who was elected governor in 1966 when only 11 percent of Arkansans identified as Republican. You could argue that Nelson was actually elected by an ad hoc coalition of the decent, because the Democratic candidate in 1967 was Justice Jim Johnson, a diehard segregationist and rabble-rouser.

While perfidy knows no party, Democrats tended to run hotter, with more fire, bluster and color than Republicans. Democrats were the ones who looked to drive the country in one direction or another, while the GOP was more deeply invested in the status quo. The Republicans were the establishment, who understood how things worked and could summon great gravity and condescension.

They were not the party of the flashy and the fly-by-night; they were not so egalitarian as to admit pikers, grifters and arrivistes. You got the sense that the best of them didn't need the sort of low-grade celebrity and public attention that attaches to politics, that they were, by their lights, actually serving. Noblesse oblige, they called it.

On the other hand, the Democrats by necessity collected misfits and firestarters. They were the party of dreamers and scrappers, nominally interested in social justice, sometimes pandering, almost always defining themselves in opposition to the continued hegemony of the rich and powerful, even as they became or remained the rich and powerful. Anyone could join the Democratic Party; one was born a Republican.

That's how it felt at least; in any given election one could vote for the Republican or the Democrat in the race without really identifying with either tribe. Some people liked to pride themselves on voting for the individual, on making an electoral decision based on the perceived character and ability of the candidate rather than the colors they flew.

It's an over-simplification, I know. But there once was a time when Republicans stood for things other than servicing their richest and most powerful clients and consolidating their power by any means necessary. There was a time when they were the adults.

Now we have the spectacle of a party rallying behind a president desperately clinging to power to keep himself out of jail.

"We're on the verge of having someone take over the conservative movement who is a con artist," Marco Rubio said in 2016.

That same year Ted Cruz said Donald Trump was "utterly amoral," a "serial philanderer" and "narcissist at a level I don't think this country's ever seen." Mick Mulvaney said he was a "terrible human being." Rick Perry called him a "cancer."

They were right. Trump may or may not be deranged, but it's clear he's intellectually and, more importantly, temperamentally unfit to be president. He's a nightmare boss whose only discernible talent is a certain brash ruthlessness from which TV-dazzled mooks can't look away. He accidentally attained high office as much through the incompetence of certain Democrats (another thing the Republicans used to be was "the competent party") as by building a coalition of the aggrieved and fearful, people angry with what they perceive as the erosion of their personal prerogatives.

Trump is a manifestation of white male rage, an incoherent, petulant and blind lashing out at the way America is evolving. He is a national tantrum, the personification of American brattiness, devoid of all grace, wit and self-awareness. He is a vain and petty man who now, finding himself out of his depth and deeply in trouble, has become genuinely dangerous.

He is exactly the sort of phenomenon I imagined the Republicans might be a firewall against.

This is not the first time I've been wrong.

pmartin@arkansasonline.com

http://www.blooddirtangels.com

Editorial on 10/20/2019

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Where has the GOP gone? - NWAOnline

Earlier this summer, after seeing Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, I posed an important question for which we all demand an answer: Is Quentin Tarantino a Justified superfan? The film is littered with actors from that franchise, except for one notable exception: Walton Goggins, who has even worked with Tarantino before in both Django Unchained and The Hateful Eight. WHY WERE WE BEING PUNISHED?

Now, the rest of the year has shaped up to be a veritable smorgasbord of Goggins content, and for that, I am very grateful. And while The Unicorn on CBS is fine and probably will, as Dustin anticipates, be renewed for a second season, Im here to praise something else: The extreme self-awareness The Righteous Gemstones exhibits about Gogginss own mythology as an actor, and how much that cements our interest as viewers.

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Did you read Mikes pieces about The Righteous Gemstones when Danny McBrides show launched back in August to the highest comedy-premiere numbers HBO had seen in three years? The first season of the show wrapped on Sundayand HBO had already announced a second-season renewal weeks agoand much like McBride did on his previous show, Vice Principals, he employs Goggins like the secret weapon he is.

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To be fair, the characters of Uncle Baby Billy Freeman in The Righteous Gemstones and Lee Russell in Vice Principals are very different. In the latter show, Goggins played Lee as a conniving, manipulative, foppish asshole whose dandyisms were in stark contrast to his increasing embrace of toxic masculinity. Lee was thoroughly reprehensible, but you low-key rooted for him anyway because Goggins imbued him with brief glimpses of sensitivity and humanity. The character would then do something tinged by racism and over-the-top self-assurednesshonestly, a lot like Boyd Crowder in the early seasons of Justifiedbut Goggins never half-asses anything, and his dedication sold the bizarre layers of Lee Russell. McBrides writing style, which often veers between extremes of hyper-aggressive immaturity and brusque fragility, worked perfectly when paired with Gogginss commitment.

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Did you see those dance moves? And those teeth? Good, because both of those aspects of Gogginss persona come up again in The Righteous Gemstones, in which Goggins plays Uncle Baby Billy Freeman, the brother-in-law of Gemstone patriarch Eli (John Goodman), brother of the deceased Aimee-Leigh (Jennifer Nettles), and uncle of the adult Gemstone children Jesse (McBride), Judy (Edi Patterson), and Kelvin (Adam DeVine).

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The Gemstones are all outrageous, blissfully surrounded in ostentatious wealth and varyingly concerned about losing access to power (you could write a whole think piece, in fact, about how Judy and Shiv from Succession are spiritual sisters in stifled ambition and questionable morality, and dammit, I might), but Uncle Baby Billy Freeman isnt on the inside of that circle. Hes far on the outskirts, living in a rundown shack on his familial land of Freemans Gap, and married to a 20something he treats as a servant, Tiffany (Valyn Hall), whom he insists that Jesse, Judy, and Kelvinall older than hercall Aunt Tiffany. Hes a former child star who has never been as popular as he was when Aimee-Leigh was by his side, and hes alternately charming, suave, and devilishly mischievous, while also being petty, juvenile, condescending, and crass. Which is to say: He is a perfect character to be played by Walton Goggins.

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The Gemstones arent good people, but Baby Billynever just Billy; you must call him by his old stage name, even though the man is clearly past AARP agein particular is an embodiment of what happens when you internalize all the worst aspects of Southern traditionalism and megachurch Christianity. Tiffany could be his granddaughter, but well, shes his wife, and we see her act consistently subservient to him at all times. Were introduced to Baby Billy as Tiffany is bathing him, and she serves as his counterpart in increasingly violent hijinks as the season progresses.

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Oh yeah! And they do a lot of sex stuff!

That unerring patriarchy defines his relationship with Judy, too, whom he tries to mold into a new Aimee-Leighnot because shes as talented as her mother was, but because Uncle Baby Billy knows he can make money off her name. And when Judy tries to stand up for herself? Her slightest attempt at individuality earns her a devastating rejection from Uncle Baby Billyharsher in tone, but no different in content, from how her father Eli also underestimates her.

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All of this is to say that Uncle Baby Billy is quite profoundly an asshole, but the show pulled off two impressive things with the character in the first season. The first is that although Sundays season finale, Better Is the End of a Thing Than Its Beginning, offers a somewhat surprising redemption arc for nearly every GemstoneEli makes amends with a preacher (Dermot Mulroney) the family fucked over; Jesse joins his son Gideon (Skyler Gisondo) doing mission work in Haiti; Judy apologizes to former fianc BJ (Tim Baltz), whom she had abused during their relationship; and Kelvin saves his sort-of boyfriend Keefe (Tony Cavalero)and steps backward from the gung-ho anti-megachurch vibe of the preceding episodes, it does not change who Uncle Baby Billy is. The man is a schemer and a charlatan, and after being struck by lightning, hes still that guy. Hes out here calling himself the Electric Preacher, selling hand-drawn milieus of what he claims he saw in Heaven, and attracting a tent-revival following of people devoted to his word.

All Uncle Baby Billy has ever wanted is a breathless (and mindless) fanbase, and he gets itand Tiffany is right by his side, helping in her husbands con. Not everyone is going to become a better person overnightand a valid compliant about the finale could be that the Gemstones sure do grow consciences quite quicklyso Im glad The Righteous Gemstones thankfully doesnt walk away from the very captivatingly awful person theyve built in Uncle Baby Billy.

And whether or not Goggins is back for the shows second season, I remain fascinated by the other thing The Righteous Gemstones does well: Make the Uncle Baby Billy character itself a composite of so many other characteristics we love about Goggins, both as an actor and as a person.

Exhibit A: Those dance moves we see in Vice Principals come up again as Uncle Baby Billy is a prolific clogger, even in his older age.

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Exhibit B: A nod to Gogginss extensive work playing overzealous preachers, from Justified to the indie Them That Follow.

from Cash GIFs via Gfycat

And, most importantly, Exhibit C: THOSE DAMN TEETH. What is the Righteous Gemstones subplot about Tiffanys teethvery uneven at first, and then replaced with veneers once the couple steals millions from the Gemstonesif not an acknowledgement of our cultural fascination with Gogginss own chompers?

Gogginss teeth are very well-searched on Google, and if you didnt know about his harrowing tale of losing his front teeth twice, here you go.

Im convinced that McBride and frequent collaborators Hill and David Gordon Green know all this, know about Gogginss cult appeal, know which elements of his public persona and acting style appeal to us so much, and leaned into those elements hard to make Uncle Baby Billy a riveting character repellent because of his egoism and empathetic because of his familiarity. The Righteous Gemstones used Goggins perfectly, and I genuinely hope he sticks around on the show because no one else in the world can deliver a song lyric like Running through the house with a pickle in my mouth (added by Hill to the song that McBride wrote with costar Patterson and composer Joseph Stephens) as perfectly as he does. No one! The man was born to misbehave.

Roxana Hadadi is a Staff Contributor for Pajiba. You can follow her on Twitter.

Header Image Source: HBO/The Righteous Gemstones

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What Happened to Walton Goggins's Uncle Baby Billy on 'The Righteous Gemstones' Finale? - Pajiba