16. June 2009 by John Schinnerer.

Download the articles from the 2009 Mind & Life Research Institute here

Click here to read some fantastic articles from this year’s Mind & Life Research Institute faculty. The event was held this month.

From the brochure [pdf]:

The purpose of the Mind and Life Summer Research Institute is to advance collaborative research among behavioral and clinical scientists, neuroscientists, and biomedical researchers based on a process of inquiry, dialogue and collaboration with Buddhist contemplative practitioners and scholars and those in other contemplative traditions. The long-term objective is to advance the training of a new generation of behavioral scientists, cognitive/affective neuroscientists, clinical researchers, and contemplative scholar/practitioners interested in exploring the potential influences of meditation and other contemplative practices on mind, behavior, brain function, and health. This includes examining the potential role of contemplative methods for characterizing human experience and consciousness from a neuroscience and clinical intervention perspective.

The 2009 Mind and Life Summer Research Institute (MLSRI) will be devoted to the theme of the self, its development in sociocultural and contemplative contexts, and its implications for human flourishing and social transformation. MLSRI 09 will bring together contemplatives and academic scholars from the social, developmental, and clinical sciences, the neurosciences, contemplative studies, and philosophy to dialogue about a variety of topics pertaining to the self. These topics will include conceptualizations of self and identity in various traditions; the development of self in normative and contemplative contexts; the neurobiology of the self , its development, and associated plasticity; the processes of self-identification and their effects on life outcomes such as health, education, well-being and social relations; the phenomenology of the “embodied sense” of identity, ownership and agency in experience, and the relation of these first-person perspectives to the brain and body across development; the concept of “self-regulation” and its relation to issues of mental causation, free-will, and a variety of life outcomes; the role of self processes in psychological illness; and finally, self versus no-self views on the fundamental nature of the mind and consciousness.

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16. June 2009 by John Schinnerer.

Here is an excerpt from a commencement address I’ll be delivering tomorrow evening…

You are some of the most courageous individuals I know. For courage is not the absence of fear. Courage is overcoming fear. Without fear, there is no courage. You face your fears daily which makes you brave. It makes you courageous.

You are also among the most resilient people whom I know. And for that you have my respect and my admiration. Resiliency is the ability to bounce back from challenging, difficult situations. You guys are among the… bounciest… people I know. Many of you have had multiple chances of giving up, of throwing in the towel, and you refused.

Being able to bounce, being able to persevere, despite negative events is not due to luck. It’s due to resiliency.  

Resilience means you effectively cope despite inevitable loss, hardship, or adversity. Resilience has been compared to flexibility in metals. For example, cast iron is hard, brittle, and breaks easily, that is it is not resilient, whereas wrought iron is soft and bends without breaking - it is resilient.

In most cases, successful people have overcome many more difficulties than those who are less successful. While everyone encounters failure and trouble, it is what you do AFTER failure that is critical. Highly successful individuals have tenacity, a stick-to-it-iveness. They view failure as a learning experience. They don’t give up. They don’t throw in the towel. They try again.

From Barack Obama to the president of FedEx to Denzel Washington, successful individual fail repeatedly but they learn from their experiences and they keep going. They keep on walking in the direction of their values and their dreams.

Video of top ’failures’ - famous folks who bounced back to succeed.

Keep on walkin’,

Dr. John Schinnerer

Positive Psychology Coach

Guide To Self, Inc.

Posted in Managing Anxiety, Emotional management, Resiliency, Hope, Overcoming failure, Emotional mind, Guide To Self Beginners Guide To Managing Emotion, Life coach, Dr. John Schinnerer, Guide to Self, Emotional IQ, Happiness, Positive Psychology | Print | No Comments »