LIVING HERO

Interview with Riane Eisler

The Living Hero show is honored to present an interview with author, speaker, and thought leader Riane Eisler. She is recognized as one of the most original minds of our time, and has been included among the world’s 20 great thinkers and peacemakers. She is president of the Center for Partnership Studies and is best known for her international bestseller The Chalice and the Blade: Our History, Our Future. Riane holds degrees in sociology and law from the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and has done pioneering and transformative work in the fields of human rights and relations, history, sociology, economics, psychology, and education. She is the author of over 200 essays and articles and five books.

We talked about:

• The redistribution and redefinition of power • What is the real wealth of nations? • Political ironies and transformation • Playing economics with a full deck • The psychological underpinnings of domination and control • Gender relations and notions of male and female power • Is human nature fundamentally flawed? • Riane’s own path of transformation • The neurochemistry of pain and pleasure • Creativity as a force for leadership and change

Visit Riane Eisler’s websites at www.rianeeisler.com and The Center for Partnership Studies (partnershipway.org)

Enjoy the show and please add your comments! These interviews are presented in audio format only–sorry no transcripts at this time! You may download the mp3 file, which will play in iTunes, RealPlayer, Windows Media Player and other media players or listen to it right here by double clicking on the purple media player below. (The interview is 50 minutes)

Listen at your convenience! Use this link for download, not the one below the player. Download this episode (right click and save)

Instructions for Windows Right click on the link that says “Download this episode (right click and save)”. Click on “Save Target as”. The file will start downloading. A window will pop up and the name of the file will be filled in, as well as the file format. Just choose to save it to your desktop in the left bar.Then you will have an mp3 file sitting on your desktop. Right click on that and choose Open with: iTunes (or your chosen player). Or, alternatively, open iTunes and just drag the mp3 into iTunes.

Instructions for Mac Control click or right click on the link that says “Download this episode (right click and save)”. Either “Open with iTunes” to listen now or “Download link file as” and save to your desktop. Open with iTunes later or just drag the file into iTunes and play it whenever you like.

Listen Now:

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jari psychology, language, interviews, education, future, human potential, feminine values, culture, philosophy, politics, books, creativity, parenting, love, economy, global forces, values, power, sex, reality, early childhood, neuroscience, wealth, human nature Comments (0) » | (0 ratings)  | Email it

                                    

Interview with Dr. Marcy Axness

The Living Hero show is very proud to present an interview with Marcy Axness, Ph.D.

Dr. Axness is an early development specialist who writes and speaks internationally on parenting, society, and the needs of children. She is an authority in such wide-ranging fields as neurobiology (brain development), prenatal and developmental psychology, attachment theory, and consciousness research. Marcy’s particular specialization is in very early development–beginning even before conception–and she is one of the world’s few experts in prenatal / neonatal issues in adoption. She is a professor at Santa Barbara Graduate Institute and has a private practice in Los Angeles, counseling parents and prospective parents.

We talked about:

Visit Marcy’s website at http://www.quantumparenting.com

Enjoy the show and please add your comments! These interviews are presented in audio format only–sorry no transcripts at this time!

You may download the mp3 file, which will play in iTunes, RealPlayer, Windows Media Player and other media players or listen to it right here by double clicking on the purple media player below. (The interview is about an hour.)

Listen at your convenience! Use this link for download, not the one below the player. Download this episode (right click and save)

Instructions for Windows Right click on the link that says “Download this episode (right click and save)”. Click on “Save Target as”. The file will start downloading. A window will pop up and the name of the file will be filled in, as well as the file format. Just choose to save it to your desktop in the left bar.Then you will have an mp3 file sitting on your desktop. Right click on that and choose Open with: iTunes (or your chosen player). Or, alternatively, open iTunes and just drag the mp3 into iTunes.

Instructions for Mac Control click or right click on the link that says “Download this episode (right click and save)”. Either “Open with iTunes” to listen now or “Download link file as” and save to your desktop. Open with iTunes later or just drag the file into iTunes and play it whenever you like.

Listen Now:

 Standard Podcasts [53:28m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download | Embeddable Player | Hits (73)

jari psychology, consciousness, interviews, education, future, maturity, human potential, human development, feminine values, wisdom, parenting, love, mind-body, mental health, values, empathy, vision, health, America, childhood development, perinatal development, prenatal development, early childhood, peace, neurobiology Comments (0) » | (0 ratings)  | Email it

                                    

What’s the Psychology of Loving to be Fooled?

We applaud magic shows; we consider actors our stars; we’re spellbound by the illusions of master painters.

This past year, I stopped coloring my hair, which I’ve been dying since I was 34 years old, but my mother, who has always been 30 years older than me, has never let her grays show. We exist in a culture of make-up and make-believe, hair dye and botox and all manner of plastic surgery.

I actually like the look of my natural hair and I also like not putting toxins on my scalp. But over the months I’ve had the truth of my hair out there for all to see, it seems to me that I’ve lost much of my sex appeal and I’m not happy about this observation.

By the way, I’ve also noticed that many of us are prone to loving the ideals of romantic love and then being heartbroken when the illusions crumble. There are wisdom teachings urging us to see things as they are, to allow ourselves to reach disillusionment and to develop our capacity to align ourselves more and more with bare-faced reality.

Are bling and botox, movies and mannerisms, amour and alcohol simply our defensive answer to an underlying philosophy of life that says, basically, “life is hard and then you die”?

Where’d we buy that philosophy anyway? That, to me, is a philosophy engendering suffering. Is this really what we want to live by?

Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. But, it seems that we volunteer to be fooled, we sign up for being “happily” hoodwinked again and again and agan. We seem to insist on it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKgPY1adc0A

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Life Turns on a Dime

As many of us do, I take these last few days of the year to reflect on the year that’s passed and envision the year ahead, investing that vision with my hopes and objectives. I’d like to share a few of my reflections here:

• Life turns on a dime. Last year at this time I thought my life was going in a particular direction and by the end of February that had changed and I moved my household from Connecticut to New Jersey, just across the Hudson from midtown Manhattan.
• Make the most of your present surroundings. Living here by the Hudson proved to be a perfect site to shoot my first video product: Energize and Relax, soon to be released in segments as a video download and as a packaged DVD product.
• Instead of being paralyzed by fear or overwhelmed with grief, I took this unexpected life change as an opportunity to put what I’ve learned to good use. I called upon all those people and things that I know bring relief: wisdom teachers, loyal friends, meditation, physical exercise, living in good conscience, diligent work . . . and I can say with all sincerity and confidence that it has been a wonderful journey through troubled waters. And I look forward to sharing all I’ve learned in this process with others in the year ahead!

jari Uncategorized, psychology, holistic health, consciousness, insight, meditation, future, human potential, feminine values, wisdom Comments (0) » | (2 ratings)  | Email it

                                    

CULTIVATE SYNTHESIS!

E.O. Wilson, one of our most brilliant living heroes, preciently wrote in his 1999 bestseller, Consilience, “Thanks to science and technology, access to factual knowledge of all kinds is rising exponentially while dropping in unit cost. It is destined to become global and democratic. Soon it will be available everywhere on television and computer screens. What then? The answer is clear: synthesis. We are drowning in information, while starving for wisdom. The world henceforth will be run by synthesizers, people able to put together the right information at the right time, think critically about it, and make important choices wisely.”

Many other luminaries have echoed this call for synthesis. One of Howard Gardner’s Five Minds for the Future is “Synthesizing Mind,” and Daniel Pink devotes a chapter of his recently released A Whole New Mind to “Symphony,” the ability to draw together details from many different disciplines while holding in mind the big picture and what it takes to achieve harmony, balance, and beauty.

This whole-brain capacity has been the gifted and treasured realm of artists, writers, philosophers, and spiritual leaders all along, but these are realms of activity that our culture has not rewarded financially. Is this going to change now? How will we see this change?

This blog is devoted to providing a forum for the exploration and discussion of these and related topics. I invite your thoughts and wish to know specifically whom you would most like to hear from in an interview or panel discussion and what your most burning questions on these topics are.

jari Uncategorized, integrate, interviews, future, human development, feminine values, culture, synthesis, a whole new mind, wisdom, financial reward Comments (0) » | (1 ratings)  | Email it

                                    

Five Minds for the Future

I have recently read Howard Gardner’s Five Minds for the Future. His role in this book, I think, is as a futurist, steering educators, administrators, parents–all of us–towards evaluating curricula in terms of the Five Minds, so as to meet the pressing global human challenges ahead successfully. Einstin’s adage: “Imagination is more important than knowledge” strikes me as being along the same lines. Similarly, it’s not what you say but how you say it, as in one’s tone of voice and the look on one’s face. Imagination, and the tone & feel & spirit of things are aspects of the right brain and are typically associated with “feminine values.” If you look closely at the Five Minds and what it would actually mean to develop and apply them universally, as paramount in education and society, you are looking at a profound shift in cultural and commercial values. Disciplined, Respectful, and Ethical minds are all more mature and spiritually engaged than what we find in the current competitive paradigm of big business and the “military-industrial complex.” Synthesizing and creative minds are more right brain in nature and are, therefore, considered “feminine” in their values. If you actually get to the heart of what he is saying and listen closely, you hear the voice of an enlightened thinker calling for wisdom. If you are also able to synthesize and extract the essence here, you meet him where he lives, in his deep commitment to human development and the hope of realizing greater human potential through education. I’ll leave you with a quotation from the book (sorry, no page number handy): “As far as I can see, short of peace pills or widespread extirpation of those brain nuclei or genes that support aggressive behaviors, the only possible avenue to progress lies in education, broadly conceived.”

jari psychology, consciousness, insight, education, future, maturity, human potential, human development, feminine values Comments (0) » | (0 ratings)  | Email it