1
August
2009
Sex and pleasure expert, Stella Resnick, PhD joins us to encourage, inform and delight you! Dr. Resnick is author of The Pleasure Zone: How We Resist Good Feelings and How to Let Go and Be Happy.
She is a clinical psychologist in private practice in Beverly Hills, CA and currently serves on the faculty of the Santa Barbara Graduate Institute. Formerly President of the Western Region of the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality, Dr. Resnick is a Diplomate of the American Board of Sexology and an AASECT Certified Sex Therapist, CE Provider, and Clinical Supervisor, Stella has appeared many times on TV including the Oprah, Leeza, and Montel Williams shows, CNN Live, The O’Reilly Factor, KCBS’ Morning News, and UPN’s Evening News. Her seminar on The Pleasure Zone is featured in the PBS television series Body & Soul in the segment “Ode to Joy”.
Stella is frequently quoted in popular magazines; such as, Reader’s Digest, Women’s World, Vogue, Cosmopolitan, Playboy, Self, Redbook, McCall’s, Men’s Fitness, Men’s Health, Glamour, Mademoiselle, Family Circle, Parenting, and the Utne Reader. She has written numerous professional papers, and authored cover stories for Self, New Age, and Psychology Today magazines.
We talked about:
Demonizing pleasure in a history of domination ● Fear of peace, fulfillment and pleasure programmed in our nervous systems ● The 8 Core Pleasures and how we resist them ● Pleasure and the stages of human and societal development ● Infant needs and our tenacious early experiences ● Societal health and childhood sexuality ● How we learn to be human ● Two kinds of discipline and your pleasure ● Relearning how to be sexual ● Of what is sexuality an expression? ● Bridging the gap between heart and libido in adult partnerships ● A role for conscious breathing in your life
Visit: drstellaresnick.com
Enjoy the show! 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 52 minutes.)
Listen at your convenience! Use this link for download, not the one below the player. Download this episode (right click and save)
Click through to buy Stella’s book on Amazon right from this site in the sidebar to the left.
jari 
psychology, holistic health, interviews, human potential, human development, feminine values, stress, parenting, love, fear, relaxation, feeling, freedom, health, sex, fitness, childhood development, early childhood, libido, pleasure, societal health, childhood sexuality, conscious breathing 
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24
May
2009
Our society suffers from an urgent need for greater empathy, for citizens with the emotional capacity to “feel with” others and sense what life is like for people in circumstances different from their own. Thought leaders, authors, and futurists Howard Gardner, Riane Eisler, Daniel Pink, and many others, have all placed empathy and ethics on their short lists of requisite qualities for a healthy future.
Personal contact with other human beings in need has proven to quickly and reliably foster such emotional brotherhood. Contact volunteering is a win-win-win proposition. It serves the needy, the volunteer, and the organizations that exist to provide care to the needy.
About half of adult Americans volunteer in some form, but only 8% regularly volunteer for personal contact with the needy. To derive the many benefits we describe below, volunteers must have this personal contact and must do so for four or more hours per month.
Benefits to Individual Health:
Loneliness and isolation pose significant human health risks rivaling those of cigarette smoking, obesity, lack of exercise and high blood pressure. One-on-one human contact volunteers overcome these risk factors, and live longer and healthier lives. They enjoy greater self-worth, self-esteem, and pleasure. They suffer less stress, chronic pain, fatigue, drug and alcohol abuse, overeating, anxiety and depression.
Benefits to Societal Health:
“Strangers” of different religions, races, ethnicities, educational and financial come in contact with each other on a regular basis, and bridge their differences, forming bonds of care, understanding, and trust. Volunteers bring increased job performance, social skills, and productivity back to their workplaces. When unemployed people volunteer, they suffer less depression and feelings of helplessness, and they find new jobs sooner.
How does volunteering work to bring these benefits?
Human beings are biologically hardwired for caring, cooperation, and goodness. When people engage in helping behaviors, they experience well-being, the feeling that things are as they should be. Opening one’s heart and giving to others in need activates the helper’s brain to release pleasure-and-joy hormones: dopamine and endorphins, and these initiate a cascade of physical and emotional changes for the better.
How can we encourage more people to engage in contact volunteering?
Leadership, leadership, leadership! Studies have proved that most people need to be asked repeatedly, and convinced by others, to volunteer. Business and governmental leaders can help in this enormously. Here’s how:
• Reduce health insurance premiums for those who do contact volunteering
• Allow employees to volunteer during work hours
• Promote the benefits of contact volunteering through all media outlets
• Model the excellent habit of volunteering and talk about it! Public figures, leaders, heros and “stars” step up and lead this win-win-win movement!
© 2009 Jari Chevalier
jari psychology, future, human potential, human development, feminine values, wisdom, mind-body, values, empathy, self-esteem, solidarity, health, reality, human nature, policy, volunteering, volunteering, civic engagement Comments (0) » |
1
May
2009
Radical Simplicity! The Living Hero program presents an interview with author, educator, and activist Jim Merkel.
Jim began as a military engineer. Just after the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989, Jim quit his job and took immediate personal responsibility for his own part in global problems. This meant taking radical actions to scale back consumption and deeply reconsider life in all its dimensions. He subsequently authored Radical Simplicity: Small Footprints on a Finite Earth. Merkel received an Earthwatch Gaia Fellowship to research sustainable living in Kerala, India and in regions of the Himalayas.
He founded the Global Living Project and was hired by Dartmouth College to serve as its first Sustainability Director.
Jim lives the life of radical simplicity—cycling hundreds of miles to give lectures and workshops at colleges , universities, and community centers. He is a homesteader, growing and preserving his own food, and living on about $5,000 a year. Jim has given hundreds of hours of his time as a volunteer to share his wealth of knowledge on the new good life of sustainable living.
We talked about:
• the present pulse of the sustainability movement
• the real root of simplicity
• engaging the heart
• Jim’s childhood and influences
• the real challenge of society: the common good
• how radical simplicity crosses party lines
• Jim’s revolutionary shift after Exxon-Valdez
• what it means to exceed the carrying capacity of the Earth
• what is an ecological footprint
• Jim’s view of the economic crisis
• living on $5000 a year in America
• the roots of violence and fear
• population control, women, and wisdom
• falling in love with the Earth
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 program is around 50 minutes)
Listen at your convenience! Use this link for download, not the one below the player. Download this episode (right click and save)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.
jari interviews, education, human potential, feminine values, culture, wisdom, meaning, love, feeling, economy, values, money, freedom, reality, Native American, America, ecology, population, sustainability, environment Comments (0) » |
1
December
2008
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.
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) » |
1
September
2008
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:
• Raising generation PAX
• Quantum parenting
• The fundamental question every human is always asking
• The peace-creativity connection
• P-A-R-E-N-T-S, Marcy’s parenting To-Dos
• The surprising single strongest predictor of a child’s healthy attachment
• The dominant reality engine of our time
• How to behaviorally reduce ADD and ADHD
• What drives the viscious human cycle
• Tapping into the unseen dimensions of experience
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.
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) » |
28
December
2007
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
jari psychology, feminine values, wisdom, philosophy 1 Comment » |
15
November
2007
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) » |
12
November
2007
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) » |
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