From the Blog
Writings on Well-Being Dr. Rick Hanson
Being Well Podcast: Healing Self-Abandonment: Anxious Attachment, Healthy Boundaries, and Creating Strong Relationships
On today’s episode, Dr. Rick and Forrest explore self-abandonment, including anxious attachment, healthy boundaries, and creating strong relationships.
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Feel Safer
Feeling safer is a tricky subject, with complications that can be both personal and political. (This topic and others are explored in depth in my interview with New Dimensions.) Yes, there are real threats out there, but evolution and other factors have left a lot of...
Your Precious Life
This series of blog posts is about Your Precious Life: what an incredible opportunity it is to have a life. At all.Part 1: Your Precious LifePart 2: Being For SomethingPart 3: Being For YourselfPart 4: Reflections from the PorchPart 5: The Beauty of Life in the Face...
Rick’s Picks: Randy Pausch’s Last Lecture
Rick's Picks is a new series of posts highlighting the very best content online. Carnegie Mellon Professor Randy Pausch (Oct. 23, 1960 - July 25, 2008) was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in September 2006, and in August 2007 he was given a terminal diagnosis. He...
Attention tends to move around, but something often bubbles to the surface at the front of our awareness. Even if we’re trying to focus just on the breath, the attention tends to wander from one part of the body to the next. In this mindfulness meditation audio...
Open Space Mindfulness
This is the fourth and final post in the series on developing mindful presence. Here's Part One, Part Two, and Part Three. In Part Three we did a little mindfulness meditation to "tune-up" our mindfulness and concentration skills. Now we are going to distill that...
Here is the latest talk from the San Rafael Meditation group with Rick Hanson. It is titled Be the Whole, Not the Part. More information on the San Rafael Mediation group can be found at https://rickhanson.net/multimedia/audio/talks/buddhist-wisdom/.
Rick’s Picks: Man vs. Machine
Rick's Picks is a new series of posts highlighting the very best content online. This piece from FiveThirtyEight explores a classic contest of man vs. machine, carried out on the battlefield of the chess board. Seventeen years ago in New York City, brooding chess...
The Neurodharma of Love
Most of our greatest joys and sorrows happen in our relationships with others. Imagine then: what if you could guide your mind to forgive, heal, and find greater happiness in your connections with others? The remarkable truth is that you can. Check out this sample...
Here is the latest talk from the San Rafael Meditation group with Rick Hanson. It is titled Mind Precedes All Things. More information on the San Rafael Mediation group can be found at https://rickhanson.net/teaching/meditation-group/.
Mindfulness Tune Up
This is the third post in the series on developing mindful presence. Here's Part One and Part Two. Steady mindfulness requires overcoming the natural – and evolutionarily adaptive – tendency of mind to scan endlessly and think of new things. So the basic capacity to...
Rick’s Picks: Norah Jones Sings “Don’t Know Why” on Sesame Street
Rick's Picks is a new series of posts highlighting the very best content online. Norah Jones sings "Dont know why 'Y' didnt come" - starring Elmo - during the "letter of the day" segment on Sesame Street season 35 episode 4081. I have fond memories of my children...
Self-Directed Brain Change
I think you might like this sample from my audio program - Self-Directed Brain Change: Rewire Your Neural Pathways for Happiness and Resilience - a step-by-step program for retraining our neural structure out of "sheer survival" mode and into one of greater...
Why Develop Mindful Presence?
This is the second post in the series on mindful presence. You can view Part One here. So why should we go out of our way to develop mindfulness? Mindful presence feels good in its own right: relaxed, alert, and peaceful. Not contending with anything. No struggle. In...
Here is the latest talk from the San Rafael Meditation group with Rick Hanson. It is titled Listening to Your Longing for Peace. More information on the San Rafael Mediation group can be found at https://rickhanson.net/teaching/meditation-group/.
Rick’s Picks: Four Year Old Reviews French Laundry
Rick's Picks is a new series of posts highlighting the very best content online. In what has to be the most adorable review of a restaurant ever written, The Bold Italic writer Jessica Saia takes a friend's four-year-old daughter to The French Laundry and subjects its...
The Enlightened Brain
I thought you might like to listen to a sample from my audio program - The Enlightened Brain: The Neuroscience of Awakening - in which I offer practical tools to reshape your brain for awakening. Enjoy! I'd love to hear your feedback about this audio excerpt in the...
Here is a talk from the San Rafael Meditation group with Rick Hanson. It is titled, “Listen to Your Longing for Peace.”
Fear
I had the pleasure of being interviewed on the Ask Dr. Nandi Show on the topic of Fear. I hope you enjoy it! When viewing, please enter password: nandi SHOW Ask Dr Nandi 363 Fear from Ask Dr. Nandi on Vimeo.
Stress-Proof Your Brain
Our brains have evolved powerful tools for coping with threats and danger—but in the face of modern stresses like information overload, money worries, and interpersonal conflicts, our survival reflexes can do more harm than good. To help you adapt your nervous system...
Giving Is the Most Natural Thing in the World
We spend a lot of time giving to others. It’s the most natural thing in the world. Most giving is small, in passing, hardly noticed, the breath and wallpaper of life. It’s not hard to overlook. And with all the attention paid in the media to images and words of...
Here is the latest talk from the San Rafael Meditation group with Rick Hanson. It is titled Bear It. More information on the San Rafael Mediation group can be found at https://rickhanson.net/teaching/meditation-group.