In association with hhdlstudycirclemontreal.org
Archive for February, 2011
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| Feb 27, 2011 |
| “There is no better exercise for your heart than reaching down and helping to lift someone up.” |
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| To touch can be to give life. –Michelangelo
Good News of the Day:
 A pat on the back, a caress of the arm–these are everyday, incidental gestures that we usually take for granted. But after years spent immersed in the science of touch, University of California, Berkeley, psychology professor Dacher Keltner has found that the power of touch is much more profound than we usually realize. In this Greater Good magazine essay, he argues that touch is our primary language of compassion, and a primary means for spreading compassion. He reports on a wave of studies that have documented incredible emotional and physical health benefits that come from touch, suggesting that touch is truly fundamental to human communication, bonding, and health. [ more ]
Be The Change:
Try ending more of your friendly interactions with a casual touch, like a simple shoulder squeeze or pat on the back.
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| Good things happen when you get your priorities straight. –Scott Caan
Inspiration of the Day:
 As he knelt on the bedroom floor, on the phone with 911, something had gone wrong. When your wife is pregnant, no one tells you, “By the way, she might skip labor, suddenly fall to the floor, and give birth. Oh, and the umbilical cord might be tangled around the baby’s neck five times.” But that’s what happened to Josh Levs. In less than 15 minutes, with only instinct and the 911 operator to guide him, Levs delivers and brings his un-breathing baby to life. He reflects, “When it’s up to you to help your kid take his first breaths, you appreciate not only his but your own life in a new way.” [ more ]
Submitted by: Karthik J.
Be The Change:
What are your values and priorities? Take a moment to remember them.
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| Feb 20, 2011 |
| “After the verb “to love,” the verb, “to help” is the most beautiful verb in the world.” — Bertha Von Suttner |
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 “I am a special education teacher in a primary school. I try to teach the childrenin my class about kindness and compassion. I reward random acts of kindness that happen in my classroom. When a student does something to help one of their peers, out of the goodnes of their heart, I will acknowledge it and let them go in to my ‘kindness box’ to pull out a little surpise. The students get excited when someone is recognized for being kind and they congratulate that child for caring enought to help someone else. It is amazing how the children in my classroom are always well behaved and have a caring nature from just being kind.” — mpg85
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| “I feel that kindness should be every day not just once a year or for the Holidays. Every day is a good day to help put a smile on someone’s face. There are chances daily, to buy someone a hot meal, coffee, help them with a bill, babysit, donate gently used clothes. Buying tickets for a needy family to the circus, all sort of ideas are out there, and not just during the giving season once per year…” — Awannabeangel |
| What is a “smile card”? It’s a game of kindness — do something nice for someone and leave a card behind asking them to pay it forward. To date, 891,847 cards have been shipped without any charge.
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Justice Clarence Thomas has not spoken during a Supreme Court argument in five years. In the past 40 years, no other member has been totally silent through a whole term– not to mention, five terms. Loud People, of course, get all the attention. But if we take a look around, we’ll notice that quiet people are everywhere. Quiet People are different from loners or introverts or recluses. And quietness is not the same as shyness. As one psychology professor notes, “There are people who wish to talk, but are too timid to do so” and there are those who “simply choose not to say much.” [ 
Camellias are flowers that often have showy blooms, some as big as plates. Their leaves can also make tea. But their standout trait is timing: they blossom in winter. [ 
Do you remember the name of your kindergarden teacher? I do, mine. Her name was Mrs White. I don’t remember much about what we learned in her class, but my mother once told me that we used to write a lot. And I would bring back what I wrote and she would look at it and see there were so many mistakes. But no red corrections. And always a star. Sometimes even a Good! scrawled in that would make my heart soar with happiness. But it worried my mother, so one day when she went in to meet Mrs White for one of those Parent-Teacher meetings, she asked her why she never corrected my mistakes… [ 
“The notion that one can do anything is liberating. But life without constraints has also proved a recipe for endless searching, endless questioning of aspirations. It has made this generation obsessed with self-development and determined, for as long as possible, to minimise personal commitments in order to maximise the options open to them… At what point, though, does the experience-seeking end?” Reflecting on professional development in an age of possibility, Thomas Barlow proposes a counterintuitive solution: “Perhaps living life to the fullest is as much about closing possibilities than creating them.” [ 
Philippe Croizon lived a rather normal life with his family until a severe electric shock accident led to the amputation of all four of his limbs. Undeterred by his handicap, Philippe decided to swim the English Channel and eventually went on to become the first quadruple amputee to achieve the feat. Watch how Philippe prepared himself for this remarkable challenge! [ 
