Mindful U at Naropa University

76. Miki Fire: Discovering the Self Through Transpersonal Wilderness Therapy

July 1st, 2019  |  46 mins 47 secs

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"I do think here at Naropa specifically we do have a transpersonal orientation, a transpersonal lens that we then incorporate into all of our classes. So, the contemplative education piece is very much interwoven in what we do in the field. And so, we incorporate contemplative practices, we talk about how nature based experiences themselves can be forms of contemplative practice and inquiry. We also do introduce the transpersonal model. So how do we work with those kinds of experiences that the transpersonal orientation has really taken in and not pathologized. And being in the outdoors for many people, depending on the context, also can be quite evocative of experiences that do not fit cleanly into our usual psychological frameworks or when they are they're often pathologized."

75. Carl Anthony: The Urban Habitat Program

June 17th, 2019  |  35 mins 18 secs

breakthrough communities, carl anthony, city planning, communities, contemplative, education, environment, environmental justice, higher education, justice, naropa, naropa university, paloma pavel, social justice, university, urban communities, urban habitat

"We need to think about a new quality in our organization where we are not only protesting against the things that are really hurting our communities and neighborhoods, but we're also really cultivating expertise on ideas and visions that we might have for the neighborhood and community. Finding ways that rather than having these issues come forth in competition, that we can actually have a big enough solutions put forth that incorporate. And one of the areas that we have been specializing in is something called Movement for Regional Equity and what that basically means is that the decisions that are made at a regional level are taken up by the community and our metropolitan region."

74. Paloma Pavel: Reimagining Community Organizing & Environmental Literacy

June 3rd, 2019  |  45 mins 11 secs

breakthrough communities, carl anthony, city planning, communities, contemplative, education, environment, environmental justice, higher education, justice, naropa, naropa university, paloma pavel, social justice, university, urban communities, urban habitat

"It's been a great joy and privilege in my life to work with individuals, with communities, with groups—sometimes in traditional organizations and non-profits—sometimes at a community level. We're living in a time where I think we're being called to move from a politics of protest and saying no to one of saying yes, and of governance, and of really learning how to take charge of the basic infrastructure of our lives. Communities are taking back locally produced energy and energy grids. People are working on knowledge about where their water comes from and soil—and also their sense of meaning and community and creativity and art in the broadest sense of: how do we imagine a new culture that is truly inclusive of all?"

73. Paloma Pavel & Carl Anthony: Breakthrough Communities, Underserved Populations, & Community Engagement

May 20th, 2019  |  52 mins 7 secs

breakthrough communities, carl anthony, city planning, communities, contemplative, education, environment, environmental justice, higher education, justice, naropa, naropa university, paloma pavel, social justice, university, urban communities, urban habitat

"As we open and see that what we're carrying around inside ourselves, what we have created around us is kind of a fear story. When we actually step into the fierce love story that we long for, we start having a much more joyful experience and one where we're not at war with our earth community. One where we're actually welcoming growing things in our backyards and on our roofs, where we're seeing that space is imagined in a whole other way. And also, we do need to live closer together if we're going to preserve wilderness and agricultural land and green space—it's essential that we learn how to be with one another. And we're excited for this moment because we feel that it's probably one of the most energizing, innovating moments that we've ever lived through. And it's accelerating."

72. Joanna Macy: The Work That Reconnects Part 2 of 2

May 6th, 2019  |  36 mins 30 secs

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"We talked about the spiral of the work that reconnects and then you talked about how once you dare to really see and speak what you've wanted to keep at arm's length, once you refuse to turn away and really suffer with your world and then you realize that the world is flowing into you and the living planet becomes alive for you. And then it generates for you. So that's we call seeing with new eyes. Everything looks different. And we use practices that are inspired by what we call deep ecology like the council of all beings. Where we step aside from our human role, which is only the last chapter of our long planetary journey. We've, as we know from the life forms we had in the womb of our mother, you know we had a tail and gills and fins. And so that we capitulate that ontogeny."

71. Joanna Macy: The Work That Reconnects Part 1 of 2

April 29th, 2019  |  53 mins 16 secs

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70. Alicia Patterson: Deep Wisdom & Healing of the Pelvic Bowl

April 22nd, 2019  |  49 mins 30 secs

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"The pelvic floor muscle tissues are connected very intricately and beautifully, and I feel like it can be complex in some ways to the abdominal muscles. And I think of the pelvic floor as the foundation of a building, it's like the ground level of the body. If the foundation of a building is off or suffering or it's not right, the whole rest of the building is off. So, that's my best metaphor is that the pelvic floor is our foundation. It's so connected to our legs and our feet and the way that we walk and move and dance through the world. And it supports everything above it. So, the reproductive organs, the digestive system, all the organs, the heart, the voice, the throat, and the brain are supported by the pelvic floor. And I've had huge changes in my digestion and rewiring of my nervous system and real cognitive and mood balances from working with my pelvic floor that before, I was trying a million different things to feel better. For me, the pelvic floor is like the Holy Grail."

69. Rick Snyder: Decisive Intuition, Using your Gut Instincts to Make Smart Business Decisions

April 15th, 2019  |  49 mins 48 secs

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"Emotional intelligence has completely revolutionized our lives and our business space. And because that's there there's now this foundation around intuitive intelligence. So, this is the next nuance that I'm really passionate to bring in, is that emotional intelligence is foundational and key. But it's not the whole story of how we discern information and how we navigate the world, even though emotions are supercritical and a big part of that. Intuitive intelligence also weaves in a greater, wider array of data information that we have to be able to learn to discern. So, it's even a little more refined in some ways. So that's what I'm really excited about is bringing this next wave to the business base and then also beyond that too. So that people give themselves more permission to trust themselves on a fundamental level. And bring their empowerment and their gifts forward without apology."

68. Venerable Pannavati: Hearing the Cries of the World & Responding with Compassion

April 8th, 2019  |  53 mins 48 secs

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"Meditation is so important—particularly training and concentration. How to steady and fix the mind until conceptual thoughts fall away. We live so much in our conceptualizing nature that we can't imagine life without that. But when you start doing this practice, you find out that you can conceptualize, and you cannot. So, learning how to drop into that stillness, as the Buddha calls it, until you come to the absolute stilling of all thought. We think well then, there's nothing. Yes, there is something beyond that, you could never see it before because you were caught in the cycle of conceptualizing. But the other side that the Buddha calls meditation—a pleasant, abiding here and now, touching kind of contentment and peace that the world didn't give you. So, the world can't take it away. But what he called practice was something entirely different. We just need to do more practice, and the practice is not to sit on the pillow. Sitting on a pillow is sitting on a pillow. But to practice is how we handle ourselves in every moment of our waking day—when one is accosting you, taking what is yours and what is criticizing you."

67. Nashalla Nyinda: Tibetan & Asian Medicine in Relationship with Western Biomedicine

April 1st, 2019  |  49 mins 45 secs

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"It's said in Tibetan medicine that you have to have all five elements plus karma in order to be incarnated at all. So, even to obtain the precious human body you have to have all five elements in karma. So you're going to choose certain parents and situations. They're going to give you some genetic factors which are going to influence your inner elements and then also you're going to have the diet and the behavior that your mother has during your pregnancy is going to influence it. The outer environment is going to influence it and then very early on in life -- your life situations are also going to influence it. So, family systems, psychology, all of that has an impact on the choices we make. So, somebody could be inherently one type of being and perhaps their family system either didn't recognize or support that and so they made a choice in order to compensate on a psychological level."