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Classrooms all over the country are trying something new: sitting and breathing.
5 min
Emotional intelligence can mean the difference between behaving in a socially acceptable way and being considered to be way out of line. While most people will have heard of emotional intelligence, not many people really know how to spot it – in themselves or in others.
Jose M. Mestre, Kimberly A. Barchard,
This guided meditation is offered as a way of connecting to our deeper purpose as a unique expression of the Universal Wisdom to support the co-creation for a new planetary story, emerging from the heart of our humanity.
Meditation: Facilitated by Anneloes Smitsman of...
12 min
An original poem by Neil Gaiman, narrated by Peter Kenny, directed and animated by Anna Eijsbouts.
Hate for Sale
Hate for sale. All the very best
Hate for sale. Vintage stuff.
Do my cries excite your interest?
Lovely hate. Your life is rough.
Buy my hate. You'll come...
3 min
Award-winning filmmaker Jesse Borkowski delivers a refreshing meditation on how business can be used to create value beyond profit; connecting motivational stories from social entrepreneurs working in agriculture, apparel, insurance, and biofuel, with the captivating science...
70 min
In this video former finance minister of Greece, professor of economics, author and founder of the Democracy in Europe Movement 2025 (DiEM25), Yanis Varoufakis, argues why the Basic Income is a necessity today. His arguments take into account a macro socio-economic...
32 min
The United States recently experienced its first wave of large-scale anti-immigration raids following the election of Donald Trump, who made the mass deportation of “illegal” immigrants a central part of his campaign. Although ICE officials claim that these raids targeted...
James C. Wilson
La Casa de los Ningunos is an experimental community in the Bolivian capital city of La Paz, 12,000 feet up in the Andes Mountains. In a recent piece on the Casa, Sian Cowman explained the inspiration for the name, which also elegantly describes the Casa’s mission, “…Los...
Planet Local
Restorative justice makes real the fact that conflict, pain, suffering and crime are part of all our lives.
Molly Rowan Leach
Pachamama, our dear Mother Earth, is 4.5 billion years old. She is home to an estimated 8.7 million species of life! This wondrous web of relationships is truly a gift to be a part of, and we can thank our growing and evolving Mother Earth for the eyes and mind we have to...
A Quest for Meaning is an inspiring journey that connects personal growth and social change. It tells the story of two friends, Marc and Nathanael, who leave everything behind to go question the workings of the world and look for alternative ways of thinking and living...
87 min
We live in a world dominated by the principle of private property. Once indigenous people were dispossessed of their lands, the land was surveyed, subdivided and sold to the highest bidder. From high above, continents now appear as an endless property patchwork of green and...
Julian Brave Noisecat
It can be easy, in certain moods, to suspect that we can trust no one and to feel the temptation of conspiracy theories. But we’d be wiser learning the art of an intelligent form of scepticism.
5 min
The “21 Theses,” dated July 2014 and published in November 2015, marked the birth of the Social Ecology Cooperative in Paris.
In May 2016 I had the opportunity to ask Patrick Farbiaz, one of its founders, what the cooperative meant by social ecology. He explained that it...
Janet Biehl and The Social Ecology Cooperative in Paris
The Power of Humility, Forgiveness, Gratitude and Love
Jacob Devaney
Many anarchists oppose in principle such use of the political process for anarchist ends. It is unethical, they say, for anarchists to participate in the political process. Voting entails selecting a representative to exercise coercive force in our name; and appealing to such...
Kevin Carson
Negative thinking can get the best of us at the worst of times. But there's hope! Positive psychology Coach Derrick Carpenter reveals two key tactics that will intercept and defeat these thoughts before they have a chance to infiltrate your life.
2 min
Unlike self-esteem, the good feelings of self-compassion do not depend on being special and above average, or on meeting ideal goals.
Kristin Neff
In “Finding Inner Peace,” David Lynch describes how his personal experience with meditation helped him to deal with anxiety, fear, and depression and taught him how to tap into the root source of creativity and bliss.
6 min
Don't make people pay for music, says Amanda Palmer: Let them. In a passionate talk that begins in her days as a street performer (drop a dollar in the hat for the Eight-Foot Bride!), she examines the new relationship between artist and fan.
13 min
Cellular Biologist, Bruce Lipton, Ph.D, reveals the connection between Quantum Theory and feelings.
3 min
Are you the longing for love? Watch the video to know more about love and longing for it.
1 min
Every year, I try to do at least two things with my students at least once. First, I make a point of addressing them as “philosophers” – a bit cheesy, but hopefully it encourages active learning.
Patrick Stokes, Deakin University
The person we may find it hardest to be kind and sympathetic to is, surprisingly, ourselves. Yet being a friend to ourselves provides the only viable basis for living an emotionally fulfilled life.
4 min
If you want to sustain yourself for the work ahead, here’s some advice: It doesn’t matter whether the other side “deserves” anger.
Colin Beavan
Eurocentric modernism has unhinged us from our human nature, argues Rajani Kanth.
Lynn Parramore
Simone de Beauvoir is rightly best known for declaring: ‘One is not born, but rather becomes, woman.’ A less well-known facet of her philosophy, particularly relevant today, is her political activism, a viewpoint that follows directly from her metaphysical stance on the self...
Skye C Cleary
Have you heard any of these statements before?
Life is hard and requires sacrifice. If you work hard, you will succeed. There is not enough. Look out for yourself. The world is hostile. “Survival of the fittest.” Competition drives progress. Be rational. Control your...
Chris Agnos
In this article, Smucker reveals how radicals can pursue a revolutionary horizon that "delivers the goods." The key is to arm ourselves with the strategic knowledge and orientation to start building the future we want now, in the shell of the old.
Jonathan Matthew Smucker
Revelations is Bill Hicks' last special ever, taped in 1992, and features him at the height of his genius. Recorded at the Dominion Theatre in London, Bill Hicks opens our eyes and minds to the hypocrisy and ludicrousness of the world around us.
2 min
To get someone’s support, you need more than just facts.
Colin Beavan
Dr. Ann Russo on violence, healing, and transforming justice.
Dr. Ann Russo
How to stop a robot turning evil.
5 min
It’s alarming to see how polarized politics have become in the United States. The wider the gulf grows, the more people seem to be certain that the other side is wrong. Certainty can be a dangerous thing.
Two years ago, I met the social psychologist Arie Kruglanski while...
7 min
I admit, I laughed a little too. When I first saw videos of white nationalist Richard Spencer getting punched by a protester, I thought it was funny. And even now, I’m not exactly shedding a tear for him. I certainly pray that the attempts to find and target the person who...
Kazu Haga
The principle of compassion lies at the heart of all religious, ethical and spiritual traditions, calling us always to treat all others as we wish to be treated ourselves. AFFIRM the Charter today: http://charterforcompassion.org
2 min
“What has to be explained is not the fact that the man who is hungry steals or the man who is exploited strikes, but why the majority of those who are hungry don't steal and why the majority of those who are exploited don't strike.” - Wilhelm Reich "The Mass Psychology of...
5 min
From Ladakh to Bhutan, Buddhist nuns and monks from 60 centers in the Himalayan region work on environmental protection. From cleaning up rivers, to installing solar panels, the nuns and monks approach the environment with a sense of compassion, recognizing the...
5 min
Last week I had two brushes with the mainstream of American culture and politics. The first was an appearance on a PBS television show, the Tavis Smiley show. As far as I can remember, this was only the second time I’ve been on a national TV program. The other time was in...
Charles Eisenstein
Are you a Highly Empathic Person? Discover the traits of those who are, and learn how we can use empathy to support both others and ourselves. Learn more here.
4 min
On a remote mountaintop of the Himalayas sits Jhamtse Gatsal (Tibetan for “The Garden of Love and Compassion”), a special school and home for 85 abandoned and neglected children.
Founded by former Buddhist monk Lobsang Phunstok, who trained under the Dalai Lama, this unique...
40 min
How the rhetoric of free speech is leveraged to create space for the far right to organize violent actions, and how else to understand freedom.
CrimethInc.
I believe that true justice should have compassion in it. When someone does something harmful, destructive, the destruction is done not only to the person who is the victim, but it is also done to the person who has committed the destruction. We all know that every time we...
Thich Nhat Hanh
On April 4, 1967, exactly one year before his assassination, Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his famous “Beyond Vietnam” speech in Harlem’s Riverside Church. In it, he spoke of being confronted with “the fierce urgency of now.”
Kazu Haga
From "You Are on Your Own" to "We Are All in This Together." What this moment demands is a coherent strategy and egalitarian vision that can harness the energy and outrage Trump has provoked
Jules Lobel
The notion of privilege exists because most people do not live in the spiritual dimension of life. We live in a culture that is based on a matrix of separation.
If you had read in early 2016 about a National Policy Institute conference on the theme of “Identity Politics,” you might have assumed it was an innocent gathering of progressives. If you had attended, you would have been in for an unpleasant surprise. The National Policy...
Shuja Haider
Bosses don't grow on trees. They don't magically appear at your job. They aren't born into their roles. They are created. They are manufactured to fulfill arbitrary positions of power within organizational hierarchies. They possess no natural or learned talents, and they are...
A Familiar Tale of Resource Scarcity, Demagogues, and How Creativity Can Trump Hate
A quick, original, illustrated allegory that pokes at the demagogues we’ve got with an inclusive message promoting positivity during the 2016 Inauguration. It's read by ABC's Quinn Marcus.
5 min
We are in strife as a species because our theologies are all wrong. Fundamentalists and atheists alike, either proclaim or reject a supreme being who is separate from you, from me, and from the rest of creation. But the term "separate God" is an oxymoron. Any image of God...
Mark Ellison
One "piece of the oppressor" that I have found in myself during my inner activist journeys is my use of shame as a method of engaging with the world's problems. Having learned that "shame" is a tool that has been used by the world's oppressors for so long, I strive not to use...
Chip Richards helps us ask the question, "Are we complete enough with last year to truly start fresh and create an epic new story in the year to come?"
4 min
Healing Forest is a journey to discover the magical healing powers of nature. To find ways to reconnect people with nature. Join us in this exploration of fascinating forests and inspiring stories of healing from nature.
5 min
Habari Gani! (What's the News in Swahili, the greeting during Kwanzaa)
Christmas Day in Willingboro, South Jersey - right outside of Philadelphia - was spent recovering from the road trip from Lawrence, Kansas and gearing up for the first day of Kwanzaa, the Principle Umoja...
Tai Amri Spann-Ryan
After witnessing the "violent rage" shown by babies whenever deprived of an item they considered their own, Jean Piaget - a founding father of child psychology - observed something profound about human nature: Our sense of ownership emerges incredibly early. But why do we...
4 min
This is exactly what we all need right now. Here is a great secret of life that you can use to change the hearts and minds of everyone in your world.
Speech by Garret John LoPorto
4 min
He who fights too long against dragons becomes a dragon himself; and if thou gaze too long into the abyss, the abyss will gaze into thee.
—Nietzsche
Charles Eisenstein
Compassionate activism is activism that is rooted in an underlying compassion for all beings. It is an activism that resists the strong urge we all face to dehumanize our opponents, as they often do to us, and we often do to them. This collection of articles and videos...
I am told by Native American friends active at Standing Rock that the elders are counseling the Water Protectors to undertake each action prayerfully and to stay off the warpath.
Charles Eisenstein
Organic gardener and vegan chef DJ CAVEM is an award-winning international recording artist and activist who uses Hip-Hop culture to inspire young people to connect to the earth by teaching them how to grow food, and cultivate healthy eating habits. Through his lyrics and...
13 min
Many traditions speak of the opposing forces within us, vying for our attention. Native American stories speak of two wolves, the angry wolf and the loving wolf, who both live inside of us.
2 min
The genre of dystopia – the ‘not good place’– has captured the imaginations of artists and audiences alike for centuries. But why do we bother with all this pessimism? Alex Gendler explains how dystopias act as cautionary tales – not about some particular government or...
6 min
Western science and Indigenous worldviews are often seen as incompatible, with the Indigenous view usually being far less valued by society at large. But an inside look at Indigenous ways of knowing shows that they offer unique and dependable insights, in precisely the areas...
Lilian Na’ia Alessa
“To love without knowing how to love wounds the person we love.”
Maria Popova
One cannot claim to be intersectional while at the same time being elitist and exclusionary. Everyone isn't hip to what heteronormativity, heterosexism, cisgendered, cissexism or many new-age terms mean. You can't write people off for not being where you are or prescribing to...
Djuan Wash
It's hard to believe Films For Action has been around now for 10 years. From our early years focusing on local film screenings to our more recent years, focusing on raising awareness globally via our website and social media, our mission has been to provide a DIY alternative...
Do animals and plants have consciousness? Are electrons alive? Thich Nhat Hanh in dialogue with University of Virginia Astrophysicist Dr. Trinh Xuan Thuan.
7 min
The 'new story' - that longed for milieu when all is right with the world and things are set straight - seems to be taking its sweet time coming. Why?
Anarchism : The word “anarchy” comes from Greek and means “no rulers”. As a political philosophy, anarchism is based on the idea that organization does not require rulers—that people can get together and deal with all the problems facing them, without an authority directing...
unknown
Evolutionary Biologist, Bruce Lipton, visits the Beatles Ashram in Rishikesh, India with UPLIFT writer, Jacob Devaney. Making a pilgrimage back to one of the epicenters of spiritual consciousness in the sixties, they discuss how science frames the world we live in and what it...
9 min
Dr. Maya Angelou says that in order to be the best human being you can be, you must follow one simple directive: "Just do right." Watch as Dr. Angelou reveals how you can never go wrong by doing what you truly believe in.
3 min
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs is incomplete as we commonly know it. Later in his life, Maslow wrote about a stage beyond self-actualization. Nichol Brandford explains how to arrive at this final place.
8 min
Of all the great myths of contemporary life, one of the most toxic is positivity. It says: there are negative and positive emotions, and only the positive ones are worth feeling, having, expressing.
Umair Haque
What does it mean to be happy in a modern consumer society? John F Schumaker argues that our entire socio-economic system is designed to spew out citizens eternally in search of satisfaction.
John Schumaker
Peter Weir's 1998 film The Truman show can be read as an allegory for the present. Like the fictional town of Seahaven, our own world is experiencing a series of ruptures, like the recession of 2008, the Arab Spring, the killings of young black men by police and our...
6 min
One of the things I've been reflecting on a lot lately is the importance of holding simultaneous realities in our hearts and awareness at the same time. When it comes to ending the violence and divisions of racism, nationalism, and other historical conflicts, I see many...
You meet them, you get to know them, you date them, you learn about them. You have sex with them. Finally, you love them. You live with them. You marry them. You have kids with them. You grow old with them. Is this, the love journey? Is it the only one?
A lot of us are banking on heaven for ourselves and hell for certain others, but spiritual teacher Rob Bell urges us to think about those concepts as states of consciousness, and rethink the nature of the afterlife.
4 min
It is a delicate balance to know how much the world is messed up and still be hopeful about the future. This is something I dance with on a daily basis — while writing about systemic corruption, the angst that arises from&nb
Joe Brewer
Filmmaker Aziza Binti describes the documentary as such: "Social justice is not just "their" problem; it's everyone's concern. We reference the quote from the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. -- 'Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere' -- to open the film and...
50 min
I have made a promise to this world that I will carry with me to my last days. It is my vow to lessen the suffering of the world while I am here - it is to ensure that every toxic legacy that I inherited from our culture ends with me - and, ideally, ends with all of us, in...
Ever heard the term "compassionate bigotry"? Learn what it is in this powerful talk, featuring Tai Amri Spann-Wilson and Caleb Stephens at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Lawrence, Kansas - August 7th 2016. Part 2 is the poem "Healing" by Adam Lawrence Dyer, spoken...
45 min
It isn’t macabre or nihilistic to think of death. It’s the start of a proper, braver engagement with the possibilities of life.
"For centuries, artists produced ‘memento mori’, works of art that would remind their viewers of death and usually featured a skull or an...
3 min
Do you suffer from loneliness? Feel isolated and distant from other people? Do you long for connection? Strive and hope to be noticed? To be loved? To be heard? To be touched? To be seen?
Well you are not alone. Or perhaps I should say, your feeling of being alone is widely...
Joe Brewer
The Economic Enigma of Money vs Life: [A Social Value Disorder]
This incredible story has a lot to teach us about how we can be more effective agents for creating positive change in the world, and in involves the idea of "non-complementary behavior."
8 min
There’s a lot of misunderstanding about meditation. In fact, says Karen Maezen Miller, that’s pretty much all that meditation is — the process of seeing how much you’ve misunderstood meditation and everything else.
Karen Maezen Miller
Pope Francis argues that modern economy's worship of 'god of money' leads to disenfranchisement and extremism
Nika Knight
Alan Watts discusses choice and the thoughts process behind it. Our choices are fundamentally what shape our character, and more importantly our life as a whole.
3 min
All over the world there is a feeling that something is deeply wrong. It is often felt more than seen, an unnamed darkness that keeps millions (even billions) of people disconnected from the reality of authentic life-affirming experience. Too many of our so-called leaders are...
Joe Brewer
A stirring speech by the legendary cosmologist Carl Sagan, on the evolution of human consciousness. Decades old but still highly applicable today.
"More of us flee from war, oppression and famine today, than at any other time in human history, and the world impoverishes...
4 min
‘Economics is for everyone’, argues legendary economist Ha-Joon Chang in our latest mind-blowing RSA Animate. This is the video economists don’t want you to see! Chang explains why every single person can and SHOULD get their head around basic economics. He pulls back the...
12 min
A just society has fair laws. But most societies aren't like that. So what can you do? The opponent of slavery, Henry David Thoreau, gave one answer in his essay 'On Civil Disobedience': follow your conscience and break the law on moral grounds rather than be a cog in an...
2 min
What’s your blueprint for a just society? Your answer probably reflects who you are and the situation you find yourself in. If you’re rich, you may well be in favour of the freedom to earn and enjoy the fruits of your efforts; if you’re poor you’re likely to be more...
2 min
We are so busy and so obsessed with our phones, we rarely take a break to do that vital and rather philosophical thing: stare out of the window.
2 min
Apologising doesn't generally come easily - but it always tends to pay off beautifully.
2 min
Remaining calm around people who annoy us is one of the great life skills. It's also a teachable and learnable skill. Want help reaching your own state of calm?
5 min
I’m going to let you in on a little secret. There is no such thing as “the bad guy.” Every time we see an enemy it is because our minds have projected them onto the world. If we didn’t create them first in our thoughts and perceptions, they literally would not exist.
But...
Joe Brewer
Privilege discourse has noble intentions but it seems that it is used far too often in practice to guilt and shame others for things they don't have control over. If education and empathy (and not shame) is the goal, it might be better to scrap the whole privilege framework...