“If you don’t understand how valuable you are, you will always accept what is given to you.” These are the words of Celina Caesar-Chavannes from her book “Can You Hear Me Now?”. The sky opened up when first I read them. Her next thought aims straight at us. “We (meaning women in particular) are often humble people who find quantifying our skills and experience—our worth–daunting.”
Continue reading “On Confidence and Little Victories”
I used to dislike wearing hats. They didn’t suit me. Millinery shops would draw me to try on hats. I’d pick a style shown in magazines, the type of hat that should be worn by women I admired—the sort who laughed with abandon, ate life like it was a juicy apple, and never second guessed themselves. When I looked at my reflection in the mirror, the hat occupied the entire frame. I disappeared.
The first hat I ever wore was a baby bonnet secured with an under-the-chin bow. In spite of burgeoning liberation of the 1960s, mothers didn’t wheel hatless babies around town. What would people say?
Continue reading “Hats: A Love Story”
In 2011, I watched a TEDTalk entitled Stories Cut from Paper in which renowned paper artist Béatrice Coron discussed process and inspiration. Projected on the screen behind her was “Hells and Heavens”, an intricate and sprawling piece that had been exhibited at the Museum of Arts and Design in New York City. I marvelled at the individual yet connected stories she’d envisioned and brought to life. How did she lay her vision on the paper without losing sight of perspective and skewing the images?
Continue reading “Choosing Well”
Twelfth century philosopher, Ibn Khaldun wrote that, “God created man in such a way that the veil of the senses could be lifted through sleep, which is a natural function of man. When that veil is lifted, the soul is ready to learn the things it desires to know in the world of Truth.” What a beautiful and comforting thought.
His idea couples well with the commonly held wisdom of sleeping on it when faced with a critical dilemma. Instead of making an on-the-spot decision, we use the period of sleep to separate our emotion from the issue. Sleeping on it is more than allowing ourselves an overnight cooldown period. Science shows that during slumber, instead of powering down like a computer, our minds work to synthesize the information and scenarios we’re wrestling with.
Continue reading “Dream Life, Creativity, Self-knowledge”
Research by neurologists in UCLA proved that when we watch other people engaged in action, neurons associated with the muscle group used by the active party will begin to fire in our own body. The observer’s neurons “mirror” what is observed in others.
I remember watching The Pianist at a crowded theatre in 2002. At the end of the film, Wladyslaw Szpilman portrayed by Adrien Brody, played Chopin’s Grande Polonaise. When the camera closed in tight for an extended shot of his hands moving over the piano keyboard, the same neuron groups firing in the pianist were likewise activated in the theatre patrons. At the end of the film, the audience remained seated and staring at the screen in silence, perhaps emotionally exhausted like me. Throughout the film as we’d witnessed actors’ sorrowful looks or weeping on screen, the same neuron groups associated with these facial expressions were also activated in us. What’s more, our emotional neurons connected to those feelings also spark. Visual and auditory cues kickstart these empathetic neurons.
Continue reading “Mindfully Watching and Listening”