For three and a half billion years on earth, the development of all living creatures, plant or animal, happened more or less randomly in response to environmental changes and mutation …
There’s been a lot of research done in the past fifty years on willpower. Willpower is our ability to decide on a course of action and stick to it, and it’s associated with lots of positives like success, self-esteem, and high SAT scores.
But how does willpower play out in the brain? As it turns out, willpower involves a complicated arrangement between our left and right frontal lobes.
Every time I review all this research, I’m reminded how important daily meditation practice–you know, the ten or twenty minutes you can’t seem to consistently find time for–can be for happiness and health.
A lot of fathers are going to hate this, but genetic research has found guys probably get a lot of their intelligence from their X gene, the feminine one. Of …
In this final installment, we look at the weird deal humans have– powers to consider past, present, and future, but also tendencies to worry about past, present, and future. The …
In Part 1 of this series we talked about emotions as ancestral voices guiding us in dealing with the unique world we’re each born into. These ancestral voices are central …
Famous affective neuroscientist Jaak Panksepp said in a 2010 lecture that emotions are ancestral memories, guiding mammals and birds to survive and thrive in a dangerous and delicious world. “Ancestral …
Becky and I live on a street that runs near the top of small ridge right behind the Santa Barbara Mission. Since we moved here we’ve probably walked to the …
Steve and Karen—late thirties and married for nine years—are sitting, facing each other, during their sixth session. Steve says, “Karen never wants me to go surfing, but I love surfing. …
In the last blog we looked mostly at attachment in children. We ended with the hopeful news that secure adults raise secure kids, and all humans are programmed for secure …
World War II was a catastrophe not just for the soldiers killed and traumatized, but also for their families. Millions of children lost parents or were displaced for critical periods …
I’ve written in previous blogs about our five brains (The Life Vessel, the Vagus Nerve, and Transcendent states). We actually have a sixth brain—our shared social brain—that harnesses and harmonizes …
Becky and her friend Stephanie Badaci own Santa Barbara Life Vessel (www.lifevesselsantabarbara.com ), which—among other services like Soul Collage, the EVOX machine, Flower Essences, and Educational Kinesiology—offers sessions in a Life …
“You slept with your high school girlfriend and lied to me! How do I know you won’t cheat again?” Carrie, an attractive woman in her late thirties glares at her …