I choose joy over judgment, creativity over slumbering in the mundane, and kindness over criticism

by Mara Branscombe* Comment from Marie T. Russell, co-publisher of InnerSelf.com: The greatest gift we have received is the gift of choice, or what is also known as free will. We can choose to be kind, or not. We can choose to be loving, or not. It’s always our...

Our world is shaped by how we see it

This blog is taken from one of the chapters in my most recent book, Et ainsi coule la rivière (Thus flows the river, only available in French).  The notion that we live in a welcoming and caring universe is very close to my heart, and at the end of the text...

Divine Love’s Tenderness

The seashell called angel wing is delicate and exquisitely beautiful. One sometimes finds numbers of them on the shore when the tide recedes, their winsome loveliness resting gently on the sand. One wonders why they were not crushed to smithereens in the pounding of...

Say NO to Compassion Fatigue!

There is a great difference between sympathy (from the Greek sym-, with – and pathein-, to suffer, i.e., to suffer with) and compassion. With compassion, one’s heart goes out to others to uplift and console them, strengthen them and express the deepest caring for...

Mindfulness of Love

Buddhist practitioners Peggy Rowe Ward and Larry Ward invite us to engage the breaches of the world with the “mindfulness of love”: The mindfulness tradition calls us home to our true hearts and minds, to the realization of our true identity and our connectedness to...