Inspiring News Articles
Excerpts of Highly Inspiring News Articles in Major Media
Below are one-paragraph excerpts of highly inspiring news articles from the major media. Links are provided to the original inspiring news articles on their media websites. If any link fails, read this webpage. The most inspiring news articles are listed first. You can also explore the news articles listed by order of the date posted. For an abundance of other highly inspiring material, see our Inspiring Resources page. May these inspiring news articles inspire us to find ever more ways to love and support each other and all around us to be the very best we can be.
Tara Bennett-Goleman and her husband Daniel Goleman form a kind of intellectual dream team—one almost exclusively preoccupied with emotions. In best-selling books like Emotional Intelligence and Social Intelligence, Daniel Goleman has laid out the cognitive science and theories behind our emotions and social interactions. In her work as a psychotherapist and in her best-selling book Emotional Alchemy, Bennett-Goleman has applied those theories to overcoming self-defeating habits of mind and improving our relationships. Now Bennett-Goleman has a new book called Mind Whispering: A New Map to Freedom from Self-Defeating Emotional Habits. In it, she builds on the theory described in Emotional Alchemy to apply mindfulness to overcoming the ingrained emotional habits that can hurt our relationships. I spoke with Bennett-Goleman and Goleman recently. Jill Suttie: What is mind whispering exactly? Tara Bennett-Goleman: Mind whispering is an integration of Eastern and Western psychologies, the neuroscience of habit change, and principles from horse whispering, creating a new map of the emotional mind. It draws on mindfulness, cognitive therapy, and Buddhist psychology to re-pattern self-defeating habits. Daniel Goleman: Mind whispering helps us to identify our modes of being, particularly the ones that are built around self-defeating habits. Unfortunately, many of us get stuck in those. The modes are on a spectrum—there’s a self-defeating range, but then there’s a positive, healthy range. The alternative to being either anxious or avoidant is to be secure, and the research shows that if we’re in the secure base we’re more open, empathic, generous, and compassionate. The secure mode helps us connect with others.
Note: For a treasure trove of great news articles which will inspire you to make a difference, click here.
Brian Munyai has spent nearly all of his 22 years living in a small metal shack that has never had electricity or running water. Conditions like this are typical for the nearly 40,000 people who live in the slums of Kliptown, a district in the largely black township of Soweto, South Africa. In high school, he heard about the Kliptown Youth Program. The after-school program, commonly known as KYP, provided him with intensive tutoring that helped him pass his senior exams and find funding to attend the University of Johannesburg. Stories like this motivate Thulani Madondo, the director and co-founder of KYP. A lifelong Kliptown resident, he has a goal of helping people like Munyai change their lives and their community through education. Right now, Madondo's group provides academic support, meals and after-school activities to 400 children. Every Monday through Thursday at 4 p.m. sharp, students hit the books in the tutoring program. Primary school students are tutored by the program's staff twice a week; on alternate days, professional teachers work with the high school students to prepare them for the matriculation exams required at the end of 12th grade. Books can be borrowed from the program's library -- the only one in the community -- and there are nearly 300 Internet-accessible laptops that were donated through the nonprofit One Laptop Per Child. So far, 21 members, including Munyai, have gone on to a university. [KYP provides] some financial assistance and helps members find ways to finance the rest.
Note: Check out the Kliptown Youth Program website at www.kliptownyouthprogram.org.za and see how to help. For a treasure trove of great news articles which will inspire you to make a difference, click here.
