Taming Wildfires - A Vision for the World
Wildfires are raging up and down the West Coast. Eerie confusion of light and dark, day and night, with the sun unable to come out for days. Each year we are told that the fires are "the worst ever" and it gets worse year after year. Across the world, we are seeing the ravages of global warming, which may also be a root cause of COVID-19, which has infected 30 million people and caused a million deaths.
Simultaneously, the wildfires of systemic racism and inequity in social, political and financial structures are spreading across the US, and illuminating the injustice that human beings around the globe have inflicted on their brothers and sisters for hundreds of years, through slavery, genocide, colonization, and more, affecting billions of people and destroying hundreds of millions of lives.
You may wonder how our Dynamic Mindfulness programs involving mindful movement, could make a real difference. People throughout the world have been practicing these techniques for thousands of years. Recently, Professor Adele Diamond, a developmental cognitive neuroscientist, and her colleagues at the University of British Columbia, published the largest and most comprehensive review of techniques that develop higher-order thinking, or Executive Functions.
Youth leads practice at Dynamic Mindfulness training
Executive Functions are critical processes for selective attention, emotion regulation, reasoning, and cognitive flexibility. They improve academic performance, enhance productivity, increase the likelihood of healthy choices, and enhance connectedness and quality of life.
Their compelling conclusion from studying 193 papers published on 179 studies from around the world was:
"Mindfulness practices involving movement yielded the strongest results for improving Executive Functions."
Can you imagine the upstream possibilities of having millions of children and the adults around them improving their Executive Functions by regularly practicing Dynamic Mindfulness?
We believe it would address the root causes of many of our society’s most urgent problems:
Children
would have increased selective
attention. They
would be more
engaged in
academic, social and
emotional learning,
narrowing the
achievement gap
among ALL learners.
Youth
would exercise more self-control and
make healthier life
choices. There would
be less bullying and
fights in schools, and
fewer youth would
enter the school-to-prison
pipeline.
Young Adults
would exhibit stronger cognitive
flexibility and
empathy. They
would appreciate
diverse perspectives
and it would help
reduce conflict, as
they recognize their
essential similarities.
Adults
would have greater
stress resilience
and enhanced
productivity. This
would lead to more
efficiency at work
and home, resulting
in better work-life
balance.
Everyone would feel more connected and have an enhanced quality of life.
This world could be more joyful, peaceful, & sustainable.
Dynamic Mindfulness students at Park Middle School, CA
To learn Dynamic Mindfulness, subscribe to the DMind Mood Shifter or visit our Youtube channel.