Hardwiring Happiness with Rick Hanson [repost]

Featuring Neuropsychologist, international speaker, and bestselling author of Buddha’s Brain, Just One Thing, and newest book, Hardwiring Happiness, Rick Hanson, Ph.D. Based on Dr. Rick Hanson’s latest book, Hardwiring Happiness, this workshop will present the four simple HEAL steps of taking in the good, which turn passing experiences into lasting neural resources. We’ll explore how to use these methods to lower anxiety and stress, lift mood, grow confidence, calm, and contentment, and fundamentally, hardwire happiness into the brain.

The mind shapes the brain: neurons that fire together, wire together. Positive experiences are the main source of the neural structures underlying positive mood, resilience, feeling loved, the executive functions, and other inner strengths. Unfortunately, most positive experiences are wasted on the brain because it evolved a negativity bias to help our ancestors survive. It’s like Velcro for bad experiences but Teflon for good ones.
You will learn many practical ways to help your clients overcome this negative bias –which is disheartening, flattens learning curves, undermines compliance and progress in treatment, and fosters drop outs or relapsing – and instead draw upon the positive experiences available in both treatment and everyday life to weave strength and happiness into the fabric of their brain and their life.
In addition to teaching general-purpose methods for deliberately internalizing positive experiences – taking in the good – the workshop will explore how to identify and use key resource experiences to soothe and even heal clinical issues related to the three fundamental systems of the brain: Avoiding harms, Approaching Rewards, and Attaching to others. These methods include how to skillfully hold both positive and negative material in awareness so that – “as neurons fire together, they wire together” – the positive factors connect with, dampen, and gradually replace the negative ones.
The program will also cover applications to particular populations and needs, notably trauma, children, and addiction/recovery.

OUTLINE

The Brain, The Mind, & The Mind/Brain System
Perspectives
Self-Directed Neuroplasticity
Your brain: The technical specs
The mind/body brain system-a working model
3 facts about the brain and the mind
Experience: How mental states become neural traits
The power of mindful attention
Self-compassion
The Evolving Brain
3 fundamental motivational systems:
Avoiding
Approaching
Attaching

How the brain pursues in two basic ways:
Homeostatic, refuel-and-repair, sustainable Responsive mode and the Allostatic, fight-or-flight, unhealthy Reactive mode

The Negativity Bias
Why the brain is primed to go Reactive
We learn too much from negative experiences and too little from positive ones
Clinical consequences

Threat Reactivity

Implicit Memory and Inner Resources

Taking in the Good (TIG)
4 steps of taking in the good
Activate and install positive mental states
Help clients notice or create positive experiences
4 ways to use taking in the good with clients, both during and between sessions
How to build up key strengths for depression, addiction, anxiety, trauma, loss and feeling inadequate:
Avoiding systems
Approaching systems
Attaching systems
Applications for couples and children
Skillfully pairing positive and negative material in awareness
Special considerations for children, couples, trauma, and addictions

Use TIG to Heal Emotional Pain

Natural Happiness

OBJECTIVES
Describe two aspects of the relationship between the mind and the brain.
Name three types of inner strengths.
Describe the three ways to engage the mind.
Show clients the four HEAL steps that internalize positive experiences in implicit memory.
List the four ways to use HEAL with clients or patients.
Name our three fundamental motivational systems.

CONFERENCE DETAILS

You can have lasting, true happiness. Even in a life that is hard.

This conference is about how to use the power of everyday experiences to build up important strengths and resources for yourself such as mindfulness, compassion, courage, curiosity, and love.

Join neuropsychologist Rick Hanson as he interviews seven top-tier experts that will help you to learn how to face the brain’s negativity bias, take in the good, and hardwire happiness into your brain.

MEET THE EXPERTS

Mindfulness with Joseph Goldstein

Joseph Goldstein is a cofounder of the Insight Meditation Society (where he is one of the resident guiding teachers) and the Barre Center for Buddhist studies, both in Barre, Massachusetts. He is the author of Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Awakening, A Heart Full of Peace, One Dharma: The Emerging Western Buddhism, Insight Meditation and The Experience of Insight. He has also coauthored books with Sharon Salzberg and Jack Kornfield. Joseph has studied and practiced meditation since 1967 under the guidance of eminent teachers from India, Burma, and Tibet and he leads Insight Meditation retreats around the world.

Resilience with Stephen Porges

Dr. Porges is Professor of Psychiatry at the University of North Carolina. He is Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at the University of Illinois at Chicago where he directed the Brain-Body Center. Dr. Porges is also Professor Emeritus at the University of Maryland where served as Chair of the Department of Human Development and Director of the Institute for Child Study. He has published more than 200 plus reviewed scientific papers across several disciplines including anesthesiology, critical care medicine, ergonomics, exercise physiology, gerontology, neurology, obstetrics, pediatrics, psychiatry, psychology, space medicine, and substance abuse.

Imagination with Todd Kashdan

Todd B. Kashdan, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Psychology at George Mason University. As a scientist, teacher, therapist, husband, father, and twin, he offers a unique perspective on the ingredients for creating and sustaining a a life that matters. Kashdan conducts research on anxiety, positive emotions, purpose in life, mindfulness, gratitude, how personal strengths operate in everyday life, social relationships, self-regulation, and how to foster and sustain happiness and meaning in life. He wrote his first book for a general audience, Curious? Discover the Missing Ingredient to a Fulfilling Life (2009). His second book, Designing Positive Psychology (2011) provides cutting edge science on how to achieve well-being in an uncertain, unpredictable world.

Courage with Marci Shimoff

Marci Shimoff is a #1 NY Times bestselling author, a celebrated transformational leader, and one of the nation's leading experts on happiness, success, and unconditional love. She is the author of the runaway bestsellers Love for No Reason and Happy for No Reason, which offer revolutionary approaches to experiencing deep and lasting love and happiness. These books soared to the top of many national bestseller lists including The New York Times, Amazon, and the Wall Street Journal and have been translated into 31 languages.

Love with Sharon Salzberg

Sharon Salzberg is cofounder of the Insight Meditation Society (IMS) in Barre, Massachusetts. She has played a crucial role in bringing Asian meditation practices to the West. The ancient Buddhist practices of vipassana (mindfulness) and metta (lovingkindness) are the foundations of her work. "Each of us has a genuine capacity for love, forgiveness, wisdom and compassion. Meditation awakens these qualities so that we can discover for ourselves the unique happiness that is our birthright." Her books, Loving Kindness and Real Happiness are international bestsellers.

Confidence with Kristin Neff

Kristin studied communications as an undergraduate at the University of California at Los Angeles (B.A., 1988). She did her graduate work at University of California at Berkeley (Ph.D., 1997), studying moral development with Dr. Elliot Turiel. Her dissertation research was conducted in Mysore, India, where she examined children’s moral reasoning. She then spent two years of post-doctoral study with Dr. Susan Harter at Denver University, studying issues of authenticity and self- concept development. Her current position at the University of Texas at Austin started in 1999, and she was promoted to Associate Professor in 2006.

Contentment with James R. Doty

James Doty, MD, is a Clinical Professor in the Department of Neurosurgery at Stanford University and the Director of the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education as Stanford University School of Medicine. Dr. Doty is also an inventor, entrepreneur and philanthropist having given support to a number of charitable organizations including Children as the Peacemakers, Global Healing and Family and Children Services. These charities support a variety of programs throughout the world including those for HIV/AIDS support, blood banks, medical care in third world countries and peace initiatives. Additionally, he has endowed chairs at major universities including Stanford University and his alma mater, Tulane University.

Hardwiring Happiness: Wrap Up with Rick Hanson

Rick Hanson, Ph.D., is a neuropsychologist and author of Hardwiring Happiness, Buddha’s Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom, and Just One Thing: Developing a Buddha Brain One Simple Practice at a Time. Founder of the Wellspring Institute for Neuroscience and Contemplative Wisdom and an Affiliate of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley, he’s been an invited speaker at Oxford, Stanford, and Harvard, and taught in meditation centers worldwide.

About your host Rick Hanson

Rick Hanson, Ph.D., is a neuropsychologist and author of Hardwiring Happiness, Buddha’s Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom, and Just One Thing: Developing a Buddha Brain One Simple Practice at a Time. Founder of the Wellspring Institute for Neuroscience and Contemplative Wisdom and an Affiliate of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley, he’s been an invited speaker at Oxford, Stanford, and Harvard, and taught in meditation centers worldwide. An authority on self-directed neuroplasticity, Dr. Hanson’s work has been featured on the BBC, NPR, FoxBusiness, Consumer Reports Health, U.S. News and World Report, and O Magazine. He edits the Wise Brain Bulletin, and his weekly e-newsletter – Just One Thing – has over 90,000 subscribers, and also appears on Huffington Post, Psychology Today, and other major websites. He has several audio programs with Sounds True, and his first book was Mother Nurture: A Mother’s Guide to Health in Body, Mind, and Intimate Relationships. A summa cum laude graduate of UCLA, Dr. Hanson is a trustee of Saybrook University. He also served on the board of Spirit Rock Meditation Center for nine years, and was President of the Board of FamilyWorks, a community agency. He began meditating in 1974, trained in several traditions, and leads a weekly meditation gathering in San Rafael, CA. He enjoys rock-climbing and taking a break from emails. He and his wife have two adult children.

also You can look my other last: Self-Improvement-posts