Mindfulness

The beginning of the year is a good time to reflect and refocus.

New Voices Fellow Sisonke Msimang took the stage in New York City to tell a story about the merits of sitting still.

Hawn detailed her revolutionary MindUP program, a social and emotional literacy curriculum that serves over 400,000 children in schools across the United States and internationally.

Mindlessness is a pervasive issue we all experience, according to social psychologist and Harvard University professor Ellen Langer. “Virtually all of us, almost all of the time, are not there,” she said at the Aspen Institute in Aspen, CO. And, she said, this matters because “all of our suffering — personal, interpersonal, societal — is a function, directly or indirectly, of this mindlessness.”