In the Milpitas library, I meet Jennifer every Thursday and Friday and we go through our English lessons. I have been teaching her for more than a year now as part of the library’s volunteer tutor program. This time, we’ve picked up a book on inter-cultural communication and the chapter talks about the importance of self-disclosure when you talk to a person of a different culture.That strikes me as important. Here, in the Bay area, cultures collide and sometimes interact in wonderful ways. Talking directly about what you think and revealing who you are becomes important because people can have preconceived notions based on your ethnic identity. […]
If you don’t get paid for it, is it not work?
In her insightful book When Work Doesn’t Work Anymore – Women, Work and Identity, Elizabeth Perle McKenna talks about how we, as women, don’t assign the same value to “free” time as we do to “waged” time – hours traded for money. “Wendy felt bad about asking her husband to take her son for a few hours on Saturday mornings after she’d been home all week so she could go to exercise class. “He works all week. I feel guilty about doing something for myself.” I ask her if she hired a baby-sitter, would that person be working? “Yes,” she replied. “Then aren’t you working too?” I wondered. “I never thought of it that way,” she replied. “It doesn’t feel like work because I’m not getting paid.” […]
Understanding Hope
Haven’t you always thought of hope as a feeling, a glorious response that rises from deep within? As something that you either have or don’t in a given situation. I had thought so too, and turns out it is another thing about which I was wrong. Research has shown that, shockingly, hope is not an emotion at all. Instead, it’s a cognitive process, a way of thinking. […]
Group Dynamics for Introverts and HSPs
As an introvert, I like interacting with people one on one, am not very good at making small talk and tend to be on the quieter side when I am in a new group of people. Since I am also an HSP, I tend to get over-stimulated easily – so if I’m already stimulated beyond my comfort level, and then have to interact with new people, I tend to get even quieter than usual. But this, as I realized while reading Elaine Aron’s The Highly Sensitive Person, is not a good idea at all. […]
Intuition – Does it Help or Hinder Decisions?
Do you think of yourself as intuitive? Do you wonder why your intuition does not serve you better? Shouldn’t it make your life easier? Shouldn’t it help you figure out the path you are supposed to walk on? In her widely acclaimed book The Highly Sensitive Person, Elaine Aron talks about intuition in a way that answers all these questions. Generally, being highly intuitive is thought to be a gift, a trait that can help us make better choices. […]