Life is a therapist...

I saw a video on YouTube today that evoked a surprisingly strong emotional reaction in me ... so I thought I'd write about it. First, I invite you to watch the video for yourself and consider your own reactions: I felt two things simultaneously as I watched, particularly as the 0:59 mark approached. First, I couldn't help but smile. I felt like laughing out loud. And in fact, that's precisely what I did, several times! . . . And then, I also felt a strong urge to cry. There was a lump in my throat that lingered, even after the video had stopped. What was going on here? As I thought more about my reaction, I realized that I felt like laughing because Matt's dancing just looked so silly and fun. Everyone who joined him seemed genuinely cheerful and happy, smiling and dancing along with him. It individuals from all over the world coming together to participate in an amazing display of -- well -- togetherness.   Then I realized, I felt like crying for exact...

September 1 was unofficially observed as Random Acts of Kindness  day in several countries around the world, including the United States and New Zealand. There are a number of psychological benefits to engaging in acts of kindness. Kindness is correlated with higher levels of subjective happiness, which in turn is correlated with enhanced social relationships, more positive life experiences, lower levels of psychopathology, and increased satisfaction with life in general ( Otake et al., 2006 ). In one study conducted by researchers in Japan, it was hypothesized that becoming more conscious of how many kind acts one performed throughout the day would result in individuals experiencing a greater motivation to continue being kind to others, to identify themselves as kind people, to increase the frequency of future kind behaviours... and to feel a greater sense of happiness. Indeed, when the researchers asked a group of students to count their acts of kindness, their hypothese...