29. Olivia Meikle: Gender and Women's Studies at Naropa

06/04/18 • 33 min

It's our mission to grow more awareness of women's issues, women's voices, women's history, women's studies worldwide. We're still so far behind in knowing what we should know about the history of women in the world and their contributions, as well as the lived experiences of women, and the way it informs everything about the way our country operates, the way the world runs now. One can't really teach a gender studies class effectively any way but contemplatively. All of the best practices of contemplative education are what make gender studies unique, and they also make gender studies possible. Approaching this from a lecture standpoint , or from any other standpoint than just really being very aware of your students, being invested in them - not just intellectually but emotionally - is not going to end in success. Students are doing so much hard work, so much hard emotional work. They're breaking into traumas, trying to correct ways of seeing things they've experienced their whole lives. There is going to be serious emotional labor with these students, and Naropa is a wonderful place to do this.

Special Guest: Olivia Meikle.

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Special Guest: Olivia Meikle.

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28. Deborah Bowman: Naropa's Transpersonal Therapy Program

The work of Carl Jung and of Stanislav Grof - as well as many others - have been under an umbrella of "transpersonal psychology," a field that was developed in the '50s as an extension of humanistic psychology. Abraham Maslow first developed humanistic psychology - a framework around many other professionals who were developing that branch of psychology, such as Fritz Perls and Carl Rogers, but Maslow defined the field. However, when Maslow studied individuals who were exceptional, he found that they all described mystical experiences. All of his subjects described experiences beyond the "little self" or the ego that gave them a connection to everything. Experiences where they weren't separate from others, and that helped them to understand that they were either not separate, or that we all share a unitive experience. When Maslow studied these people, he realized that there was a vast new field beyond humanistic psychology that included it, but went well beyond. This is the field of transpersonal psychology, and Naropa's program is among the best in the world.

Special Guest: Deborah Bowman.

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30. Stephanie Yuhas: Approaching Interspiritual Dimensions

Many people are unaware of the interspiritual dimensions of what we offer here at Naropa - the multiple dimensions that we have here. And the fact that a lot of what we've been researching and studying in the last few years is how millennials and Gen Z in particular approach spirituality. This term talked a lot about: "spiritual but not religious," is only the tip of the iceberg - it actually becomes detrimental to look at it that way. If we broaden it out, we find it’s really about interspiritual dimensions. In terms of spirituality, what Wayne Teasdale talks about is an opening of dialogue and a sharing of wisdom among leaders and practitioners of different religious traditions, because people are no longer satisfied with a singular affiliation. People need to be aware of all the possibilities - and young people, in particular, are not willing to say "I am only going down one path."

Special Guest: Stephanie Yuhas.

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