When I was a principal of an elementary school, I used to meet with individual teachers quite often. Inevitably the question that I would ask them to answer was to identify for me the worst problem that they were having in there class because I knew that if they solved the worst problem everything else …
A few years ago I attended a wonderful physical education conference in Rio de Janeiro. Besides myself and a couple of other people the entire conference participants were Brazilians. The wonderful thing about the conference was that it was highly participatory. We did outdoor problem solving courses, martial arts, and ultimate frisbee to name a …
I just spent more than 30 hours during the weekend as a tournament director for a high school tennis tournament in which 9 schools from all over Southeast Asia participated. At the end of the day there were more than 200 sets played. We began our days at 6:00 AM and finished around 10:00 PM. …
I have met with many people in recent weeks who seem to have the same brutal energy affecting them strongly when they are in the midst of trying to change their lives. They seem to be caught up in the cultural myth that says that if I get enough love, then suddenly my life will …
The other day I was having lunch with some of my Chinese Malaysian colleagues when one of them ask me an interesting question. “Do you believe in standing up for the truth?” one of them asked to me. It seems like such a straightforward kind of question, but it is often more about wisdom than …
I have a theory about parenting based upon much of the work that I have done with dreams that the issues that first children face have a great deal to do with changing the way things are in one’s family, and that the last children’s issue are designed to change the culture around them. I …
Take this “Good” Parent Test to see if you are living up to the expectations of your culture. 1. I believe that it is the first impression that counts the most. Y or N 2. When I go to the playground, I think more about how my children are going to get hurt so I …
Playing badminton in Asia is much more than than setting up the equipment that you bought at a $10 K-Mart special and then hitting the birdie a few times during your family picnic. It is a major sport and is taken quite seriously. The dominant country is the one you would expect, the biggest, China. …
Last night in my sleep I dreamt that I was on a path in an unknown place trying to get somewhere. I don’t quite remember where I was going, but it was a social event. Along the way I ran into an abandoned 5 year old who was drinking beer and begging for money from …
I have to admit that I have been so anxious to write about this subject for a long time. Sometime in the 20th century (it seems so long ago now) it was decided that as a professional you shouldn’t do therapy with a relative or with someone that you are in love with. Who were …
It is June of 1968. I am on my way to the Air Force Academy in Colorado after having just graduated from high school in Inglewood, California. Not long after my arrival I am verbally assaulted by 19-21 year olds, who besides getting mad at me for one unshaved whisker, repeatedly let me know that …
There is a huge belief in the world sort of like a pandemic of human behavior that, no matter what the research says along with hundreds of books continues to exist virtually unchallenged and unabated. That myth is that when someone does something wrong, i.e. when they make a mistake, that it has to be …
I have been working with a couple of people in the past few weeks who have issues about how to deal with the hurtful things that have been said to them. Most people think that they are justified in getting angry and then letting the other person know how bad they feel, but, in my …
Earlier this week I had a dream that goes to the heart of what my blog is all about and what the book I am writing is hoping to communicate that really truly radical change is an evolutionary process of working hard every single day to change my life for the better. In the dream …
During the last week or two I have several challenges in my work about getting photos taken and then downloaded for applications and printing. One of the interesting things that is happening is that the school has a very expensive camera so that events can be recorded and used in the yearbook. Recently, when I …
In Chapter 11 of Dreams for Peace, (see Hastings) Godzilla comes into someone’s house causing panic and huge fear where everyone ends up fleeing for their lives. Some don’t make it. It is easy enough when you are doing the initial dream analysis to see that the dreamer is running away from a perceived fear …
If you have ever walked around with labels like very creative but extremely disorganized, dyslexic, distracted, hyper, or ADD, this little tool may help you out. You first have to realize that most people with such labels organize on the basis of space, not on time. This is a big key. All of the courses …
There used to be a popular notion in the practice of psychology that you could give criticism to a person by separating the behavior that someone is doing from who they are as a whole person. The theory evidently is that by doing this you preserve the person’s self esteem, that is, they won’t feel …
I was very inspired when I read my daughter’s blog about sorting beans with Olee, our grandson the other day. See http://hoogliart.wordpress.com. I think Maria Montessori was one of the first educator’s to see how organization of space really gives children a great deal of freedom to play and explore. Yesterday, I had the great …
First of all it should be clear from my recent post that God, according to the Baha’i Writings, is neither a man nor a woman but transcendent above all names and attributes. However, I am fascinated by the idea that God was once a woman and then became a man. Who is God as a …
When I was in Canada this summer visiting my family in Vancouver including my three wonderful grandchildren, my two daughters introduced me to Facebook, which is an internet based service designed to help people from all over the world to connect with each other. Yesterday something really great happened by using Facebook. I wrote to …
I am not sure if many people have reflected on this question on where God is, so I decided to throw out a few thoughts to share some of my observations. What I have observed is that the location of God seems to move around according to the cultural context. In the Judeo-Christian culture that …
In my last post I was writing about a 5 year old boy whose primary presenting negative emotion is frustration. Frustration is what you feel when you are trying to accomplish something, but you are not making the progress you were hoping. It is different than disappointment which is feeling you get after the experience …
Last week during one of my physical education classes with my 5 year olds I witnessed and incredible act of leadership that left me with a great feeling of hope. I have a young boy in one class whose frustration tolerance on a scale from 1-10 is minus 6 or 7. He has had a …
One of my little addictions is watching war documentaries on various history channels. I have seen a lot of people die on TV. I think it has to do with the fact that I am always trying to do new things that require facing the enemy of tradition. Today, I watched a show about World …
When I first began teaching in 1975 there was a huge counter movement to what I had been studying at one of the most progressive schools of education for that time period, the University of North Dakota. The counter movement was called “Back to Basics” which capitalized on the mistakes of the progressive movements so …
Warning to North Americans and Europeans: This posting may create some negative side effects to your cultural selves. This morning I did something interesting. I actually listened to my own advice. I had invited a few colleagues from other schools to a planning meeting to schedule games and other sports events. The meeting was to …
There were a lot of workshops in the 1970s when I was first introduced to much of the self help literacy about the importance of time management because it was the thinking in those days that how you manage your time has a lot to do with accomplishing what you want in your life. Time …
Last April my wife and traveled to Vietnam. So here I am in the middle of Hanoi about 9 am in the morning faced with the challenge of crossing a busy street with 2 million motorcycles and no traffic lights. This could possibly be a North American’s worst nightmare because in the U.S. pedestrians have …
Isn’t it interesting that we use the word dream both for when we dream of doing something in the future and also for the stories that we receive while we are sleeping? They are not all that different. Many people love the waking dream of flying off to many different countries. When I am flying …
Richard Hastings is an expert in change work and dream work and author of Dreams for Peace. He is a Baha'i and currently lives in Vancouver, BC. Read more...
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