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[julia-keleher]

Ways to Cultivate a Spirit of Gratitude

Between work, family, and all of the stresses of life, it is easy to focus  on the things that go wrong. Unfortunately, doing so  can lead to anxiety, depression, and a general dissatisfaction. e. One of the simplest ways to create a new outlook on life is to concentrate on  gratitude. Being grateful, and centering on thankfulness, can put life into perspective and keep your minds in the present. Reaping  the benefits of gratitude requires that thinking and expressing your thanks becomes a way of life. These are some of the best ways to cultivate a spirit of gratitude, which in turn, helps you feel better about life.

Practice Gratitude Through Journaling Research shows the importance of journaling in cultivating a spirit of gratitude to develop a more positive outlook on life. It might be good to bookend the day by journaling first thing in the morning and again before bed. You can simply jot down for what and for whom you  are thankful. Gratitude can include listing not just things but also people and experiences. This ritual serves as a reminder of the good things in life, which can boost any mood.

Meditation Starting a meditation practice that integrates gratitude into an existing routine is another way to cultivate gratitude. Not only does meditation relieve stress on its own, but using that time to focus on gratitude provides an additional bonus. Even a five-minute meditative practice can help center your day around gratitude. By focusing on grateful memories and visualizing positive future outcomes, meditation can help you form  a gratuitous lifestyle.

Gratitude and Conflict Resolution Conflict is an inevitable part of life, but gratitude can foster a positive approach to managing  these situations. Whether conflict arises with a family member, friend, or work colleague, there are ways to center on  gratitude and return to the situation in a more positive, constructive position r. By focusing on gratitude, people can reframe negative situations into something  positive. This is also a way to process the negative emotions that sometimes arise as a result of  conflicts. When we are thankful for our life we are more willing to accept challenges and can anticipate brighter moments. 

Cultivating a spirit of gratitude takes effort, but it is possible for everyone to  incorporate gratitude into their lives. The benefits of the practice of gratitude are enormous. Using these methods can help make  gratitude a way of life. If you practice these methods in your own life on a consistent basis, you will become more skilled at the practice of gratitude, and this ,can greatly benefit your life in the long run.

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For Some, Where You Live Determines Voting Rights

In some states, those with a felony conviction are ineligible to vote. Voting rights are not protected explicitly in the US Constitution, although several Amendments safeguard certain aspects of voting rights.  Whether or not you lose your right to vote is determined by state law.

There is great variation in how states treat the right to vote among citizens who have been convicted of a felony. Such lack of uniformity makes it very difficult for justice-impacted individuals to understand their rights.

Justice-impacted people represent a significant portion of American society. One out of every three Americans has a past criminal conviction. Under current legislation, there are more than 18 million individuals with past convictions who can vote. On the other hand, in 2020, over 5 million people were prohibited from voting in the elections due to laws that disenfranchise citizens.

In addition, there are 2 million Americans currently in correctional institutions across America.  Few states allow prisoners to vote, but few incarcerated individuals  actually cast a ballot. Why? Because many states lack laws that designate prisons as polling locations, facilities lack policies to govern voting procedures, and processes that ensure individuals in prison can access the required forms.

The Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice publishes a guide that can assist the justice-impacted in determining if they can exercise their right to vote. The guide is helpful, but many people do not know that it exists. That’s why issue campaigns and grass roots organizing by organizations like PLAN and ACLU are so important.

The ACLU’s voting rights campaigns educate and mobilize individuals who understand the importance of restoring voting rights,  improving access to the ballot and fighting voter suppression.  These efforts are critically important to ensure that members historically disenfranchised communities know how to exercise their rights.

There are many down-stream effects of low levels of voter turnout in specific subsets of American society.  First, the interests and needs of these individuals and their communities remain unvoiced. Second, some elected officials are missing input from a significant portion of the people they are supposed to represent.   As a result,  the interests and needs of the disenfranchised, who tend to be both poor and minorities, are not reflected in the public policies these elected officials promote.

The negative effects of losing the right to vote, or not knowing if you have the right to vote, go far beyond the limitations in the scope of public policy. Felony disenfranchisement is undemocratic. But beyond that, it’s liked to poor health outcomes and contributes to recidivism.

If you are a justice-impacted person, I encourage you find out if your right to vote has been restored and, if it has not been, what you can do.  If you know justice-impacted individuals, I encourage you to share this post so they can learn more about their right to vote and how it can be restored. If you are an individual who has not been directly impacted by the justice system,  I encourage you to not only exercise your right to vote but also support those running for office who will take bold action to restore the right to vote for your fellow citizens who are justice-impacted.

[julia-keleher]

The Psychological Benefits of Writing

Storytellers are among the most influential artists in the world. Good writers become good storytellers because they learn to express themselves clearly and creatively. The benefits of writing are not reserved for good writers. Writers, good and bad, use writing as a tool to sharpen their minds, improve leadership skills, and find some happiness. Some even use writing to help them deal with past traumas. In short, everyone benefits from writing. 

Understanding Oneself & Sharpening The Mind Generally speaking, writers learn better.. Writers are deep thinkers and aren’t afraid of a little mental exercise. When people think deeply, they find new ways to communicate those thoughts. Writers are good readers and researchers; what they write is often dependent on what they read. Writers are better at communicating because they have spent so much time searching for the proper words to describe their feelings and experiences.  Regardless of why you write, it’s important to be clear about your purpose. 

It iso important to understand oneself as a writer. It can not only help inspire writing ideas in the future, but can help improve one’s ability to create strong writing pieces. Writing is an active process that also fosters your own personal, emotional and intellectual development.Additionally, writing sharpens the mind. This benefit continues even into our more advanced years. Clear writing requires focus. 

Increases Happiness Through Human Connection There are a number of ways that writing can not only help to increase happiness, but can also improve one’s feeling of human connection. Various expressive writing exercises help reduce stress and improve mood and general well-being. Writing out goals helps one stay motivated. Even blogging has psychological benefits. Weekly sessions of writing about their blessings help people maintain a more positive outlook of the future. All these benefits aside,  writing should never be a forced exercise.

Readies Better Leaders Regular writers receive their fair share of criticism, both positive and negative. The positive feedback makes them happy, and the negative feedback makes them better. Not only do they become better writers, but they develop a thick skin. While being a good writer is not a prerequisite for being a good leader, thick skin is necessary. Seen this way, writing is time well invested. 

Past Trauma Studies have shown that writing about past trauma helps people with acceptance. However, this writing should not be done in an unnatural or forced way.  Writing about traumatic experiences in this way can make people more depressed. Many people say that writing about their trauma helps them come to terms with what happened and stop blocking it out. 

There are countless ways that writing can benefit someone. The next time you are getting ready to write something, think about these benefits and how you can build on them. This can not only help with improving your writing skills, but can foster your personal and professional growth.. Remember tomake time for writing efforts, especially if you have personal and professional experiences that lend themselves to interesting topics for others to explore. 

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How To Look For Companies That Support Female Leaders

A great deal of attention has been paid recently to women in leadership, or more accurately, the lack of women in significant leadership positions. While women are certainly stepping into more  key roles, many of these roles do not have broad spans of authority or financial management responsibility. According to a recent study on women in the workplace, the pandemic heavily impacted the opportunities to create an equal workplace. A situation that was not favorable to begin with just got worse. With current trends, it is expected to take another 135 years to close the gender gap. 

Additionally, of the 1.1 million workers that left the workforce in September 2021, an estimated 865,000 were women. Many women still shoulder a disproportionate amount of responsibilities related to childcare and the home. Getting a sense of just how much support women receive in a company can be difficult, so here are three ways to spot companies that genuinely support female leadership. 

Look at the organizational chart and policies When you look at the faces of the senior leadership, what trends can you identify?  Even if there are a few female or BIPOC faces, if the senior leadership is more than 80% male, there’s a good chance this company still has significant work to do in terms of supporting a diverse workforce. You can also review the corporate strategy and look to see if promoting women as leaders is a priority. Accenture has developed an excellent program that focuses on nurturing women leaders. 

Ask for a tour of the office after your interview While many companies are still in a state of flux in terms of work-from-home positions and office attendance, you can tell a lot just by walking through an office. How many women do you see, and where are they located? If women are mostly located in the center spaces of an open office and don’t see any women in the outer offices, there’s a good chance that women aren’t holding senior positions. Similarly, if you walk through an office and it’s all women, it could mean  women are left to hold down the fort and manage administrative and operational details which are less likely to land them in a CEO role. 

Interview them as they interview you If a business or company is interested in cultivating female leadership, they will most likely have at least one woman as part of an interview team. Observe the dynamics between the panel of interviewers.  If only one person interviews you, and that person  happens to be a man, don’t assume that  the company doesn’t support female leadership.  During the interview, consider asking how the company supports female leaders. When listening to the answer, pay attention to the content as much as how the response is delivered. 

Given the recent exodus of women from the workforce, it’s more important than ever that companies consider the degree to which their workplace policies support female employees. Every person in an organization can contribute to more equitable work environments – it starts with demonstrating respect for each person’s individual contribution. Your skill set, not your gender, is what matters. Female professionals might also consider organizing affinity groups to explore ways in which their employer could be more supportive. This is a great starting point to help make long-term changes in a workforce where the gender gap is expected to grow.

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The Importance of Impartial Juries

I hope most Americans don’t learn about the US Constitution, and its Amendments, the way I did. My crash course in understanding my rights as an American citizen began when I was indicted for the first time in July of 2019. For the next 30 months, I struggled to reconcile what I understood my rights to be and the oppressive machine that is America’s criminal justice system.

During pre-trial my attorneys put forth arguments about my right to free speech (1st Amendment), my right to privacy (4th Amendment), and my right to a trial by an impartial jury (6th Amendment).   All those arguments give rise to additional due process concerns (14th Amendment).

In order to protect my right to a trial by an impartial jury, my attorneys filed a Motion to Change Venue, or a request that the case be heard in another venue. According to the US Department of Justice, change of venue is warranted if it is in the “interest of justice” as long as the move does not unduly inconvenience witnesses who will be called to testify.  In our request to change venue, my attornys argued that, if the trial were held in Puerto Rico, it would be exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, to ensure my right to trial by an impartial jury.

Common Concern Concerns about the ability to seat an impartial jury are common in criminal and civil cases.  Ensuring juror impartiality is even more difficult in high profile cases.

Earlier this month, concerns about seating an impartial jury affected the high profile case of the State of New York v. the Trump Corporation. The New York Times reported both prosecution and the defense struggled to find jurors that did not have disqualifying opinions about Mr. Trump. Reasons for juror disqualification include personal history with any of the parties, personal knowledge relevant to the matter, and personal opinions that engender bias. Albeit for different reasons, both the prosecution and the defense desire jurors capable of objectively evaluating facts presented at trial.

The central issue playing out in jury selection:  the public’s perception of, and feelings toward, Donald Trump. The Times reported that one juror said: “Mr. Trump has no morals. He thinks only of himself. I think he’s a criminal. I think he’s done irreparable damage to this country.” By the end of the first day of juror screening, the court determined more than half of the 130 potential jurors were unable to serve.  The only reason the court could identify and dismiss these jurors: they were honest about their ability to be objective.

Jury Trials Are Important The Founding Fathers designed the jury trial to be fundamental to America’s system of checks and balances. Unfortunately, the “check” of a jury trial is not working as intended.  Today, many criminal cases never make it to trial. The trial process has been replaced by plea bargaining and negotiated punishments.  Jury trials are disappearing, and with it, according to the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, Americans’ 6th Amendment protections.

Juries serve as a check on the power of government in several ways. First, they hold the power to convict.  Prosecutors can allege but they cannot render final determinations on citizens’ guilt or innocence. Second, juries engage in an independent assessment of the facts as presented by both sides. Jurors also conduct their own evaluation the parties’ actions in the context of individual rights and legal responsibilities. Finally, they determine if the government met its burden of proof. To convict, no juror can be left with a reasonable doubt.

Equally important to the jury’s role in protecting citizens’ from the unrestrained powers of government, juries also serve as the sole mechanism for ensuring prosecutorial accountability.  Because prosecutors have immunity, prosecutorial error is rarely addressed. Consequentially, there is no negative consequence for prosecutors who bring baseless cases or violate laws during investigations.  If not for juries, citizens would be subject to near tyranny at the hands of all powerful prosecutors. The pervasiveness of the problem is easily seen when data on claims of prosecutorial misconduct are aggregated.

The Duty of Serving on a Jury Despite serving these critical functions, not all Americans agree that serving on a jury is part of being a good citizen. A Pew Research study found that only two-thirds of Americans feel jury duty is a civic responsibility.  The other one-third of respondents said there was little connection between jury duty and good citizenship.

For some Americans, the first question they ask when they receive a jury summons is “How can I get out of it?”.  The most common justifications for not engaging in jury duty: financial inconvenience, disability or medical condition, religious obligation, or caregiver responsibilities. The court often excuses jurors for these reasons. But these justifications do not always apply to every person.  In those instances, data suggest some are willing to lie to get out of jury duty.

Potential jurors go through an initial screening to “qualify” for jury duty.  Attorneys conduct voir dire with the qualified jurors. This process is intended to identify individuals who are unlikely to be able to decide the case fairly. According to expert Jeffery Frederick,  voir dire evaluations of jurors should focus on jurors’ backgrounds, experiences, opinions, beliefs, and values. These five elements define the mental framework through which the juror will interpret the case.

Not surprisingly, there is little agreement about what constitutes an “impartial jury”.  In addition to the five elements Frederick highlights, unconscious bias and privilege can also influence jurors objectivity. To further complicate matters, some experts assert  that inherent bias and the media’s ability to shape public opinion make it impossible to for people to really be objective.

Difficulties of Creating an Impartial Jury The consequences of not seating an impartial jury are significant. First, they may lead to an erroneous conviction and send an innocent person to prison. Unfortunately, this happens all too often. The National Registry of Exonerations includes thousands of individuals who were convicted but later proven innocent.

Convicted defendants can appeal their convictions based on partiality of the jury but success rates are mixed.  In Washington state, a convicted defendant appealed his guilty verdict but the appeals court rejected his assertions. The Appeals Court found that the defendant was “not deprived of her right to an impartial jury even [though] the court’s failed to excuse a juror who may have known the testifying victim”.   Appeals based on allegations that jurors’ racial bias led to an unjustified guilty verdict have been more successful.  In 2016 the Supreme Court held that the trial court must protect defendants from juries that include individuals who rely on racial stereotypes or animus to convict a defendant.

Why Does it Matter Strengthening America’s system of jury trials is one way to protect citizens, restrain the power of the prosecutor, and increase citizens confidence in America’s criminal justice system.

Ensuring Americans have a criminal justice system that they can believe in requires greater understanding of the importance of the jury system, the important roles jurors play and the dangers inherent in failing to safeguard citizens’ right to a trial by an impartial jury.

[julia-keleher]

Understanding The Power Of Your Narrative

Whether they are presented as poetry, spoken word, lyrics, scripts or prose, personal narratives enable people to share their lived experiences with others. Narratives profoundly affect people on an individual and collective basis because they transmit each person’s unique life story. 

Narratives also allow us to see and feel what others have seen and felt. They place us inside another person’s experience and allow us to see the world from a new perspective. Narratives enable us to identify with others and establish shared points of reference.  

Personal narratives also shape culture. They are embraced by many commercial, political, and media enterprises as vehicles that help spread  messages and cultivate emotional connections. With the rise of social media, personal narratives have become powerful tools for defining a cultural landscape. 

The ability to own or define one’s own narratives is extremely important. A recent story by Amy Harmon in the New York Times notes that the language we use to express our narratives has been changing. And it’s important that it does. 

As Rashad Robinson, President of Color of Change explains Harmon’s New York Times piece,”When you’ve been on the margin, being able to claim a language and a narrative and a set of words to express yourself is incredibly important.

There are a few essential elements  necessary for  successful and powerful personal narrative writing. Here are a few elements to keep in mind when crafting your narrative. 

Be selective Assess how your narrative builds intellectual and emotional connections with the audiences through persuasion. Personal stories are more than sharing  a story for the sake of the story. When constructing your narrative, select the most relevant and impactful stories that effectively characterize your  life encounters for the audience. You can create a powerful narrative by being intentional and selective in the stories you tell and how you tell them. Center each story around a key theme that is relevant to the audience. 

Be positive Our realities eventually emanate from our lived experiences. We capture these lived experiences in our personal narratives. The transformation of experiences into words and words into stories can be done in many ways. When you adopt a position of positivity, you can frame challenging experiences as opportunities for growth. Failures need not be recounted as negative experiences. Rather, you can tell stories about difficult moments from a positive perspective. 

Choose your words wisely The words you choose to tell your story will influence your audience’s  emotional and psychological comfort levels. Being intentional about word choice allows you to harness a language’s power. Identify and establish areas where your language could sabotage your relationships with the audience. Avoiding conflict language can also have a tremendously positive effect on an audience.

In addition, be careful not to assume that what works well in one language will work equally as well in another language if written as a direct translation. If writing a narrative that will be published in two languages, consider how a native speaker could advise you about selecting words that are consistent with the focus and goals of your narrative. 

Creating your personal narrative is an important and impactful undertaking. Remember to be selective in which stories you tell, approach the storytelling from a positive framework, and choose your words carefully. 

Language is a vehicle people can use to maintain control over their lived experience and use their life to shape culture and improve society. It is important that your story be told and that you achieve the desired effects with your audience.