{"id":334,"date":"2011-04-04T11:48:50","date_gmt":"2011-04-04T15:48:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/mindfulnessmatters\/?p=334"},"modified":"2011-06-24T08:28:43","modified_gmt":"2011-06-24T12:28:43","slug":"make-the-impossible-possible-the-heart-opening-work-of-bill-strickland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/2011\/04\/make-the-impossible-possible-the-heart-opening-work-of-bill-strickland.html","title":{"rendered":"Make the Impossible Possible: The Heart Opening Work of Bill Strickland"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I had the privilege, the honor, and the <em>experience <\/em>of hearing Bill Strickland talk. If you don&#8217;t know about Bill, finding out about him just might change your life. He&#8217;s on a mission to save our country from the cancer of poverty. His solution? Heal the cancer with beauty and opportunity. He&#8217;s created environments of opportunities that are beautiful &#8212; architecturally, adorned with art made by students, and orchids grown by inner city moms. These environments are sanctuaries of peace, productivity, and promise.<\/p>\n<p>He is one man making a difference. His talk moved me to tears; a triumph of human spirit, persistence, and ingenuity. Born and raised in inner city Pittsburgh, Bill found salvation from a life on the streets and eventual prison through art &#8212; ceramics specifically. Over the span of his career he has helped countless inner city families restore dignity, productivity, and a horizon of possibility into their lives.<\/p>\n<p>This has been accomplished through art and education. Bill&#8217;s work reminds us that aesthetics are not window dressing in our lives &#8212; art is integral, beauty is integral, our environment is integral. He emphasized there is nothing wrong with kids, only problems in their environments. Put these kids in the right environment and they thrive.<\/p>\n<p>Visit the website for the <a title=\"Manchester Bidwell Corporation\" href=\"http:\/\/www.manchesterbidwell.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">Manchester Bidwell Corporation here <\/a>and get involved.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/96\/2011\/04\/strickland.gif\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-335\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/96\/2011\/04\/strickland.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"170\" height=\"261\" \/><\/a>Read his book, <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bill-strickland.org\/buymaketheimpossiblepossible.html\" target=\"_blank\">Make the Impossible Possible: One Man&#8217;s Crusade to Inspire Others to Dream Bigger and Create the Extraordinary<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Bill is featured in the forthcoming documentary, Waiting for Superman, watch the trailer here:<\/p>\n<iframe title=\"Waiting For Superman | Trailer #1 US (2010)\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/yFN0nf6Hqk0?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I had the privilege, the honor, and the experience of hearing Bill Strickland talk. If you don&#8217;t know about Bill, finding out about him just might change your life. He&#8217;s on a mission to save our country from the cancer of poverty. His solution? Heal the cancer with beauty and opportunity. He&#8217;s created environments of&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":268,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,7,14,10],"tags":[25,22,27,29,24,23,26,28],"class_list":["post-334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-shelf","category-metaphors-for-mindfulness","category-recommended","category-spider-mind-world-of-interconnections","tag-art","tag-bill-strickland","tag-education","tag-healing-the-cancer-of-poverty","tag-make-the-impossible-possible","tag-manchester-bidwell-corporation","tag-poverty","tag-waiting-for-superman"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Make the Impossible Possible: The Heart Opening Work of Bill Strickland - Mindfulness Matters<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/2011\/04\/make-the-impossible-possible-the-heart-opening-work-of-bill-strickland.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Make the Impossible Possible: The Heart Opening Work of Bill Strickland - Mindfulness Matters\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I had the privilege, the honor, and the experience of hearing Bill Strickland talk. If you don&#8217;t know about Bill, finding out about him just might change your life. He&#8217;s on a mission to save our country from the cancer of poverty. His solution? Heal the cancer with beauty and opportunity. He&#8217;s created environments of&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/2011\/04\/make-the-impossible-possible-the-heart-opening-work-of-bill-strickland.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Mindfulness Matters\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-04-04T15:48:50+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2011-06-24T12:28:43+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/mindfulnessmatters\/files\/2011\/04\/strickland.gif\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Dr. Arnie Kozak\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Make the Impossible Possible: The Heart Opening Work of Bill Strickland - Mindfulness Matters","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/2011\/04\/make-the-impossible-possible-the-heart-opening-work-of-bill-strickland.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Make the Impossible Possible: The Heart Opening Work of Bill Strickland - Mindfulness Matters","og_description":"I had the privilege, the honor, and the experience of hearing Bill Strickland talk. If you don&#8217;t know about Bill, finding out about him just might change your life. He&#8217;s on a mission to save our country from the cancer of poverty. His solution? Heal the cancer with beauty and opportunity. 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Dr. Kozak's ability to translate ancient healing traditions into pragmatic applications suitable for modern lifestyles through the use of metaphors have made him a strong voice in healthcare and business. Beginning with a journey to India in the 80\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s where he took the Bodhisattva vows from His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Arnie Dr. Kozak began his lifelong practice in mindfulness meditation. Intent on finding a way to bring the practical healing attributes of mindfulness he began incorporating these techniques in his private practice. In 2002 Dr. Kozak created Exquisite Mind in Burlington, Vermont as a vehicle that could expand his wisdom to larger audiences beyond individual psychotherapy to professionals and corporations, health care providers, public groups and, most recently with Exquisite Mind Golf, amateur and professional golfers. His award-winning new book, Wild Chickens and Petty Tyrants: 108 Metaphors for Mindfulness (Wisdom Publications, 2009) is a thoughtful, funny, and inspiring translation of mindfulness practice through the inventive use of metaphor applicable to our daily lives. In addition to his work with Exquisite Mind, Arnie Kozak, Ph.D., Licensed Psychologist\u00e2\u20ac\u201dDoctorate has been a Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Vermont and is a Clinical Instructor in Psychiatry and Medicine, University of Vermont College of Medicine. He has studied and practiced clinical psychology, meditation, and yoga for more than 25 years. He has studied with several meditation masters, including S. N. Goenka, Larry Rosenberg, Gurumayi Chidvilasananda, and His Holiness the Dalai Lama. After receiving his bachelors degree with honors from Tufts University, he was awarded a Presidential Fellowship to get his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University at Buffalo. He completed his training as a Psychological Fellow at the Harvard Medical School. Prior to founding the Exquisite Mind in 2002, Arnie worked ten years in the private sector for the PKC Corporation consulting on mental health content for this revolutionary software company.","sameAs":["http:\/\/exquisitemind.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/author\/akozak"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/268"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=334"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":342,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334\/revisions\/342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}