Cultivating Emotional Balance

CULTIVATING EMOTIONAL BALANCE

WITH DR. EVE EKMAN

HOLISTIC EMOTIONS TRAINING

Cultivating Emotional Balance (CEB) is a training program designed to increase happiness within yourself and in relationship to others.

CEB integrates wisdom traditions, contemplative sciences, modern psychology, and scientific emotion research into a secular platform for human transformation.

CEB ORIGINS

In March of 2000, the Dalai Lama met with behavioral scientists, Buddhist monks, and other scholars at the Mind and Life Institute in Dharamsala, India. The meeting focused on destructive emotions and how these emotions become obstacles for everyday life.

One outcome of the meeting was a plan to create accessible, secular training to help people manage their destructive emotions. Dr. Paul Ekman, Dr. Alan Wallace, Dr. Mark Greenberg, Dr. Richard Davidson, and Dr. Eve Ekman were all involved in the early discussions of this training. From these discussions, CEB training was created.

AWARENESS BRINGS CHOICE

Our emotional responses shape our experience of the world. Emotions can feel profoundly enriching and painfully unbearable. Sometimes we may want to hold on to emotions forever, and other times we may want to banish them immediately. Yet for most of us, emotions are beyond our conscious control– we don’t have a choice, they just happen to us.

Or do they? What about people that are looking for a greater understanding of their emotions and greater choice about their emotional responses? The first step towards choice is becoming more aware of and familiar with our emotional experiences. CEB training puts emotional awareness at its core to help participants move closer to a life of choice.

BACKED BY SCIENCE

In a 2011 study that examined the outcomes of emotion training that CEB is based on, researchers found that the training:

  • increased recognition of emotions in others
  • protected trainees from some of the psychophysiological effects of threat-to-self
  • appeared to activate cognitive networks associated with compassion

FOR MORE INFORMATION

For more information about CEB Training, please visit the official CEB website, or contact the master trainer, Dr. Eve Ekman.