In a time of growing polarization and social fragmentation, how can we stay connected across our differences? Join us for a thought-provoking conversation with Joan Blades, founder of Living Room Conversations, as we explore what it takes to build relationships across divides and strengthen the fabric of our communities.

This session marks the launch of Connectors: The Essential Toolkit, a brand new series offered exclusively as part of our brand new Connectors Program. These expert-led talks are designed to give you practical tools to bring compassion deeper into your own life and the lives of those around you.

Together, we’ll explore questions such as:

• What allows people who see the world differently to stay connected?

• How do we cultivate a sense of belonging without demanding conformity?

• What internal capacities help us navigate tension and conflict constructively?

• How can ordinary people actively help heal social fragmentation?

• What to expect: The event will feature a one-hour moderated conversation followed by a 30-minute live Q&A, giving you the opportunity to engage directly with Joan.

Whether you’re deeply involved in community-building or simply looking for ways to navigate daily differences with greater curiosity and compassion, we hope you’ll join us.

Meet Our Speaker

Joan Blades is a co-founder of LivingRoomConversations.org, an open-source effort to rebuild respectful civil discourse across ideological, cultural, and party lines while embracing core-shared values. She is also a co-founder of MomsRising.org and MoveOn.org, and co-author of The Custom-Fit Workplace (2011 Nautilus Book Award winner) and The Motherhood Manifesto (2007 Ernesta Drinker Ballard Book Prize winner). Previously, she was a software entrepreneur and co-founder of Berkeley Systems, known for the Flying Toaster and the game “You Don’t Know Jack.” A mediator and attorney by training, she is a nature lover, artist, and advocate for rebuilding respectful civil discourse.

Register here for this free online event. Please note, this event has been standardized to the Eastern Time Zone.

This session will offer a practical introduction to systems leadership and will encourage you to reflect on your own leadership challenges.

Many of the biggest challenges in health and care don’t sit within one organisation. They arise across teams, services and institutions – shaped by complexity, interdependence and competing priorities.

So, what does it take to lead effectively in that reality?

In this free Lunch and Learn, Senior Consultants Mark Patterson and Matthew Rice will explore what systems leadership is, why it matters, and what it asks of leaders working across health and care.

Drawing on their experience of supporting senior leaders through the Top Manager programme (TMP), The King’s Fund’s longest running leadership programme, they will share practical insights into leading across boundaries, working without direct authority, and staying curious in the face of complexity.

This session will offer a practical introduction to systems leadership and will encourage you to reflect on your own leadership challenges and opportunities. It’s ideal for senior leaders who want to strengthen their ability to work across organisational boundaries and create change in complex environments.

This session will offer a practical introduction to systems leadership and will encourage you to reflect on your own leadership challenges and opportunities. It’s ideal for senior leaders who want to strengthen their ability to work across organisational boundaries and create change in complex environments.

You will learn:

• what systems leadership looks like in practice in health and care

• why it matters when challenges span organisations, teams and services

• how to lead across boundaries when we you don't have direct authority

• why leadership in complex systems is often a collective endeavour and what that means for how you work with others

Register here for this free online event. Please note, this event has been standardized to the Eastern Time Zone.

The defining feature of the primate brain is its social acumen. Humans and other advanced social species continuously navigate diverse social contexts and make decisions shaped by prosocial, antisocial, or other strategic preferences. This talk will present an overview of ongoing research efforts aimed at understanding the neural mechanisms of social decision-making and social interaction. Focusing on the prefrontal–amygdala circuits, we will first examine the neural codes representing decision variables for self and other, as well as the inter-areal coordination that supports social preference. In the context of naturalistic and unstructured social interactions, we will examine how prefrontal–amygdala circuits encode multiple interactive social gaze variables that guide dynamic social attention, and how the prefrontal cortex integrates social evidence gathered from strategic gaze to support cooperative decision-making. Together, these studies help inform basic neural principles of social decision-making and interaction, providing insights into the evolutionary roots of human social cognition.

Speaker: Steve Chang, PhD, Yale University, Department of Psychology

UC San Diego’s Center for Research on Empathy and Compassion proudly presents the Empathy & Compassion Research Speaker Series for Summer 2026.

This free virtual series highlights the impactful and groundbreaking research that Sanford Institute-affiliated faculty and researchers have played an integral role in. This series is designed for anyone with an interest in empathy and compassion in neurobiology and healthcare.

The hosting organization, T. Denny Sanford Institute of Empathy and Compassion, represents an unprecedented blending of two parallel themes: employing the unyielding rigor and tools of science to establish the neurological basis for empathy in the brain to identify the mechanisms that transform compassion from biology to behavior, and experimenting with and developing new ways to teach and instill empathy and compassion in clinicians currently practicing and in the teaching of future generations of health professionals.

Register here for this free online event. Please note, this event has been standardized to the Eastern Time Zone.

In many work contexts, we have learned to treat exhaustion as evidence of seriousness. In academic life, depletion is often worn as proof of rigor. We are all familiar with late nights, an unrelenting service load, and an inbox that never empties. Yet what is coming to be known as the great exhaustion is structural, not personal. Academic environments demand more and more; the burden of grind culture is unequally distributed, and technology accelerates the pressure on both deep work and deep rest. In response, this summer, we introduce a new tradition: an annual online Summer Scholar Uplift: Gathering of POS Scholars dedicated to a blend of learning and connection that promises to sustain us as a POS community. 

This year, we will explore the theme (Re)Ignite: Rigorous Rest as a Source of Resilience in Academic Life. Contrary to prevailing assumptions that rest is an unnecessary luxury or a private indulgence, this gathering embraces rest as a form of personal and community restoration and resistance. Drawing on contributions from a distinguished panel of POS scholars, we will ask how rest becomes a skilled practice and how it also serves as a relational and collective resource that sustains demanding work, restores adaptability, and alleviates distress in challenging environments. Following idea provocations from our panel, we will engage in small group activities, discussion, and interactive learning sessions. Please join us to connect with other POS scholars and explore the provocative idea that rest may be one of our most underused resources for (re)igniting our own resilience and our community’s energy, passion, and capacity for change.

Register here for this free online event. Please note, this event has been standardized to the Eastern Time Zone.

Are the stories you tell yourself helping you thrive - or holding you back?

Each of us sees the world through a lens shaped by our experiences, assumptions and beliefs. This lens quietly influences our everyday life - including our wellbeing, relationships and choices - but most of us rarely stop to question it or realise how much power we have to change it.

At this special event, positive psychology expert Shawn Achor will share insights from his new book The Power of Beliefs and explore how the stories we tell ourselves can either hold us back or help us thrive. Drawing on cutting-edge research, powerful real-life examples and his trademark warmth and humour, Shawn will reveal how our conscious and unconscious beliefs shape the way we experience the world – and what becomes possible within it.

Shawn will introduce the Seven Core Power Beliefs that underpin resilience, connection and purpose - and explain how small shifts in mindset can create meaningful changes in our everyday lives. At a time when many of us feel overwhelmed and disconnected, this event offers a hopeful and practical guide to reclaiming your agency and optimism.

Whether you're seeking greater fulfilment, stronger relationships or simply a more empowering way to navigate life, this conversation will leave you inspired to see yourself and your future differently.

About the speaker

Shawn Achor is a world-renowned expert on positive psychology and human potential. He is the bestselling author of The Happiness Advantage, Big Potential and his latest book The Power of Beliefs. His TED Talk on happiness and success is one of the most viewed of all time, with more than 25 million views. For over two decades, Shawn has worked with organisations and audiences around the world, including Google, NASA, the NBA and the White House, helping people cultivate greater wellbeing, resilience and performance. His work combines rigorous scientific research with humour, storytelling and practical tools that people can apply immediately in their daily lives. Shawn is widely recognised for making complex psychological ideas accessible, engaging and deeply relevant to modern life.

Register here for this free online event. Please note, this event has been standardized to the Eastern Time Zone.

A Place for Connection, Discussion and Restoration with Kathryn Lovewell. Compassion Cafe is a fortnightly, informal meet-up for the whole, global GCC family to come together. In a warm and welcoming atmosphere, you’ll find connection with others, support in your compassion practice and ideas for developing it, wherever you are in your personal journey.

This is a free space to learn, share and simply connect. So if you’ve ever wondered ‘am I knowledgeable enough to take part?’ or ‘do I have enough experience?’, please know that the only requirement to attend these get-togethers is for you to show up!

Register here for this free online event. Please note, this event has been standardized to the Eastern Time Zone.

Come along to this session to find support for compassionate leadership. Christine Mullen, Senior HR Consultant with The City of Edinburgh Council will host this session which will support participants to:

• Explore some current thinking about compassionate leadership.

• Identify some key skills and behaviours that support compassionate leadership.

• Understand why compassionate leadership is important in the workplace today.

• Reflect on why self-compassion is an important component of compassionate leadership

• Have an awareness of some tools and resources to support both compassionate leadership and self-compassion

Register here for this free online event. Please note, this event has been standardized to the Eastern Time Zone.

New to a role? Build trust, lead with confidence, strengthen your team, and navigate your first months with clarity and purpose.

Have you recently been appointed to a new role? Feeling excited – or maybe a little anxious about making the right impression? This session is for you!

The first few months in any new role are crucial. It’s your opportunity to build strong relationships while also showing others who you are, what you stand for, and how you lead. This session will provide practical guidance and steady foundations to help you navigate those early months with clarity, confidence, and purpose.

After the session, participants will be able to:

• Articulate what matters as a leader

• Identify what builds or undermines trust

• How to build a good team around you

• Communicate with confidence and compassion

Register here for this free online event. Please note, this event has been standardized to the Eastern Time Zone.

Improve communication, collaboration & psychological safety with hands-on emotional intelligence tools for real workplace impact.

This interactive 1‑hour taster introduces leaders and professionals to emotionally‑intelligent communication and relational skills that strengthen everyday conversations, collaboration and psychological safety at work. It blends core emotional intelligence ideas with practical coaching‑style tools that participants can immediately apply to one‑to‑ones, team discussions and cross‑organisational meetings.

We will explore how emotional self‑awareness, empathy and presence directly influence confidence, decision‑making and relationships in fast‑paced, high‑pressure environments. This is a practical session, with discussion and practice.

You’ll leave the session with:

· A clearer understanding of how emotional intelligence and relational skills can improve day‑to‑day conversations, collaboration and outcomes.

· Some practical tools and questions you can immediately try out in one‑to‑ones, team meetings and brave conversations.

Register here for this free online event. Please note, this event has been standardized to the Eastern Time Zone.

Prosocial behavior—actions that benefit others—represents one of the most evolutionarily puzzling yet critically important aspects of social life. Unlike other behaviors that primarily serve direct self-interest, prosocial behaviors appear to contradict basic evolutionary principles by directing effort and resources toward helping others, often at one’s own cost. This paradox makes prosocial behavior both fascinating from a scientific perspective and profoundly understudied compared to self-serving behaviors. We investigate the fundamental neural mechanisms underlying prosocial behavior, with a focus on empathy, helping, and cooperation. Using a multidisciplinary approach that integrates behavioral paradigms with genetic, circuit-level, and computational tools, we demonstrate that mice exhibit multiple forms of prosocial behaviors, including comforting, targeted helping behavior, rescue-like behavior, and cooperation. Using these behavioral models, we identify key neural pathways in the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex that specifically encode and control these behaviors. In addition to mechanisms within a single brain, we demonstrate that animals exhibit inter-brain neural correlations between interacting individuals. Beyond biological systems, our research further extends to understanding emergent social behaviors among artificial intelligence systems, identifying fundamental and generalizable features of interacting neural systems present in both biological and artificial agents.
Speaker: Weizhe Hong, PhD, University of California, Los Angeles, Department of Neurobiology, Biochemistry, and Bioengineering

UC San Diego’s Center for Research on Empathy and Compassion proudly presents the Empathy & Compassion Research Speaker Series for Summer 2026.
This free virtual series highlights the impactful and groundbreaking research that Sanford Institute-affiliated faculty and researchers have played an integral role in. This series is designed for anyone with an interest in empathy and compassion in neurobiology and healthcare.
The hosting organization, T. Denny Sanford Institute of Empathy and Compassion, represents an unprecedented blending of two parallel themes: employing the unyielding rigor and tools of science to establish the neurological basis for empathy in the brain to identify the mechanisms that transform compassion from biology to behavior, and experimenting with and developing new ways to teach and instill empathy and compassion in clinicians currently practicing and in the teaching of future generations of health professionals.

Register here for this free online event. Please note, this event has been standardized to the Eastern Time Zone.

Join Rainbow Mind Greater Manchester for a free Pride Month webinar exploring LGBTQIA+ mental health in the workplace.

This 45 minute session introduces practical, compassion focused approaches that help organisations better understand and support LGBTQIA+ wellbeing at work.

Joined by special guests, Adam Imber and Zelah Glasson, and drawing on principles from Compassion Focused Therapy and humanistic practice, the session will explore how minority stress, stigma and workplace culture can impact mental health, and what meaningful inclusion can look like in practice.

This session is ideal for organisations looking to mark Pride Month with thoughtful learning that goes beyond awareness and supports real cultural change.

Register here for this free online event. Please note, this event has been standardized to the Eastern Time Zone.

You can probably feel it.

The uncertainty. The division. The constant stream of headlines. The sense that something important is being asked of all of us, yet many of us aren't quite sure what to do.

Perhaps you've lived through difficult chapters of history before. Or perhaps this is your first time navigating a world that feels so volatile and unsettled. Either way, you're not alone.

While many of us share feelings of helplessness, science reminds us that we also share something far more powerful: our capacity for Connection.

Connection is not simply a comfort. It is one of the strongest predictors of wellbeing, helping us build resilience, navigate adversity, and remember our shared humanity when we need it most.

And if there was ever a time to reconnect with one another, it is now.

We invite you to join us for A Global Moment of Connection with Humin founder and world-renowned neuroscientist Dr. Richie Davidson.

As a founding figure in the study of human emotions, Richie is a leading scientist behind the Healthy Minds Framework and co-creator of the free, award-winning Healthy Minds Program app, which brings wellbeing science to life through the key pillars, including Connection.

On Tuesday, June 16, the 12th anniversary of Humin (formerly Healthy Minds Innovations), we're creating space for 15 minutes to pause, reflect, and reconnect with ourselves, with one another, and for a more connected future.

Please join us for this special global moment and share this invitation with your community.

Register here for this free online event. Please note, this event has been standardized to the Eastern Time Zone.

A Place for Connection, Discussion and Restoration with Kathryn Lovewell. Compassion Cafe is a fortnightly, informal meet-up for the whole, global GCC family to come together. In a warm and welcoming atmosphere, you’ll find connection with others, support in your compassion practice and ideas for developing it, wherever you are in your personal journey.

This is a free space to learn, share and simply connect. So if you’ve ever wondered ‘am I knowledgeable enough to take part?’ or ‘do I have enough experience?’, please know that the only requirement to attend these get-togethers is for you to show up! You don’t have to be a GCC member. And if you just want to listen, that’s totally fine too!

Each meet-up will include some of the following:

• Prompts to encourage some personal reflections

• Practical suggestions and advice for developing your compassion practice

• Free space for those that want to share their thoughts and experiences

• Optional small group spaces for sharing

• Inspiration for putting compassion into action in your personal life, your community and the wider world

Register here for this free online event. Please note, this event has been standardized to the Eastern Time Zone.

Do you ever feel exhausted from just holding everything together?

For many of us, life can feel more like survival than living. Even when things seem okay on the outside, old wounds, stress and emotional patterns can leave us feeling disconnected, overwhelmed or stuck.

At this special event, speaker and educator Paris Bartholomew will explore happiness through a trauma-informed lens – sharing ideas to help you move from surviving to thriving. With warmth, honesty and compassion, Paris will challenge some of the myths around happiness and healing, while offering hope that meaningful change is possible.

Drawing on her own lived experience and years of work supporting others, Paris will explore the impact trauma can have on our minds, bodies and relationships – and why healing often begins when we stop hiding what we’re carrying.

Whether you’re navigating your own healing journey or simply wanting to understand yourself better, this event will offer encouragement, insights and practical ways forward.

Register here for this free online event. Please note, this event has been standardized to the Eastern Time Zone.