Brocade networks employees, families to healthier lifestyles

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Brocade’s senior direc­tor of com­pen­sa­tion and ben­e­fits Leanne Bernhardt par­tic­i­pates at the company’s fit­ness center.

Last May, so many employ­ees at Brocade Communications Systems Inc. rode their bikes to work that the com­pany had to clear out stor­age space in a garage and imple­ment a “bike valet.”

It was all part of a series of well­ness chal­lenges and con­tests designed to get work­ers — or Brocadians, as they’re called — amped up about becom­ing healthier.

San Jose-based Brocade’s one-year-old employee-wellness effort, dubbed WellFit, is heavy on such chal­lenges. Workers can even set up their own fit­ness com­pe­ti­tions with oth­ers using their mobile phones. That’s no sur­prise for a com­pany in the ultra-competitive net­work­ing space. Brocade, with approx­i­mately 4,600 employ­ees world­wide, includ­ing 2,500 in the Bay Area, posted fourth-quarter rev­enue of $550 mil­lion in November. Read the rest of this entry »

Stillheart Corporate Wellness Initiative on TravelTalkRADIO!

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Debbie Gissoni, President and CEO of Stillheart Institute, and Patty Purpur, Director of the Stanford Health Promotion Network (and a Stillheart Partner), were recently inter­viewed  by Sandy Dhuyvetter, host of TravelTalkRADIO. In the inter­view, they dis­cuss the Stillheart Corporate Wellness Initiative, and how cor­po­ra­tions can get involved to pro­mote hap­pi­ness, well­ness, and healthy lifestyles for their employees.

Click here to lis­ten to the interview!

Transformation Series: Cassie Schindler says: “Be Well!”

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Our new Transformational Video Series high­lights inspi­ra­tional sto­ries of trans­for­ma­tion. In our inagural video, Cassie Schindler, Founder of The Alternate Path, shares the story of how her health –and her life– were trans­formed. Her mes­sage is sim­ple: “Be well!”

Occupy Your Life

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Slowing down and embrac­ing the spa­cious­ness of the un-scheduled moment has been an increas­ingly impor­tant and elu­sive goal over the last few years as I expe­ri­ence too-regular cal­en­dar over­whelm and a daily Sisyphean bat­tle with my in-box.

Thomas Merton artic­u­lates the prob­lem per­fectly in a quote I’ve used here before and will no doubt come back to again:

“The rush and pres­sure of mod­ern life are a form, per­haps the most com­mon form, of innate vio­lence. To allow one­self to be car­ried away by a mul­ti­tude of con­flict­ing con­cerns, to sur­ren­der to too many demands, to com­mit one­self to too many projects, to want to help every­one in every­thing is to suc­cumb to violence.

More than that, it is coop­er­a­tion with vio­lence. The frenzy of the activist neu­tral­izes his work for peace. It destroys her own inner capac­ity for peace. It destroys the fruit­ful­ness of his own work because it kills the root of inner wis­dom which makes work fruitful.”

To begin to redress the vio­lence I’ve been doing to my soul and restore the ten­der roots of my own inner wis­dom, I’ve decided to begin this new year by re-claiming some­thing I’d almost for­got­ten — the weekend.

No small thing as — slowly but def­i­nitely — the week­end seems to have migrated from rest-time to work-time in the pop­u­lar imag­i­na­tion. Turning the tide appears to require a per­sonal dec­la­ra­tion of some kind, a stance against the cul­tural pres­sure to over-work. Therefore, I have ordered home deliv­ery of Sunday’s New York Times and hereby pub­licly pro­claim that I can no longer be relied upon to read email over the week­end.

Yes, you heard that cor­rectly. I’m embark­ing upon a “occupy my life” cam­paign in 2012 that kicks off by fully occu­py­ing my week­ends, so unless we have arranged oth­er­wise, you can pretty-much fig­ure I won’t read any­thing work-related after 5pm Friday until Monday morn­ing. With the accu­mu­la­tion that’s sure to have piled up by then, you may not even get a response til Tuesday!

Even God didn’t work 7 days a week.

Originally posted by Amy Lenzo on www.BeautyDialogues.com

Girl Power Day 2012!

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Our sec­ond Girl Power Event was a fan­tas­tic suc­cess. 100 girls from 10 clubs of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Silicon Valley came to Stillheart Institute for a 2-day retreat. All the girls are mem­bers of the Clubs’ SMART girls pro­gram, which stands for Skills Mastery And Resis­tance Train­ing, and were cho­sen to attend this retreat due to their high par­tic­i­pa­tion and attendance.

Highlights included a talk from their Executive Director, Dana Fraticelli; learn­ing about the rain for­est (in the midst of the rain!); med­i­ta­tion; art projects; Zumba class; time to swim; Q&A with Dr. Susan Anderson; movie night; a group dis­cus­sion on the book all 10 clubs have been read­ing, The House on Mango Street; keynote speaker Teresa Alvarado from the Santa Clara Valley Water District; a nutri­tion talk with Chef Joni Sare; and a panel dis­cus­sion and group activ­ity with mem­bers of Oracle Women’s Leadership. And of course, a slum­ber party! Lots of learn­ing and lots of fun took place as the girls spent time in this won­der­ful setting.

Thanks to our spon­sors, Oracle, Genesys and Down Etc. We are look­ing for­ward to next year’s event and wel­come your sponsorship.

Click here to see more pho­tos of the event!

a nice horizontal line A sanctuary where the body can rest and the soul can reveal itself.

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