This week Awesome Stories brings you heroes, empathy, dancing, hybrid solar and more forgiveness.

The Forgiveness Challenge

Forgiveness seems to be in the air. Last week, many of you were touched by the Forgiveness Project in Rwanda. Desmond Tutu and the HumanJourney.com want to use forgiveness and the African concept of ubuntu to help more people heal and thrive. Ubuntu means humanity in the sense that only when each of us thrive do we thrive as a human community. Conversely, the suffering of one, affects the suffering of all. Continuing with my journey toward more self compassion, I’ve joined The Forgiveness Challenge.

Eco Hero

Chad Pregracke has dedicated his life to cleaning the Mississippi River and other U.S. waterways. He was recently picked by CNN to be their Hero of the Year. Chad organizes community cleanups across the country through his nonprofit, Living Lands & Waters. I’ve participated in many local clean up efforts. When I moved to Arkansas, I was quite shocked by how much trash I saw along roads, rivers and even in front yards. Lately, I’ve taken to picking up trash when I walk around my neighborhood. Kudos to Chad and his many volunteers who have picked up an estimated 7 Million pounds of trash in the last 15 years!

The Empathy Library

Roman Krznaric is an Australian who is fascinated with empathy. He has recently written a book called Empathy: A Handbook for Revolution and started the Empathy Library. The Empathy Library grew out his own interest in finding and sharing more resources for building empathy in his children. There is a growing body of research showing that simply imagining other’s lives through books and movies, we can develop our capacity for empathy. Roman believes, and I agree, that by developing empathy, we develop our capacity to care, relate, be more human and compassionate.

Dancing Delight

I love to dance, but mostly in my living room these days. Here are two fun dance videos in case you feel the urge to shake it! XD

Boost Your Emotional IQ

This list from Daniel Goleman offers some suggestions and the qualities of High EQ. I’m probably about in the middle. I’m very self-aware and able to self-regulate, but could use some improvement in social and leadership skills. Working and living alone, compounded with the introspective world of writing  helps develop my self awareness, but not my social skills! But, I’m in touch with my mind, heart and feelings and sensitive to other people’s feelings and energies. Crowds can be sensory overload for me, but fun too. How’s your emotional IQ?

Hybrid Solar

There are many variations on solar; passive, active, panels, collectors, distributed and more. This new Aora Tulip System uses solar panels to collect, focus and distribute heat, that is in turn used to run the turbines that generate electricity. The hybrid aspect is using gas to run the turbines when there is no sun to create a continuous supply of electricity. The other advantage is the turbines are run on hot air rather than water, saving 92% water use over a typical steam turbine. This is very important for arid climates and other applications with limited water.

What’s in your heart?

Do you have any lingering blocks to forgiveness like I do? I still have moments of regret, anger and judgement for my poor financial choices that wiped out most of my savings. I’m working on forgiveness to move on. Care to join me?