Bradford Owen

Bradford Owen speaks with us today about his University level course about mindfulness and communication.

When you start meditating, and even after years of having a regular practice, you may notice there’s a lot going on in your mind. All those thoughts, emotions, and in today’s world a constant cacaphony of distracting sensory input. Imagine what it takes to single out a thought, put it into words, then put it into the right words, and speak. And then when you’re on the receiving end, there’s focusing (hopefully), hearing, listening, receiving, and analyzing before you can even begin to check in with yourself about a potential response. And here’s hoping you were able to navigate around just some of the inevitable bias we have as sensory beings. The wonder isn’t that we have the occassional mis-understanding, the wonder is that we communicate successfully at all.

Bradford Owen, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Communication Studies at California State University, San Bernardino, where he teaches film studies, digital video production, and quantitative research methods, and directs the CSUSB London Summer Program. A meditator since beginning a Transcendental Meditation practice more than forty years ago, he completed the University of Massachusetts Medical School Center for Mindfulness requirements which authorize him to teach MBSR in August 2015. He initiated and taught the four-unit course Mindfulness and Communication in Spring quarter 2016. Brad earned a BS in biology at Loyola Marymount University and MBA in Entrepreneurship and MFA in Film Production degrees at the University of Southern California. He founded the L.A.-based production company Profilm in the mid-1980s, through which he produced, directed, and edited more than 40 film and video projects. He returned to USC to earn a Ph.D. in Communication in 2006.

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• Bradford Owen — email

Music for This Episode Courtesy of Rodrigo Rodriguez

The music heard in this podcast is from Rodrigo Rodriguez. You can visit his website to hear more of his music, get the full discography, and view his upcoming tour dates.