In every moment, you and I and everyone and everything else – from quantum foam to fleeting thoughts, intimate relationships, rainforest ecosystems, and the stars themselves – are each a kind of standing wave, like the ever-changing through a persistent pattern of water rising above a boulder in ... Views:151
Research shows that relationships are built from interactions, and interactions are built from moments. A critical moment in an interaction is when one person wants something from the other one. ("Wants" include wishes, needs, desires, hopes, and longings.) The want could be simple and concrete, ... Views:286
As the nervous system evolved, your brain developed in three stages:
Reptile - Brainstem, focused on avoiding harm
Mammal - Limbic system, focused on approaching rewards
Primate - Cortex, focused on attaching to "us"
Since the brain is integrated, avoiding, approaching, and attaching ... Views:882
We all have issues - including demands upon us, stresses, illnesses, losses, vulnerabilities, and pain. (As Alan Watts put it: "Life is wiggly.") Of course, many of our issues - in the broad sense I'm using the word here - are related to important sources of fulfillment, such as starting a ... Views:285
I've hiked a lot and have often had to depend on what was in my pack. Inner strengths are the supplies you've got in your pack as you make your way down the twisting and often hard road of life. They include a positive mood, common sense, integrity, inner peace, determination, and a warm heart. ... Views:289
Compassion is essentially the wish that beings do not suffer - from subtle physical and emotional discomfort to agony and anguish - combined with feelings of sympathetic concern.
You could have compassion for an individual (a friend in the hospital, a co-worker passed over for a promotion), ... Views:209
Getting caught up in wanting - wanting both to get what's pleasant and to avoid what's unpleasant - is a major source of suffering and harm for oneself and others.
First, a lot of what we want to get comes with a big price tag - such as that second cupcake, constant stimulation via TV and ... Views:145
In my early 20's, I went through Rolfing, a form of deep-tissue bodywork, and I nervously anticipated the 5th session, the one that goes deep into the belly. But instead of gobs of repressed emotional pain, what poured out was love - waves and waves of love that I'd pushed down due to ... Views:815
When our kids were little, I'd come home from work wanting some peace after the daily roller-coaster and often walk into a living room full of stuff - toy trucks, tennis shoes, bags of chips, etc. Irritated, the first words out of my mouth to my wife would be: "How come there's all this mess?" ... Views:813
To simplify a complex process spanning 600 million years, your brain developed in ways that are loosely related to three major stages of vertebrate evolution:
Reptile - Brainstem, focused on avoiding harms
Mammal - Subcortex, focused on approaching rewards
Primate/human – Neocortex, ... Views:145
Sometimes things are difficult. Your legs are tired and you still have to stay on your feet another hour at work. You love a child who's finding her independence through emotional distance from you. A long-term relationship could be losing its spark. It's finals week in college. You're trying to ... Views:828
One time I watched a three-year-old at her birthday party. Her friends were there from preschool, and she received lots of presents. The cake came out, she admired the pink frosting rose at its center, and everyone sang. One of the moms cut pieces and without thinking sliced right through the ... Views:781
Things come at us with so much urgency and demand these days. Phones ring, texts buzz, emails pile up, new balls have to be juggled, work days lengthen and move into evenings and weekends, traffic gets denser, financial demands feel like a knife at the neck, ads and news clamor for attention, ... Views:825
Life is full of tradeoffs between benefits and costs.
Sometimes, the benefits are worth the costs. For example, the rewards of going for a run - getting out in fresh air, improving health, etc. - are, for me at least, worth the costs of losing half an hour of work time while gaining a pair of ... Views:740
One slice of the pie of life feels relaxed and contented. And then there is that other slice, in which we feel driven and stressed. Trying to get pleasures, avoid pains, pile up accomplishments and recognitions, be loved by more people. Lose more weight, try to fill the hole in the heart. Slake ... Views:1143
Moment to moment, the flows of thoughts and feelings, sensations and desires, and conscious and unconscious processes sculpt your nervous system like water gradually carving furrows and eventually gullies on a hillside. Your brain is continually changing its structure. The only question is: Is ... Views:887
I had a lightbulb moment recently: I was feeling stressed about all the stuff I had to do (you probably know the feeling). After this went on for a while, I stepped back and kind of watched my mind, and could see that I was thinking of these various tasks as things, like big rocks that were ... Views:869
Have you heard this saying?
The most important thing
is to remember the most important thing.
What are the most important things to you? In your life as a whole? During a particular interaction with someone? Right, this minute?
The most important things often get pushed to the sidelines. ... Views:171
I usually describe a practice as something to do: get on your own side, see the being behind the eyes, take in the good, etc. This practice is different: it's something to recognize. From this recognition, appropriate action will follow. Let me explain.
Some years ago, I was invited to give a ... Views:243
For many of us, perhaps the hardest thing of all is to believe that "I am a good person." We can climb mountains, work hard, acquire many skills, and act ethically - but truly feel that one is good deep down? Nah!
We end up not feeling like a good person in a number of ways. For example, I ... Views:98
Waking up is like the sun rising. At first, it's mostly dark, as glimmers of consciousness begin to light the shadows. Emerging into full wakefulness, the fogs and veils dissolve and the whole plain of your mind comes into view. It's quiet: a restiveness in the body, sleepy still, not yet much ... Views:328
I was recently asked about my top five inner practices for 2019, and here they are:
Drop the stone
Let it flow
Learn as you go
“Us” all “thems”
Be amazed
By “learn as you go,” I mean that each day is an opportunity to take in the good: to help useful or enjoyable experiences ... Views:228
There I was recently, my mind darting in different directions about projects in process, frazzled about little tasks backing up, uneasy about a tax record from 2010 we couldn’t find, feeling irritated about being irritable, hurrying to get to work, body keyed up, internal sense of pressure. Not ... Views:83
I think there are five key things we can do inside ourselves to be happier, stronger, wiser, and more loving this year:
Drop the stone
Let it flow
Learn as you go
“Us” all “thems”
Be Amazed
My previous JOT explored the first of these: how to lay down the burdens of useless ... Views:272
Most people, me included, are holding onto at least one thing way past its expiration date.
It could be a belief, perhaps that your hair is falling out and you are ugly and unlovable as a result, that you can’t say what you really feel in an intimate relationship, or that you must lose ... Views:44
When you're young, the territory of the psyche is like a vast estate, with rolling hills, forests and plains, swamps, and meadows. So many things can be experienced, expressed, wanted, and loved.
But as life goes along, most people pull back from major parts of their psyche. Perhaps a ... Views:25
The fifth of my personal Top 5 practices (all tied for first place) is open out, by which I mean relaxing into a growing sense of connection, even oneness, with all things.
"Opening out" can sound kind of airy-fairy or flakey, but I mean it is very down-to-earth ways; check out these JOTs ... Views:276
On the path of life, most of us are hauling way too much weight.
What's in your own backpack? If you're like most of us, you've got too many items on each day's To-Do list and too much stuff in the closet. Too many entanglements with other people. And too many "shoulds," worries, guilts, and ... Views:162
Feeling both the world and myself these days, one phrase keeps calling: lived by love.
Explicitly, this means coming from love in a broad sense, from compassion, good intentions, self-control, warmth, finding what’s to like, caring, connecting, and kindness.
Implicitly, and more ... Views:377
Your brain evolved in three stages (to simplify a complex process):
Reptile - Brainstem, focused on avoiding harm
Mammal - Limbic system, focused on approaching rewards
Primate - Cortex, focused on attaching to "us"
The first JOT in this series - pet the lizard - was about how to ... Views:801
In my early 20's, I went through Rolfing, a form of deep-tissue bodywork, and I nervously anticipated the 5th session, the one that goes deep into the belly. But instead of gobs of repressed emotional pain, what poured out was love - waves, and waves of love that I'd pushed down due to ... Views:290
Sometimes something happens. Perhaps your sweet old cat takes a turn for the worse, or there’s a money problem, or your son waves goodbye as he gets on a plane to start college on the other side of the country. Sometimes it’s on a larger scale: maybe there’s been an election, and you’re ... Views:255
To simplify and summarize, our brain has three primary motivational systems – Avoiding harm, Approaching rewards, and Attaching to “us” – that draw on many neural networks to accomplish their goals.
Lately, I’ve started to realize that a fourth fundamental human motivational system could be ... Views:120
Because this practice could seem so abstract or so obvious that it’s not worth doing, I am going to take longer than usual to explain why it’s so important.
As I grew up, my family and schools felt like shaky ground. I didn’t understand why my parents and many kids reacted the way they did, ... Views:212
This practice might sound extreme or pushy, and I want to tell you what I mean by it.
Everyone has lots of neighbors, and they come in many shapes and sizes. Obviously, the people living across the street are neighbors, but in some sense, so are the people you live with. Friends, relatives, ... Views:241
Things come at us with so much urgency and demand these days. Phones ring, texts buzz, emails pile up, new balls have to be juggled, work days lengthen and move into evenings and weekends, traffic gets denser, financial demands feel like a knife at the neck, ads and news clamor for attention, ... Views:129
[Note: This is adapted from Mother Nurture – a book written for mothers – focusing on typical situations that are experienced by many, though not all, mothers during the years before their children enter grade school. These are most commonly the years when mothers (biological and adoptive) ... Views:288
Life is full of tradeoffs between benefits and costs.
Sometimes, the benefits are worth the costs. For example, the rewards of going for a run - getting out in fresh air, improving health, etc. - are, for me, at least, worth the costs of losing half an hour of work time while gaining a pair ... Views:160
One of the strangest and most meaningful experiences of my life occurred when I went through Rolfing (ten brilliant sessions of deep-tissue bodywork) in my early 20's. The fifth session works on the stomach area, and I was anticipating (= dreading) the release of buried sadness. Instead, there ... Views:92
Meditation is to the mind what aerobic exercise is to the body. Like exercise, there are many good ways to do it, and you can find the one that suits you best.
Studies have shown that regular meditation promotes mindfulness (sustained observing awareness), whose benefits include decreased ... Views:330
Painful experiences range from subtle discomfort to extreme anguish - and there is a place for them. Sorrow can open the heart, anger can highlight injustices, fear can alert you to real threats, and remorse can help you take the high road next time.
But is there really any shortage of ... Views:173
I did my Ph.D. dissertation by videotaping 20 mother-toddler pairs and analyzing what happened when the mom offered an alternative to a problematic want ("not the chainsaw, sweetie, how about this red truck"). Hundreds of bleary eyed hours later, I found that offering alternatives reduced child ... Views:773
[If for you the breath is associated with trauma and discomfort, you probably shouldn't try this practice in its form below. But you might adapt it to something that is more nurturing for you, such as a saying or image.]
Breathing brings you home. Body and mind twine together in the breath. ... Views:288
By "sobriety," I mean healthy self-control, a centered enjoyment of life, and an inner freedom from drivenness. We typically apply this sense of balance and self-care to things like food, drugs and alcohol, sexuality, money, and risky behaviors. And if you like, you could bring sobriety to other ... Views:802
(Note: This is adapted from Mother Nurture, a book written for mothers - focusing on typical parenting situations and gender differences that are experienced by many, though not all, mothers and fathers, and by parents in same-sex relationships. Parenting is a complex subject, plus it ... Views:236
From moment to moment, the flows of thoughts and feelings, sensations and desires, and conscious and unconscious processes sculpt your nervous system like water, gradually carving furrows and eventually gullies on a hillside. Your brain is continually changing its structure. The only question ... Views:87
I've always liked lizards.
Growing up in the outskirts of Los Angeles, I played in the foothills near our home. Sometimes I'd catch a lizard and stroke its belly, so it would relax in my hands, seeming to feel at ease.
In my early 20's, I found a lizard one chilly morning in the mountains. ... Views:143
We all know people who are, ah, . . . challenging. It could be a critical parent, a bossy supervisor, a relative who have you walking on eggshells, a nice but flaky friend, a co-worker who just doesn't like you, a partner who won't keep his or her agreements, or a politician you dislike. Right ... Views:171
[Note: this practice involves our visual system, which for many people is impaired. If this is the case for you, you could adapt my suggestions to focus on the voices of others or a sense of their “energy.”]
As our ancestors evolved over millions of years in small bands, continually ... Views:167
Life gives to each one of us in so many ways.
For starters, there’s the bounty of the senses – including chocolate chip cookies, jasmine, sunsets, wind singing through pine trees, and just getting your back scratched.
What does life give you?
Consider the kindness of friends and family, ... Views:150