Right Attitudes

Ideas for Impact

Emotions

Don’t Be a Prisoner of the Hurt Done to You

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The Irish philosopher and poet John O’Donohue writes in Eternal Echoes: Celtic Reflections on Our Yearning to Belong (1998,)

Forgiveness is one of the really difficult things in life. The logic of receiving hurt seems to run in the direction of never forgetting either the hurt or the hurter. When you forgive, some deeper, divine generosity takes over. When you can forgive, then you are free. When you cannot forgive, you are a prisoner of the hurt done to you. If you are really disappointed in someone and you become embittered, you become incarcerated inside that feeling. Only the grace of forgiveness can break the straight logic of hurt and embitterment. It gives you a way out, because it places the conflict on a completely different level. In a strange way, it keeps the whole conflict human. You begin to see and understand the conditions, circumstances, or weakness that made the other person act as they did.

Forgiveness - Don't Be a Prisoner of the Hurt Done to You Forgiveness begins with recognizing that the pain wrought upon you by someone else stems from her own deep suffering.

In other words, forgiveness is opening up to the insight that, while you are the victim of another who has caused you some suffering, she herself is also a victim of suffering. A set of circumstances—often beyond your understanding—have influenced her to perpetuate the hurt upon you.

When you adopt this enlightened state, you’re not condoning or justifying aggression, abuse, or violence. Instead, you’re responding with such kindness as to equip you with a substantial emotional breakthrough towards giving up resentment, harsh judgment, and revenge against the person who caused hurt.

Responding with the understanding that suffering stems from suffering can progressively offer you emotional freedom from the second-order suffering that comes from replaying that hurt repeatedly.

Idea for Impact: Forgiveness is for you—not for anyone else. Append your grievance story to remind youself of the heroic choice of realizing that forgiveness was hard—but you found a way to forgive anyway. Holding onto the anger and resentment will, then, no longer carry the same weight on you.

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A Hack to Resist Temptation: The 15-Minute Rule

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A Hack to Resist Temptation: Self-Control is Challenging When you’re faced with a temptation, e.g., when you have a sugar craving, try this 15-Minute Rule: Commit to not giving in for 15 minutes. Take yourself away from the stimulus that led to the temptation.

With any luck, the enticement will wear off. At least it’ll become more manageable to control. If at all possible, wait another 15 minutes.

Increasing your awareness of your temptations and refusing to submit to them impulsively is the key to changing behavior.

Idea for Impact: Self-control in the face of urges and cravings is tricky. Even a simple distraction can break the trance.

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The Best Breathing Exercise for Anxiety

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Deep Diaphragmatic Breathing: The Best Breathing Exercise for Anxiety

Diaphragmatic breathing (also called belly breathing and abdominal breathing) engages the diaphragm—that large, dome-shaped muscle at the base of the lungs, separating the chest cavity from the abdomen.

In Meditation for the Rest of Us (2009,) James Baltzell suggests observing sleeping babies and following their lead: draw air deep through your nose into their lungs, expanding the pulmonary cavity that houses your heart and lungs. The diaphragm moves down and fills your lungs with oxygen. New York-Presbyterian Hospital’s Dr. Chiti Parikh recommends starting out lying down so that the surface beneath can give you feedback on whether you’re breathing back into the back of your body:

Lie on your back, relax your muscles, and place one hand on the chest and the other on the belly. Take long, slow breaths in and out through your nose, and watch your hands as they move. Breathe in for four seconds, and then out for six. Over time, lengthen your exhales. Notice how, with shallow breaths, the chest moves, but with deep breathing, the belly moves too.

Don’t get aggravated as thoughts of worry or anxiety enter the mind. Don’t quell your unquiet mind. Gently acknowledge the thoughts and let your attention slip from them.

Idea for Impact: Learning to breathe deep, focus your attention, and relax is a skill that can help subdue stress and stay calm. Practice this exercise whenever you’re anxious and realize quick, shallow breathing. As with any skill, your ability to anchor your mind in the present moment will improve with practice.

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It’s Not What You See; It’s How You See It

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The Power of Perspective

Try to consider the sunny side of a situation rather than focusing on what’s wrong with it.

If it’s pouring rain, don’t upset yourself over plans hampered or stress about getting drenched. Instead, relish the splendor of landscape under the grey sky, delight in the pattering noise of the rain, and savor how the flowers have their heads as if to rest. Appreciate how rain is the great facilitator of life. And use this as a perfect excuse to curl up with a good book and chill out.

It’s not what you see; it’s how you see it.

Got a demanding new boss? Bring to mind all the things you can learn from her—including what not to do as a manager.

Reframing allows you an expanded view of your reality. You can move your experience from a negative frame to a more hopeful one, filled with opportunities.

How you frame something can change everything. When you change your point of view, the facts of the situation remain the same. But the shift in your emotional tone changes the meaning that you give to the situation.

Idea for Impact: Practice cognitive control. Learn how to put things in perspective.

When something or somebody annoys you, shift your attention. Ask, “What’s right about this? What’s to be appreciated about this?” Imagine the best possible outcomes.

Reframing an event or stimulus changes your emotional response to it—and it helps keep stress in check.

Changing the way you see the world is not a denial. It doesn’t imply naive optimism. Instead, it is the purging of mental pollutants such as dislike and anger—even aggression—that poison the mind and disable you from finding refuge in presence.

In Buddhism, the opposite of pleasure is not pain but delusion.

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Change Your Perspective, Change Your Reactions

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Change Your Perspective, Change Your Reactions From the eighth-century Buddhist philosopher Śāntideva’s Bodhicaryavatara (“Entrance to the Path of Awakening,”) a translation from Stephen Batchelor’s A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life (1979:)

Where would I possibly find enough leather
With which to cover the surface of the earth?
But just leather on the soles of my shoes
Is equivalent to covering the earth with it
 
Likewise it is not possible for me
To restrain the external course of things
But should I restrain this mind of mine
What would be the need to restrain all else?

A powerful reminder that you can’t magically make the whole world and its people run smooth and easy, but you can reorient your heart and mind to change your perspective and endure the bumps that you’ll encounter.

Idea for Impact: If something isn’t to your liking, change your liking or find something else of your liking. The willingness to adjust is perhaps the single most critical human faculty.

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Get Rid of Relationship Clutter

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Get Rid of Relationship Clutter Don’t hold on to relationships that aren’t supportive or beautiful—they’re robbing you of joy and nourishment. They’re exhausting your resources for the relationships that do matter.

Letting go of relationship clutter isn’t about tossing people out like tatty pairs of shoes. It’s about getting reflective if our relationships honor our soul self. Is there respect, love, and a sense of wanting the best for each other?

Find ways to distance yourself from relationships that drain your soul. Don’t burn bridges, though. Don’t hold onto every issue or argument. It’s more gracious—and better for you—just walk away, head held high, mouth shut. You’ll be glad you did it that way.

Idea for Impact: To get rid of clutter is to make room for more supportive and nurturing relationships.

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How to Encourage Yourself During Tough Times

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'Exceptional Personal Highlight Reel' by Daniel Cable (ISBN 1452184259) My biggest takeaway from Daniel M. Cable’s Exceptional: Build Your Personal Highlight Reel and Unlock Your Potential (2020) is maintaining an inventory of reminders of all of the things you’re grateful for: the achievements, accomplishments, things you’re proud of, and events you want to celebrate—even others’ notes of gratitude.

When you’re entranced by ongoing anxieties and unable to find refuge in presence, the negative self-talk becomes your default setting. Unable to focus on what is happening right now, you spiral downward and find yourself in ruts that hold you back from your potential. Reigniting a certain sense of pride within yourself can jolt you into a more optimistic cycle and create real personal change. It can enable you to maintain a stable center no matter what’s going on in your life right now.

Personal Highlight Reel - How to Encourage Yourself During Tough Times Research on the ‘Reflected Best-Self Exercise’ indicates that scanning the “highlight reel” of the best you’ve achieved in your life can help you, as it would a professional athlete, rediscover and reinforce how to repeat past successes. It can energize you to use your strengths even more and give more to others.

Idea for Impact: You make your most significant impact when focusing on what you do best. A personal highlight reel will remind you how others perceive you when you make your best impact and hope you build upon the unique strengths that make you exceptional.

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How Emotional Resilience Improves with Age

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Studies of social and emotional aging have consistently shown that we tend to enjoy a better sense of emotional well-being as we grow older—starting from our late 50s.

The brain slows down, and memory deteriorates with age, so we process information slower. We get better at regulating the instinct to enact annoyance and anger.

As we get older, we tend to have a positive bias. We stop sweating the small stuff, pick our battles wisely, and find it easier to let go of situations we experience as unfavorable, especially with friends and family.

The lessons these studies bear for us all: organize your life’s physical and social aspects to reduce unnecessary stressors. Happiness is indeed a result, not a cause.

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Don’t Suppress Your Emotions

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Buddhism Lessons: Don't Suppress Your Emotions The Buddha taught that emotions are part of being human. Redemption comes solely from knowledge, the root of which lies in the awareness of the reasons for suffering.

Buddhism discourages you from ignoring unpleasant emotions so that you don’t have to experience them.

Acknowledging the way things are—and that they can’t change—may be the most challenging step toward happiness. It’s worth trying because you really can be happy, even when your life looks nothing like you thought it would.

Don’t try to quash your emotions; let yourself feel them. Yes, even the unpleasant ones. This attitude enables you to process them and challenge the dread that you won’t handle them.

Idea for Impact: Acceptance helps you work with the life you have. You can feel contentment in life without berating yourself for not feeling what you think you’re supposed to feel.

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Mindfulness Can Disengage You from Others

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This BBC article warns that mindfulness has a way of stirring people to think of themselves in more independent—not interdependent—terms:

A recent study suggests that, in some contexts, practicing mindfulness really can exaggerate some people’s selfish tendencies. With their increased inward focus, they seem to forget about others and are less willing to help those in need.

To counteract these effects, experts suggest other mindfulness techniques such as “loving-kindness meditation” (deliberately thinking about our sense of connection with others) and “mindful listening” (paying particular attention to another’s descriptions of emotional situations.)

Mindfulness Can Disengage You from Others Mindfulness is an expansive nonjudgmental awareness of one’s experiences. While mindfulness may help you get a deeper understanding of yourself and comprehend “you” and “your mind stuff” deeper, it takes deep listening, sensitivity, and empathy to learn about “others” and “you and others.” As you tune more into yourself, you should become more able to tune into others.

The original practice and philosophy of mindfulness meditation actually consist of many of these other features mentioned in the BBC article. Somehow, those notions have gotten lost in the monetization and industrialization of mindfulness in the West.

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