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Archive for the ‘emotions’ Category

Tools For Mental Health

November 1, 2023

The man who shot many people in Maine last week was described as having had mental illness. Media outlets throw that term about too loosely and in a manner meant to be pejorative. After all, media does not exist to enhance our mental health but to provoke our emotions so that we’ll read or listen more.

Just like my usual advice of reducing news consumption from these sources to a minimum, beware labels these journalists apply.

We all have issues. Sometimes we can deal with them through music or a jacuzzi. Or simply getting outside for a run or walk through nature. Sometimes they become more painful, and we need to talk to someone. Sometimes they are overwhelming enough where a professional counsellor will help us through. Sometimes even further there exist chemical imbalances within us where the only corrective help comes through appropriate pharmaceuticals.

Simply applying a label of mental health or lack thereof is not helpful.

We all need to strive for optimum mental/emotional health. I offer this podcast from Andrew Huberman, PhD. His is in my top three or four that I listen to every week. Sometimes they are interviews, and sometimes he researches and does a deep dive into a topic. In this episode he, well, let Andrew explain it:

In this episode, I provide science-based tools and protocols to improve mood and mental health. These tools represent key takeaways from several recently published research studies, as well as from former Huberman Lab guests Lisa Feldman Barrett, Ph.D., an expert in the science of emotions, and Paul Conti, M.D., a psychiatrist with vast clinical expertise in helping people overcome mental health challenges. I explain the first principles of self-care, which include the “Big 6” core pillars for mood and mental health. Those ensure our physiology is primed for our overall feelings of well-being. Then, I explain science-based tools to directly increase confidence, build a stronger concept of self, better understand our unconscious mind, manage stress and improve our emotional tone and processing. I also explain ways to better process negative emotions and traumas. This episode ought to be of interest to anyone wishing to improve their relationship with themselves and others, elevate their mood and mental health, and better contribute to the world in meaningful ways.

The “Big 6” Pillars

Sleep & Sleep Routine
Light, Sunlight, Dark
Movement
Nutrition
Social Connection
Stress Control; Physiological Sigh

Posted in Awareness, emotions, healing | Leave a Comment »

Be Just a Little Kinder Than Necessary

October 23, 2023

Among my favorite podcasts is Huberman Lab from Professor Andrew Huberman, PhD, professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. Despite this impressive resume, he takes deep dives into topics and conducts interviews in a manner approachable to all of us.

The last episode featured Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett discussing “How to Understand Emotions.” She discusses her research over her career explaining what emotions are and how the brain represents and integrates signals from our body and the environment around us to create our unique emotional states.

From the show notes, “We also discuss actionable tools for how to regulate feelings of uncertainty and tools to better understand the emotional states of others.”

They come together on some practical disciplines that I teach wherever I can:

Eat Real food
Get Good Sleep
Exercise

They conclude with two more essential ingredients for a good life that seem to be in short supply these days. Perhaps we can work these into our daily life practices.

Trust
Kindness

Another excellent podcaster, Tim Ferriss,, has begun concluding his podcast interviews with this phrase:

Be just a little kinder than necessary today.

Excellent advice for life.

Posted in Attitude, emotions, Learning, Physical | Leave a Comment »

Build the Life You Want

September 29, 2023

Arthur C. Brooks teaches a happiness class at Harvard Business School. Students line up to take the class. Probably because the place is filled with people looking for happiness in all the wrong places (to paraphrase a song).

Oprah Winfrey read his bestseller, From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life, contacted him and invited to her home in California. They hit it off and agreed to collaborate on this book just out this month, Build the Life You Want: The Art and Science of Getting Happier.

This book is readable and practical. Much of this I know and practice. Many will not have heard of this research and story. This will help you and/or someone you love.

Let’s begin with “Happiness is not the goal, and unhappiness is not the enemy.”

Philosophers from ancient times have known that happiness is a byproduct of living, not the goal of living. Yet, each generation must learn the lesson anew.

The first chapters discuss managing our emotions.

The four pillars are discussed in detail in the remainder of the book:

Family
Friends
Work
Faith (Find Your Amazing Grace)

I leave you with two takeaways.

Augustine of Hippo (St. Augustine) gave a student three pieces of advice.

The first part is humility; the second, humility; the third, humility; and this I would continue to repeat as often as you might ask direction.

Another takeaway.

We need to detach ourselves and become free of sticky cravings. We honestly examine our attachments. What are yours? Money, power, pleasure, prestige—the distractions we sought to be free of with greater emotional self-management? Dig deeper. Just maybe they are your opinions. The Buddha himself named this attachment and its terrible effects more than twenty-four hundred years ago when he is believed to have said, “This who grasp at perceptions and views go about butting their heads in the world.” More recently the Vietnamese Buddhist sage Thich Naht Hanh wrote in his book Being Peace, “Humankind suffers very much from attachment to views.”

Posted in Attitude, Awareness, emotions, Wisdom | Leave a Comment »

Fighting Hate From Within

May 4, 2023

I may have mentioned before that I’ve been receiving the Pump newsletter from Arnold Schwarzenegger. He sucked me in with the phrase “a positive corner of the Internet.” Don’t know about you, but I could use more positivity.

People who study these things have told us that anger often comes from insecurities and fear. Hate, also, has deep roots within our own emotional construction. Here is a story from Arnold from a recent event.

Last week, I had an event at the Schwarzenegger Institute at USC on fighting the rising hate we’ve seen all over the world. We had a panel about how to communicate to pull people away from a path of hate, and a former neo-Nazi who now helps other extremists out of their movements shared his perspective. Something he shared stuck with me, and I wanted to share it with all of you. Because it is wisdom that can help anyone — not just people who are consumed by hate. He said that the further he got away from his old beliefs, the more he realized that in the days when he carried that hateful flag and shouted racist and anti-Semitic rhetoric, the person he really hated was himself. He believes he was projecting that hate onto other groups because it was a lot harder to turn inward and work on his own insecurities.

Many of us meditate hoping for experiences and visions of the divine. The meditative experience that most influenced me was when I was shown every form of evil and sin revealing that these are all buried within me. The realization that I was capable of all sin (see the first chapters of Paul’s Letter to the Romans for example) provided insights and tools for dealing with that. And the empathy for others who also struggle with that same whether they know it or not. It, by the way, is a life-long struggle. Just like the realization of this man quoted above.

Posted in Attitude, Awareness, emotions | Leave a Comment »

That Point Between Urge and Action

January 17, 2023

There are wonderful pictures in the Proverbs:

Better to meet a she-bear robbed of its cubs than to confront a fool immersed in folly. (Chapter 17)

You are scanning your social media feed. As unlikely as this sounds, you see a post from someone that is completely wrong. Using emotion-laden language, they describe an event totally made up. You feel a surge of righteous emotion, even anger. “I’ll set this right” you say to yourself as you begin to type.

Maybe you’ve forgotten about the she-bear. Maybe you remember what the writer of the Proverbs says shortly thereafter:

The beginning of strife is like letting out water; so stop before the quarrel breaks out.

TS Eliot wrote about the point, the still point, where the dance is. He didn’t mean this, exactly, but it fits. There is a moment between typing the response or speaking to the friend and clicking send or giving voice to the thought.

It is that moment that we must become sensitive to. That still point. There, we must become observers of ourselves. Recognizing that we are about to meet folly with folly, we stop.

We cannot control the genesis of our emotions. We must control the response. That is where awareness and tranquility of mind becomes the most important thing. At that moment, we breathe, we see, we become tranquil and quiet. Let it pass.

Posted in Disciplines, emotions, Wisdom | Leave a Comment »

Raising The Volume of Your Voice

November 18, 2022

When people raise the volume of their voice, one of two emotions are in play. Uncertainty or lying.

People telling the truth speak softly. People with assurance also speak softly.

Perhaps we should tune our ears to ourselves for immediate feedback. We can catch ourselves before being foolish.

Posted in emotions, Listening | Leave a Comment »

On Anger

September 12, 2022

Marcus Aurelius, “How much more harmful are the consequences of anger…than the circumstances that aroused them in us.”

Anger erupted from within me usually when I felt threatened. The source was fear of loss of something–job, status, relationship.

Vitaliy Katsenelsen says in his book Soul in the Game, “The venom generated by anger, when allowed to spill into others, is always followed by regret.”

And yes, even to this day I have deep regret for some outbursts from anger.

John Climacus the abbot of St. Catherine’s at the foot of Mt. Sinai writing in the early 600s said that “anger is an indication of concealed hatred, of grievance nursed. Anger is the wish to harm someone who has provoked you.”

John counsels, “The fist step toward freedom from anger is to keep the lips silent when the heart is stirred; the next, to keep thoughts silent when the soul is upset; the last, to be totally calm when unclean winds are blowing.”

It’s that moment between thought and action when you have an opportunity to take a breath, perhaps count 3, 7, 10, 100. That pause is the freedom–the freedom to choose our best response. It is in breath that silence and calm have the opportunity to prevail.

I have learned this the hard way.

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Lonely People

September 8, 2022

All the lonely people
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong?
Elenor Rigby, Lennon/McCartney

Not being lonely constitutes one path to longevity.

Have you friends? A friend? Someone?

I think of Jesus and how he was at times alone among friends. Have you ever been in a room full of people and still feel alone? Have you called that room a church sometimes?

Maybe a family? I have memories of being a child at home and being alone even with three brothers. My mom probably wished for alone time.

Being alone does not equal being lonely. I like times to be alone. I like times to be with others. I am both extrovert and introvert—like most of us.

But lonely? When that visits, we hope it intends a short stay hotel not an extended stay residence.

I wish I could advise you on being unlonely. If I knew, I’d practice it. Go to a coffee house, see someone and ask a question, I guess. Questions are your friend.

Posted in Attitude, Disciplines, emotions, Friends | Leave a Comment »

That Complex Relationship With Emotions

August 26, 2022

Once when somewhat stressed and flooded with email requests of my time and energy, I responded to one with some extra comments. I don’t remember the exact topic or words or the exact response from the woman who sent the original–someone I’d known for several years–but her response pricked at a sore point. She said something like, “I know how you are…”

That stung. And 15 years later, I still feel it.

And, god bless electronic media. It’s so easy to delete 2/3rds of your response to an email or entire Twitter or Facebook posts!

I am emotional. I try to keep the emotions in check. I hate emotional movies–I tear up.

This thought from Pema Chodron came my way:

“If you open to all your emotions,

to all the people, to all situations,

staying present and trusting,

that trust will take you as far as you can go,

and you will understand all the teachings

anyone has ever taught.”

– Pema Chodron

If you pause to consider this little poem, you’ll find complexity and compassion.

Try “open to” as a key word. And then “trust”.

So much of Jesus’s “blessed’s” that I’ve been pondering lately contain these. Open to God, open to yourself, open to others. Trust God.

I need this. How about you?

Posted in Attitude, emotions, Trust | Leave a Comment »

Personality

August 4, 2022

The woman next door dressed most of the summer in the back yard in very skimpy bikini swim suits. Yet, she did not exude sensuality–that special personality.

A teenage girl talked with me about a career in entertainment. She possessed a marvelous singing voice. Her posture, however, portrayed defeat. I tried to guide the discussion into the areas of self-assurance, personality,

I was a nerd as a teenager with no particular personality until I was almost 30.

Listening to Guy Kawasaki’s podcast interview with Abraham Paskowitz about surfing brought out a key component of personality–that inner joy with being and with doing what you love.

I think Jesus had that characteristic–doing what he was meant to do and enjoying it immensely (well, except for those three days).

The Apostle Paul’s preaching was so bad that once he put a young man to sleep. He was unfortunately sitting in an open second floor window, fell out, died, and had to be revived by Paul–who went on preaching. But he must have exuded that inner joy of doing what he was meant to do.

Having a personality infused with the fruit of the spirit–love, joy, peace, and so forth–shines through the personality. People can tell. We can tell. It’s quite a way to live.

Posted in Attitude, emotions, Living, Spirituality | Leave a Comment »

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