Life Advice from Brilliant Minds
We aren’t real enough with others about who we are.
We don’t laugh enough.
We hold on too tight.
We complicate things.
We make too many fear-based decisions.
We constantly defend ourselves, even when we shouldn’t.
Our lives could be so much easier if we would just quiet down our own minds.
Reading: The Untethered Soul.
Artwork by Richard Kirk.
Because I am more prone to incessant worry about future events than I am to anticipating good outcomes, or pleasant surprises, I continue to struggle with my pessimism bias. That is I tend to exaggerate the likelihood that negative things will happen in the future.
This morning, walking back from the gym, I had a thought drop in from the sky. A simple little question just popped into my head. The question I pondered. . .
or better said by Alan Cohen . . .
Here, a cheat sheet to the many cognitive biases that keep us stuck.
Featured image “Open mind” ceramic series by Johnson Tsang
Elizabeth Carlson “I am Falling in Love with My Imperfections“. A poem to learn from.
The more time I spend with the aging and the dying, the more I am beginning to understand what really matters each day.
Their regrets become my wisdom and the important lessons to win tomorrow, while there is still life to be lived. This is the stuff I should’ve learned so long ago and the lessons that should be taught in school.
For so long I made a pact with myself to seek the truth, until I realized, that . . .
There are many realities. There are many versions of what appears obvious. Whatever appears as the unshakeable truth, its exact opposite may also be true in another context. – Amish Tripathi
Embrace the ability to see all things as they are and not as we ‘think’ they are. Reality in all it’s forms, is our friend.
You may think your “story” is boring, ordinary and not worth sharing, but you are wrong. Very wrong. You have some experience with life and someone out there can learn from your mistakes. You hold the power to lift someone up with a single sentence, a lesson learned. Share your lessons with strangers.
To play our roles in life well – whatever the roles are, brother, father, husband, wife, mother, sister, daughter, friend, mentor. . .we simply must be and do that which is right at the moment and do it with patience and kindness.
So listen deeply to friends and enemies. Listen quietly for all the missing words, the things they don’t say. All of it can teach you as well.
And remember, fear not the angry and rageful. To see compassionately how others may be in pain.
Stay soft and available always. Yes, you can train, practice and prepare for the future, but most importantly, be adaptable, flexible and ready to pivot, detour and move on when things aren’t going well.
Sharing our gifts, bringing our best and leaving those we encounter feeling stronger and more inspired after we leave them.
Be emotionally free, while letting go of all resentment and anger. Forgiving all.
Speaking fewer words, owning less of everything, accomplishing more by doing less. Every so often, it is our duty to cleanse our emotional baggage and past hurt. Heal our pain and fix our faulty parts by becoming more self-aware while understanding the genesis of our emotions
Balance out the days with enough sleep time, intimacy time, work & focus time, time in (self-reflection), down time and play time. Live each day as if it was your last.
Remember this, when it all falls apart or there’s a heavy cross to bear and the storm is on the horizon. Learn to adapt and adjust daily.
“Amid a world of noisy, shallow actors it is noble to stand aside and say, ‘I will simply be.”
― Henry David Thoreau
“Follow your inner moonlight; don’t hide the madness.”
― Allen Ginsberg
“The snow goose need not bathe to make itself white. Neither need you do anything but be yourself.”
― Lao Tzu
Dalai Lama
I was seeking the truth about why my words contradicted my actions. Why my good intentions were backfiring. Why I would say “I want to achieve this and I want to achieve that” all day long- but I never really met my goals head on. I got some half-assed results. Whether it was ” I will never let anyone treat me like that again,” as I jumped into bed with my ex or “I’m not eating another piece of fattening bread again,” as I smeared a slab of butter on the dinner roll. Contradicting myself all the time. Oh to be human.
I would set myself up each day for success, at least in in my mind, but by dinner time, I was right back where I started, sometimes even worse off. Self-sabotage. Overpromising too many people, including myself and underdelivering and setting myself up for failure.
It came to the point where I just couldn’t trust myself at all any more. I’d say things to myself like “I’ll start saving money soon,” as I continued to rack up my credit cards at my favorite boutiques, restaurants and cafes.
I’m working on building my trust back. Honestly, how can you trust anyone else if you don’t trust yourself?
Read: 21 Signs You Don’t Trust Yourself
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust: First Part
Trusting Only The Good Parts of Ourselves
Personally, I have found that self-trust starts with self-forgiveness and taking the time to understand why we are so self-deceptive. I took sometime to think back on all the terrible, selfish and thoughtless things I have done to myself and to others throughout my life. Then I read the list. God that was hard. Then I waited a day and thought about more bad things that I did and added to the list. Oh, to take a good look into the guiltiness of it all. It was so damn painful. The crazy thing is – I would write down something I remembered that I did that hurt someone and then I WOULD MAKE AN EXCUSE FOR WHY I DID IT. Really??
The point I am trying to make here is that we can’t just trust some parts of of ourselves. Like the good parts with the good emotions. We have to trust our whole entire being. The good, the bad and the ugly. This starts by not abandoning yourself. You abandon yourself every time you don’t allow yourself to be completely honest, feel badly and sit with some of the pain and sadness you have brought to your own life. Don’t dwell there, just become more aware.
“Self trust is the essence of heroism.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson
“But I think that because they trusted themselves and respected themselves as individuals, because they knew beyond doubt that they were valuable and potentially moral units — because of this they could give God their own courage and dignity and then receive it back. Such things have disappeared perhaps because men do not trust themselves anymore, and when that happens there is nothing left except perhaps to find some strong sure man, even though he may be wrong, and to dangle from his coattails.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden
An important note about why we overthink things. Why we try to forecast the future, figure out what is going to happen next and play out the scenarios before they even happen.
We find comfort there. It gives us power. It can be a good thing.
The addicting mind chatter becomes even more distracting when we have a challenge we can’t solve or when we feel all alone. We wander behind enemy lines (inside our perturbed minds) and begin to overthink it all.
The path to more peace, is to sit with how things really are and examine all the ways you chase for comfort when feeling vulnerable, lonely, frightened and anxious. We become addicts to unnecessary activity and addicted to the discursive thoughts in our mind.
These addictions we have come in all types of forms, some more healthy than others. We become addicted to work, exercise, food, adventure, meditation, yoga, anything to remove us (read: escape) from the painful truth of reality.
Watch: How to Use Drugs by Alain de Bottom.
A drug can be anything that increases an expanded state of consciousness (that is the state or quality of awareness) in which the pain of immediate troubles is lessoned by euphoric recognition of nature and the cosmos.
Kintsugi is the Japanese art of mending broken objects using gold or silver epoxy. The Japanese believe that when something has suffered damage and has history, it becomes more beautiful.
I’ll never forget the first time one of my twin daughters had her heart broken. She was all of 16 and completely devastated. I remember her face as she curled up in my bed, in physical pain, her head in the pillow and eyes swollen with tears, hand on her heart, she said, “Now I know WHY they call this a broken heart,” “It actually feels BROKEN in my body.” Shattered like glass.
After someone breaks up with us, we can feel very, very lonely. Abandoned, rejected, thrown away. What are we do to with this deep seated pain?
I am studying Pema Chodron’s Heart Advice For When Things Fall Apart.
An inspiring tale of self-discovery, I have read The Alchemist.
Next on my reading list. . . .
The Middle Way & The Manual for The Warrior of The Light
I am 1,000 % absofuckinglutely certain that I should be recognized in the Guinness Book of World Records for being the biggest idiot on the planet for repeating the same damn mistakes over and over again for most of my adult life. Life on repeat can be brutal.
Why am I so susceptible to making the same mistakes over and over again? Whether it’s ruining a diet with three glasses of wine, running credit card debt on a bunch of useless stuff I never needed in the first place, trusting a friend who was way less than honest or sacking up with an ex. What possesses me/us to continue to do things that get in the way of what we truly want? Is it fear of the unknown? Fear of what life would be if we didn’t do the things we did on repeat? Maybe. Perhaps it’s a matter of finding the holes. The holes we keep falling into. The mind-numbing, soothing and relaxing way our brain feels after a glass or two or three of wine. Or the familiar, comfortable and easy way it feels to slip right back into the arms of the one you once loved. I need to look at the benefits of my biggest mistakes.
Read: How to be honest with yourself and get more done, for some decent advice on how to avoid repeating the same mistakes.
Harmful Habits & Slipping into Default Mode
When we do something right, a pathway is created in our brain. Unfortunately, a pathway is also created when we something wrong. We basically build habits this way, both good and bad. So the reason we keep making the same mistakes is that we slip by default back into existing neural pathways.
Sometimes I feel like I need a complete rewiring of the brain.
It seems that individuals under “treatment” transcend their primary identification with their bodies and experience ego-free states . . . and return with a new perspective and profound acceptance. Read more in The New Yorker: The Trip Treatment
If you have ever been accused of “overreacting” and you think something is wrong with you because someone told you so, then this 10-minute watch is critical for your growth. Bottom line: Reactions are NATURAL. Overreacting is a warning sign that you have been hurt badly. You have to HEAL that, not shame it away.
Reading, learning and practicing how to meditate to calm my mind, I am focusing on what Buddhists call “maitri”
Maitri – practicing loving kindness and awareness to all your thoughts. Read: When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron. The purpose of meditation is not to find your bliss, but to befriend and let go of all thoughts – the good, the bad and the ugly. To accept them all with loving-kindness, with maitri.
I just don’t have the bandwidth, headspace or patience for anyone right now. That is quite alright in my book. Sometimes we need a little solitude to sort things out. I just wish more people were fluid in silence.
Comment below if you agree and have a great Monday.
