Grow Inner Strengths
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.
Accept Dependence
We are hungry for love and need others. Let this truth in. Accepting your inherent dependence brings you into harmony with the way life is.
Accept Difficulty
When things are difficult, we often add a lot of unnecessary frustration, anxiety, and self-criticism by resisting the difficulty of them – often with an underlying attitude of “it shouldn’t be this way.” Find more peace by accepting difficulty instead of getting aggravated by it.
Forgive Yourself
It’s important to acknowledge mistakes and learn from them so they don’t happen again. But most people beat themselves up past that point.
Water Your Fruit Tree
Nourish the things that nourish you. Try to do one thing each day to. “Pass forward” a gift to the person you will be tomorrow . . . and a year from now.
Stay Right When You’re Wronged
Blasting another person with anger is like throwing hot coals with bare hands: both people get burned. Speak calmly and from your heart, even when wronged.
Rest Your Weary Head
Our minds are hauled along in a culture without a speed limit – exceeding the limit, and there is always a price. Pulling out of the mental traffic, it’s an act of freedom and wisdom.
See the Big Picture
The tree or the forest? See the big picture. The vast majority of human acts each day are constructive: making meals, tending to children, saying hello, restraining anger, completing tasks, planting seeds, teaching, healing, nurturing, cooperating
Relax Needless Fear Around Others
People don’t care what you’re doing – you are just a bit player in their own personal drama. Or if they do care, it’s a passing feeling.
Meditate
Meditation is to the mind what aerobic exercise is to the body.
Rest in Center
There is a deeper place that is undisturbed, your center. As you deepen your sense of connection with this core of your being, you’ll be more resilient, happier, and at ease.
Pet the Lizard
The brain is highly integrated, so these three key functions – avoiding, approaching, and attaching – are accomplished by all parts of the brain working together.
Love Freely
Love is in our nature, woven into our DNA. Love is a natural wellspring inside us all. It doesn’t need to be pushed or pumped. It needs to be released.
Let It R.A.I.N.
R.A.I.N. is an acronym developed by Michelle McDonald but adapted a bit by me, to summarize a powerful way to expand self-awareness.
Leave the Red Zone
In a busy life, each day gives you dozens of opportunities to leave the Red zone and move toward Green. Each time you do this, you gradually strengthen the neural substrates of Green, one synapse at a time.