From the Blog
Writings on Well-Being Dr. Rick Hanson
Being Well Podcast: Resentment, Situationships, and Highly Sensitive People: December Mailbag
Dr. Rick and Forrest open up the mailbag to answer listener questions about resentment, highly sensitive people, situationships, and expanding the window of tolerance.
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Drop Tart Tone
People are more sensitive to tone. To paraphrase the poet Maya Angelou, people will forget what you said, but they’ll remember how you made them feel.
Being Well Podcast: End Self-Punishment: Curiosity, Joy, and Real Growth with Joe Hudson
Forrest is joined by one of the world’s top executive coaches, Joe Hudson, for a conversation focused on how we can reduce self-punishment and live more fulfilling lives by welcoming our emotions and loosening identification with the critical mind.
Talk + Meditation: How to Be Compassionate and Wise: Lessons from the Mahayana
Discover how compassion, wisdom, and skillful action unite to create the awakened heart of the Mahayana path.
Change the Channel
Sometimes when inner practices fail you, it helps to change the channel. A respite or some sort of pleasure will help to refuel you for challenges.
Being Well Podcast: Emotional Regulation: How to Feel Your Feelings Flexibly
Dr. Rick and Forrest explore how emotional regulation helps us feel, manage, and process our emotions with greater skill and ease.
Talk + Meditation: Finding Brightness and Goodness in a Troubled World
Ajahn Nisabho explores how to cleanse the heart like gold—refining virtue, forgiveness, and love amid life’s impurities.
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.
Being Well Podcast: Trauma or Personality, When to Walk Away, and Burnout: October Mailbag
Dr. Rick and Forrest open up the mailbag to answer listener questions about trauma and its impact on personality, boundaries, anger, and burnout.
Talk + Meditation: How to Shift Your Thoughts and Feelings about Others
Discover how to stay kind and grounded — even when others are difficult — with insights from Rick Hanson and the Buddha’s timeless wisdom.
Rest
Encourage your mind to come to rest at least occasionally. Tell the truth to yourself about how much time you actually – other than sleep.
Being Well Podcast: The Psychology of Resentment: Over-Functioning, Repression, and Repair
Dr. Rick and Forrest unpack how resentment – rooted in feeling wronged and powerless – damages relationships, and share ways to move from rumination toward agency, communication, and repair.
![Talk + Meditation: Finding What’s [Reassuringly] Reliable in an Unreliable World](https://rickhanson.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Wednesday-Talks-9.jpg)
Talk + Meditation: Finding What’s [Reassuringly] Reliable in an Unreliable World
Find lasting steadiness in turbulent times by resting in presence, good intentions, love, awareness, nature, and the unconditioned.
Be the Body
The fabric of your mind is woven by your body. Focus on what others communicate, and try to receive that as a valuable offering. Open your mind to the good that is implicit or down deep in the other person.
Being Well Podcast: What if You Aren’t Broken? Carl Rogers and Humanistic Psychology
Dr. Rick and Forrest explore humanistic psychology, the mid-20th century movement that redefined how therapists relate to clients.
Talk + Meditation: Wise Effort in Relationships: Building Bridges, Letting Go, and Opening Up
Discover how “wise effort” can transform relationships—finding balance, letting go, and building bridges of connection with openness and compassion.
See Your Part
Acknowledging one’s own part in a difficult situation is one of the hardest – and I think most honorable – things a person can do.
Being Well Podcast: AI Therapy: Should You Be Concerned? with Dr. Nick Jacobson
Dr. Rick and Forrest are joined by Dr. Nick Jacobson, to explore the risks and opportunities of AI therapy: Can a chatbot be good at therapy?
Talk + Meditation: Wise Effort in Relationships: 3 Blocks to Being a Positive Energizer
Join Diana Hill to learn how to bring your strengths into relationships with wise effort—avoiding old stories, avoidance, and clinging—while nurturing true connection.
Being Well Podcast: How to Have a (Good) Life Crisis: Authenticity, Healthy Discontent, and the Anxiety of Choice
Dr. Rick and Forrest explore how to use a life crisis productively, drawing on developmental stage theories, existential philosophy, literature, personal experience, and Rick’s clinical work.
Talk + Meditation: How to Stay Present Longer
Learn how concentration deepens mindfulness, steadies the mind, and brings peace, clarity, and joy—even amid distractions and emotional turbulence.
Relax, You’ve Arrived
Part of this comes from our biological nature. To survive, animals – including us – have to be goal-directed, leaning into the future. This focus – can get confused and stressful.