From the Blog
Writings on Well-Being Dr. Rick Hanson
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.
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Talk + Meditation: Getting Better At Pleasure! A Taxonomy of the Many Buddhist Joys
Discover the Buddha’s 5 kinds of happiness—from fleeting pleasures to lasting peace—and learn why some joys burn out while others bring freedom.
Make The Offering
Try considering your contributions as offerings, particularly the little things. Listen to your heart for offerings calling to be expressed. Maybe it’s the offering of never speaking out of anger, or really starting that novel, or determining to give love each day.
Being Well Podcast: Limerence: The Psychology of Romantic Obsession with Brandy Wyant
Forrest and therapist Brandy Wyant discuss limerence, an intense and often one-sided state of romantic obsession.
Talk + Meditation: How to Face Challenges without Suffering
Learn how to meet life’s challenges with strength and clarity—reducing stress, letting go of struggle, and finding peace even in hard times.
Meditate
Meditation is to the mind what aerobic exercise is to the body.
Being Well Podcast: Mingyur Rinpoche: A Meditation Master on Anxiety, Awareness, and Awakening
Dr. Rick and Forrest are joined by Mingyur Rinpoche, a renowned Tibetan Buddhist teacher, to explore calming anxiety with awareness, relaxing unhealthy wanting, and finding a deeper sense of our innate goodness.
Talk + Meditation: The Power of One Connection
Sometimes one compassionate glance or word can change everything. Discover the power of connection with Lakiba Pittman.
Put No One Out of Your Heart
It may feel necessary to distance yourself from another person for a while or forever but you never have to put anyone out of your heart.
Being Well Podcast: 9 Lessons from the Great Minds of Psychoanalysis
Dr. Rick and Forrest explore the evolution of psychoanalysis after Freud, highlighting key ideas from figures like Adler, Klein, Winnicott, and Hillman.
Talk + Meditation: Why We Suffer—and How to Stop Adding to the Pain
Learn how to face life’s changes and challenges without adding extra suffering, using Buddhist wisdom and practical tools for inner peace.
Lower the Pressure
The pressure activates motivational circuits but has inherent collateral damage. Pressure activates ancient motivational circuits that were very effective in keeping our ancestors alive but even at best, there is an inherent collateral damage.
Being Well Podcast: Reclaiming Anger: Trauma, Repression, and Healthy Protest with Elizabeth Ferreira
Forrest and associate therapist Elizabeth Ferreira talk about healthy (and unhealthy) anger.
Talk + Meditation: How to Feel Lived by Love
Discover how to feel supported by life and “lived by love.” Shift from striving to receptivity, deepen trust, and bring compassion into every moment.
Lived By Love
Encourage love in all its forms to flow through you. Implicitly, and more fundamentally, this practice means a relaxed opening into the love – in a very very broad sense – that is the actual nature of everything.
Being Well Podcast: Psychoanalysis: Therapy’s Controversial Origins
Dr. Rick and Forrest explore the ideas, context, and legacy of psychoanalysis, the often-controversial origin point for modern therapy.
Talk + Meditation: Compassion, Kindness, Joy, and Equanimity
How to balance effort and letting go in meditation and life. Explore compassion, joy, equanimity, and inner peace with Dr. Rick Hanson.
Hug the Monkey
Hug the monkey inside yourself helps satisfy an innate human need for connection can remedy old pain and provides that fundamental human sustenance: love.
Being Well Podcast: Is Self-Help Making You Miserable?
Dr. Rick and Forrest explore what’s really wrong with the self-help industry, going beyond the obvious pseudoscience and snake oil to examine deeper structural issues.
Talk + Meditation: The Surprising Power of Active Nonviolence
Discover how active nonviolence offers a powerful, practical path to transform conflict, foster connection, and create real change—without fueling more harm.
Give Over to Good
Give over to good and let this good be your guiding principle. Just One Thing Newsletter.
Being Well Podcast: The Freeze Response, Gifted Kid Syndrome, and BPD: July Mailbag
Dr. Rick and Forrest answer listener questions about perfectionism, the freeze response, trauma, and relationships.