There is this idea these days that we just have to power through all our discomforts to get to a space where we feel okay with ourselves. We need to do more, be more, become more. We need to smash all of our weaknesses and achieve as much as possible. We have to follow a strict diet and an even stricter exercise regime.
But maybe we don’t need that.
Continue reading “Maybe we don’t need more discipline. Maybe we need emotional growth”
I’ve written a few posts on rushing because I know that when I bring repeated awareness to the tendency of rushing, it diminishes the frantic energy around the feeling.
But feeling rushed isn’t the only thing that I’m repeatedly confronted with. During my meditation sessions, I often also become aware that I have a strong tendency to want to solve certain things in my head. This mental looping of problems and solutions, just like rushing, takes me out of the present moment.
Continue reading “The Mental Tendency to Solve”
It seems like all of us, collectively and individually, are trying to get somewhere. But I don’t know if we know where or what the destination is.
The other day I saw a person overtake four or five cars because the car at the front of the line was driving very slowly. This was on a Sunday and I remember thinking, Where are you trying to get to? Truthfully, that wasn’t the only thing that went through my mind. I was the one in the oncoming lane, and so, I was also momentarily taken in by my own anger. Who knows how much time that person eventually saved by rushing, but it couldn’t have been more than a few minutes. Does it make up for the carelessness though?
Continue reading “Where are you trying to get to?”
Cast Away is an old movie but one of my favourites. I wanted to write a post about it because it’s one of those movies that you can return to again and again and still find something inspiring and significant. Note this post discusses the movie, so it contains spoilers.
Continue reading “Cast Away: The journey was the destination”A few weeks ago, I wrote a post about grief. I wanted to write that post as a reminder to myself that there’s always a sense of relief when you’ve processed through deep grief. But working through grief is also really difficult. When you’re in it, there’s a sense of deep hopelessness that permeates every aspect of your life. From the space of being grief-stricken it doesn’t seem like anything will ever be better again.
Continue reading “The Difficulty With Grief”
I’ve always felt that intelligence is not quite fixed. Yet, over the years, I’ve encountered a lot of people who believed differently. Some of them vehemently disagree with the idea that you can increase your intelligence even though neuroplasticity would indicate that there is at least some validity to becoming smarter through practice.
Continue reading “Intelligence (IQ) is not fixed”
Rushing can be such a default state for me that I sometimes don’t realise that I’m in it. I still have days that I have to bring repeated awareness to my rushing. Recognising rushing does diminish the intensity of the feeling to some degree.
Continue reading “Recognise Rushing”
Sometimes having a great idea for a story can be both a blessing and a burden. The blessing is that a great idea immediately sparks interest and curiosity in the reader. The burden is that it sets an expectation that has to be fulfilled. You don’t have to do as much to get a reader to start reading a story that is based on an interesting idea. The challenge will be to get them to keep reading.
Continue reading “A Great Story Idea—A Blessing Or A Burden?”
I like the Buddhist idea of living skillfully. The word skillful isn’t weighed down by dogma. It doesn’t have religious baggage associated with it. Also, most people will have a general idea of what it means. A skillful cook prepares tasty food. In the mindfulness context, we are skillful when we can recognise unhelpful emotional states and disengage from it. We’re skillful when we can recognise our own endless wanting and withdraw from that. We’re skillful when we’re kind and gentle. We’re skillful when we’re free from the psychological suffering associated with excessive thinking and worrying. This idea implies that living well is a skill that we can cultivate through practice. It’s something that everyone can learn to do.
Working through grief can be a very long process. This is made worse by the fact that it doesn’t feel like there’s an end to the process. When you’re deep in grief you cannot see the light at the end of the tunnel. And it doesn’t seem possible that you will ever feel better.
But one day the grief will lift. There is light at the end of the tunnel. Grief is a sacred process that can help us become more of who we truly are. We should not rush this process or wish it away. Easier said than done, true, but integration goes hand in hand with acceptance—allowing whatever is there to be felt.