Optimism

Some view optimism as shallow, naive or unrealistic, but a simple experiment* proves otherwise. Focusing on what’s wrong lowers your energy and torpedoes your mood. On the other hand, looking for what’s right uplifts your energy and stimulates creativity,...

The Truth About Forgiveness

If we could see the big picture, we’d realize that there’s rarely anything to forgive. Our resentment and anger is most often due to our interpretation of events and our reaction to what we think happened. Our framing is what causes much of our suffering....

Finding the Benefit

We all have the capacity to choose how we view what happens to us, even when things don’t turn out the way we want. When we’re able to see how even those aspects of our experiences support our journey, we don’t fear not getting exactly what we want...

Uncertainty

Though we rarely really know what will show up in our future, we often act as if life will conform to our expectations. When we know big changes lie ahead without knowing the specifics, we can either worry ourselves sick over the uncertainty or we can trust. This...

Slightly Perfect

Few people have a combination of traits so perfectly suited to our tastes that we appreciate every part of their personality. When we’re unconscious our egos love to define themselves by focusing on things we don’t like about others. When others’...

Getting to the Bottom of It

Fear, pressure and stress can trigger defense mechanisms that cause us to lose emotional balance and act unconsciously. It takes practice to catch ourselves in the heat of the moment, but we can investigate our reactions in hindsight and use the information to deepen...