Archive for the ‘Stimulus Space Response’ Category

Letting Go of Old Stories for New Beginnings

Posted: November 10, 2024 in Stimulus Space Response
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
0

It can be offputting to hear the concept that the past is nothing more than thoughts in our heads. We know it happened. Often, we have physical proof that it happened. But when it’s over, where does the past exist in the present moment?

For many of us (myself included) our past exists in the present through the stories we tell ourselves in our heads. We turn a singular experience into a defining trait. We do this by repeating a narrative to ourselves and the world, over and over.

“The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts.” — Marcus Aurelius

Our memory of the past and how we think and feel about ourselves in the present are shaped by the stories we tell ourselves and others about it. For better and for worse, this creates a self-fulfilling prophecy. For many, it creates a vicious circle that, without awareness or action, can become destiny disguised as fate.

“We become what we think about all day long.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

It isn’t the past or even the self-talk stories about the past that are the problem; rather, our attachment to them is the problem. The first time I got a whiff of attachment as the root of all suffering was listening to the audiobook version of A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle. That was about a year or two before I started habitually doing guided meditation practices. I can remember not wanting to get out of my car in my university’s parking lot because I was so mesmerized by what I was hearing.

“The root of suffering is attachment.” — Buddha

Unfortunately, hearing and reading the concept didn’t create a miracle-epiphany-cure all. It danced around in my head for a minute before exiting stage left and being drowned out by habitual thoughts and emotions in the other direction. But I can still remember sitting in that parking lot to this day. So it’s fair to say that at least a seed was planted that day.

Photo by Osama Khan on Unsplash

Repetition is key to learning. We need to hear, see and do things repeatedly for them to stick. That is why the stories in our heads become our destiny. We repeat them more times than we could ever possibly count. It is also how we let go of the old stories and define ourselves by what we do in each present moment. Repetition.

I had to hear and read about the concept of attachment as the root of suffering repeatedly but also phrased differently. I’ve gravitated to Stoicism, Buddhism, and Taoism over the years because I feel that many of their core principles overlap. Amor Fati and Wu Wei. Letting go of attachment and choosing to focus on what is within your control. I feel like before I learned these principles my life was all yin and no yang or vice versa.

Photo by freestocks on Unsplash

Journaling can create mental space. It does this by getting our thoughts, emotions, and self-talk onto paper. We can use meditation to cultivate awareness. We can also tap into the wisdom of ancient philosophies and spiritual practices. They have helped people with our issues for thousands of years. A gratitude practice can help us habitually think positively. It can also boost our mood and beliefs.

With enough consistent, focused execution we can create new narratives for ourselves because we will be living new lives. Maybe externally everything may look the same. But our experience of the world is from the inside out.

I have had to challenge myself constantly to journal, to be more mindful, and to be more grateful. To shift focus from the external to the internal. From the past to the present. From the negative to the positive. And it is a challenge, but it is a challenge worth undertaking. Why? Because habitualizing these practices allows us to begin again infinitely.

“When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change”- Max Planck

Seek, Find, Embrace: The Power of Openness

Posted: October 24, 2024 in Stimulus Space Response
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,
0

An open mind can seem like a vague term. Yet closed-minded is very succinct and easy to understand. It can be confusing to learn that openness to the world is the key to finding what we seek in life. But it is straightforward that being closed-minded towards the world is to live a limited, suffocated life.

“The mind is everything. What you think you become.” — Buddha

I find myself in a battle against being closed-minded regularly. Some practices that help me keep my mind more open than closed are:

  • Reading philosophy
  • Meditating
  • Studying humanism
  • Journaling
  • Practicing yoga

I have cultivated enough awareness to at least know the concepts of open vs closed-mindedness which I am grateful for. I still have much work to do to keep myself open-minded in moments of test and choice, but then again, who doesn’t?

“The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.” — Albert Einstein

Photo by Chris Barbalis on Unsplash

Close-Minded — having or showing rigid opinions or a narrow outlook.

Open-Minded — willing to consider new ideas; unprejudiced.

Photo by Levi Bare on Unsplash

Having an open mind generally involves curiosity, willingness to learn, and embracing new experiences. For me, I find having an open mind correlates with positivity, productivity, or at the very least neutrality regarding thought, perception, emotion, and action. Day to day if/when I find myself slipping into negative or detrimental thoughts, perceptions, emotions, or actions; there is a good chance I’ve concurrently slipped into closed-mindedness.

I feel like being closed-minded is the default setting in our human nature. Hard-wired into us as a survival mechanism from caveman times. It also seems like we are becoming more closed-minded in the algorithm-dominated modern world of digital echo chambers and rage-bait. An open mind is a rich soil for evolution and growth. A closed mind is a rich soil for egocentric withering.

“The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Thankfully, fostering an open mind is simple, easy, and completely within our ability to control. This is nice because living can be complex, difficult, and at the mercy of external situations enough as it is.

  • Mindful breathing exercises
  • Guided meditation
  • Journaling
  • Getting out into nature

The above list are some of my go-to’s that have been very helpful and enriching for me. But in the name of micro-tasking, start by just trying any small, simple new thing or by doing something you already do just a little bit differently.

Starting with our existing routines and habits, even the most mundane ones, is a practical way to open our minds. Try holding items with a different hand, eating breakfast for dinner, taking a different route to work, or watching a foreign film with subtitles. These small modifications can be surprisingly effective first steps toward a more open-minded perspective.

“Change the way you look at things and the things you look at change.” — Wayne Dyer

We need to be more open-minded. The world needs more open-minded people. Being open-minded is the foundational paradigm for learning, connecting with people, discovering new opportunities, and living a fulfilling and meaningful life.

It’s simple but not easy because we are going against the grain of human nature. It’s natural to be closed-minded when we already have what we need to survive. But we don’t want to just survive, we want to thrive. Regardless of our definition of what thriving is to us individually, the first step on our path there, begins with having an open mind.

Discovering Our Potential by Cultivating Personal Power

Posted: October 1, 2024 in Stimulus Space Response
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,
0
Photo by Karsten Würth on Unsplash

“Your life is a message to yourself. What is it saying?” — Ram Dass

Personal power can come across as a nausea-inducing cliche. The collateral damage of the toxic positivity movement of retro self-help gurus and modern influencers. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. A concept as important and helpful as personal power, like most good things, seems fated to be used as a tool to take for the few, rather than give to the many.

Self-control and self-discipline don’t have much if any of an eye-roll factor. They may have an ick factor for the general folks. Ick factor as in, “ick I don’t want to deploy self-control/self-discipline in this situation, I’ve earned my treat.” I know I’ve been that way more times than I would care to count or remember.

“As long as you live, keep learning how to live.” — Seneca

Personal power isn’t a buzzword because it isn’t a one-and-done, miracle-cure, magic pill. Personal power is the result of the process of living life, utilizing self-control one step at a time, and deploying self-discipline one choice at a time. It is a gradual process, not an instant achievement. It is a process we are either strengthening or decaying with our actions until the day we die.

We all exercise personal power more than we think in our day-to-day lives. Regardless of background, age, sex, economic status. If we all as a society, as a species, didn’t possess a high level of personal power then we wouldn’t have societies or cultures period. So when talking about personal power, self-control, and/or self-discipline the first thing to do is often the most overlooked which is to give ourselves some credit.

But we know internally, silently, when we’re alone, when we look at ourselves in the mirror that we can do more and be better. Not in some pie-in-the-sky way, but measured against our past actions and against our future goals. I know I can’t be the only one who has felt and feels that way. It’s not that I’m trying to be Superman or what influencers pretend to be on social media. It’s when I do the right things, give the right effort, and consistently take the right action but then fall off and seemingly forget how to do it and that I did it.

“Waking up to who you are requires letting go of who you imagine yourself to be.” — Alan Watts

So what do we do? How do we get better? We know we have to do, try, take action, and put forth effort but we as humans need to be taught everything. We would be crawling on all fours, urinating, and defecating ourselves if we weren’t taught to walk and potty trained. So something like growing one’s power through self-discipline and control needs to be taught and unfortunately, schools would rather teach us algebra and dodgeball. So it’s up to us to teach ourselves. Luckily there are philosophical ideas, spiritual concepts, and humanistic approaches that can provide us with simple, pragmatic steps for growth. Simple, not easy…as is life.

Personal power is often thought of and referred to as an external thing but it is completely created from the inside out from doing internal work. We can’t control if we influence other people or situations. But we can control what we do to cultivate our inner strength, our inner peace, the strength of our character, our self-control, and our self-discipline. This is the Stoic Dichotomy of Control. Our pursuit of self-mastery is always within our control. Stoicism has been an immense help to me in introducing me to the concepts of what is within and what is outside of our control.

“It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.” — Epictetus

Pursuing external personal power may have an eye-roll factor, but pursuing internal self-mastery is as universally noble of a purpose and life’s work as there is, since there is nothing harder or more complex for the average person like myself to seek. Philosophy can help create awareness and identify what we need to focus on. Journaling was probably the first productive habit I cultivated as an adult and is a Stoic exercise that helps us to reflect and look ahead through the lens of timeless principles.

Photo by Levi XU on Unsplash

Spirituality-based practices like meditation and yoga can guide us along the way by also giving us things to do to cultivate self-control and self-discipline on the path. Mindfulness meditation has been a lifesaver for me over the past decade and a half. Self-improvement can turn to self-punishment early and often. Day-to-day living can be a challenge. Meditation has helped me cultivate greater awareness and compassion for myself in the face of internal and external challenges.

Habitualizing a consistent yoga practice has taken a tremendous amount of self-control and self-discipline over many years for me. I find regular yoga practice helps my body feel the way regular meditation practice helps my mind and heart feel. Feeling good through consistent, active action rather than passive escapism is a path to self-mastery and personal power.

“No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path.” — Gautama Buddha

Ultimately cultivating our personal power starts with the humanistic belief in our inherent goodness and potential. Stoic journaling and resilience combined with Buddhist mindfulness as well as the Taoist principle of getting into and being in harmony with nature is a combination that works for me. I find these concepts and practices help level out the disjointed nature of modern living for me. This allows me to find stillness and space within myself to harvest beneficial habits of thought, perception, and emotion internally which produces the right action externally.

The journey is different for everyone. We all have to walk our path. But some timeless principles and paradigms will outlive us all that can make life a little less complex, a little easier, and help us harvest our personal power a little more. Doing so can make our individual lives and the world we live in a better place.

“Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power.” — Lao Tzu

Breaking Free of Judgement & Going Beyond Blame

Posted: September 28, 2024 in Stimulus Space Response
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
0
Photo by Tom Chrostek on Unsplash

“To judge another is to judge oneself.” — Wayne Dyer

One of the things we all have in common is that we are constantly judging. We judge ourselves. We judge other people. We judge our environment. We judge our past. We judge our potential future. We judge our actions. We judge our bodies. We judge our minds. We judge our failures. We judge our successes. We judge effort. We judge results. We judge our intentions.

We judge what has happened, what could have happened, what is happening, what we think will happen, what we think should happen. We judge. It’s hard-wired into us as a species. It’s part of why we have survived. However, we continue to learn that so much of how we have been hard-wired to survive and thrive in the past, is hindering us with hidden suffering in the modern world.

“Most of our unhappiness comes from our own thoughts, not from our circumstances.” — Dalai Lama

Hard-wired is a very fitting term for our unconscious habit of constantly judging ourselves and others. Many days, if not most days, in any situation regardless of the perception of positive or negative, we instantly, without knowing or choosing, slip into a state of judging. We all do it. It’s not a one-time occurrence and isn’t a one-time fix to stop doing it. That’s the thing with habits. For better and for worse, we do them automatically.

Why do we constantly, unconsciously judge ourselves and others? Why is it hard-wired into us? Like so many things that cause problems for humans in the modern world, our brains haven’t evolved much since we were cavemen. Our judging helped us survive as hunter-gatherers outside of our tribe(s) and helped us to build communities within our tribe(s).

“True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It is remembering that everyone deserves compassion.” — Jack Kornfield

Our brains are hard-wired for quick categorization and evaluation. This is more commonly known as the fight or flight (or freeze) response. Fight or flight response can wreak havoc on our lives by creating an unreasonable internal reaction to a reasonable external situation. It has for me and likely has for you as well. Our unreasonable internal reaction is a cognitive bias shaped by our past. When fight or flight kicks in, we aren’t actually reacting or interacting with the present moment, we are having a trauma response and are reacting to the past in the present.

Living in the past and reacting to the past in the present is the opposite of positive, productive, or beneficial. Yet that is our default way of thinking, perceiving, and living. We have to be made aware of it and then taught a better way, then practice that way consistently until it is habitualized. That seems more valuable to me than learning algebra or the periodic table, but oh, there I go judging again.

With evolutionary roots and psychological purpose, how can judging be so detrimental to us? Well, it’s not judging itself that’s bad, it’s negative judgments that are severely counterproductive. Negative judgments about ourselves are a straight path to low self-esteem. Negative judgments about others create social barriers and kill the potential to develop empathy. Positive judgments are helpful and constructive but take a look around, does it look like the world has a surplus of positive judgment going on?

Mindfulness and meditation practices have been life savers for me. I have been my own worst critic for my entire life. Negative self-talk was a big problem for me for a very long time. Guided meditation practices (specifically from the Calm app) helped introduce me to mindfulness in short, simple, easy-to-do ways. Reading and studying Stoic philosophy and spirituality teachers like Eckhart Tolle, Wayne Dyer, and Alan Watts helped me change my paradigm and perception of life.

“Let go of the need to always be right.” — Eckhart Tolle

Paradigms shift slowly. It has taken a long time and is an ongoing practice to be a true friend to myself instead of a critic. Just this year I emphasized and have seen success in shifting my self-talk to that of a friend. Referring to myself as a “friend” internally has been very beneficial because doing so defaults to self-compassion instead of self-criticism.

Compassion for ourselves and empathy for others are mandatory for trying to turn the rutter of our unconscious habit of negative judging. Rutters don’t do quick, sharp turns. It’s slow moving heavy mass. But even a slight change can chart a whole new course if one persists. That’s how change works in life.

Choose to focus on the positive rather than the negative. Choose curiosity instead of criticism. Not once or twice. Not only out in the light of the public eye. But again and again when we are alone in the dark. That’s the real test. That’s when our habits are made. That’s when we’re living. That’s when we’re choosing who we are, by what we do, for better and for worse.

“To understand everything is to forgive everything.” — Alexander Pope

Beyond the Fall: Finding Strength in Setbacks

Posted: September 19, 2024 in Stimulus Space Response
Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
0

“It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.” — Epictetus

Failure is a necessary part of life.
Setbacks are an inevitability.
We wouldn’t know what success or breakthroughs were without failure and setbacks.
There is no getting around the yin-yang, no matter how much we wish we could sometimes.

“Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.” — Nelson Mandela

I recently experienced a setback via a personal failure. The shock of the situation took weeks to wear off. I let myself down and through my own choices and actions caused a setback.
Is it better if something external and out of our control causes a setback?
Is it worse if we are the cause of our setback by doing the wrong thing?

Photo by CHUTTERSNAP on Unsplash

Unfortunately, I don’t have a time machine. So since I can’t change the past, the best thing I can do is focus on the present moment and move forward. There’s solace in that everyone makes mistakes, fails, and experiences setbacks. Whether we’re talking about famous historical figures or the billions and billions of regular people who have lived, are living, will live, and won’t be famous but will still experience highs and lows, successes and failures, the best and the worst that this crazy thing called life has to offer.

“Our goal is not to eliminate suffering. Our goal is to find peace despite the suffering.” — Thich Nhat Hanh

The best thing I have done for myself since my setback was to adopt the mindset that this situation is an opportunity for growth. I have had to say it internally and aloud seemingly a thousand times as negative thoughts, perceptions, and emotions about the situation consistently try to creep in from every direction.

During normal times, in my everyday life, I utilize philosophy and spirituality practices with a humanist filter to keep me on my path. During the challenging times of a self-imposed setback, I am leaning on them more than ever to help get me through. I thought maybe sharing some of the principles and paradigms that are helping me could help others too. Since I know I’m nowhere near the only one going through challenging times in the world today.

“The impediment to action is not the thing itself, but the thought of it.”- Marcus Aurelius

The concept I’ve leaned on the most is that a setback is an opportunity for growth. I have said that internally and aloud at least a thousand times over the past two months. This gets coupled with setbacks being universal and inevitable in life. Everyone encounters them, nobody gets to avoid them.

The philosophy I turn to most often is Stoicism. This ancient philosophy helps me with acceptance and focus. Accepting what has already happened and what is outside of my control. Acceptance involves letting go and detaching. I can’t control what has happened. I can’t control what will happen. But what I can do is focus on what is in my control in the here and now. The paradigm of Stoicism helps me stop catastrophizing and dwelling. It helps me get out of the imagined and into the real. Those are helpful things in good times, but especially necessary during challenging times.

“The chief task in life is simply this: to identify and separate matters so that I can say clearly to myself which are externals not under my control, and which have to do with the choices I actually control. Where then do good and evil lie? In the choices I actually control.” — Epictetus

Meditation was one of the first stress/anxiety-fighting practices I was able to habitualize. Being able to quickly engage in a simple, easy set of actions to calm my mind and gain some clarity and gratitude in the present moment is like putting a band-aid on a cut during trying times. Pairing meditation with studying various spiritual practices has been perpetually taking a load off that the overthinking mind seems to want to constantly place on my chest and shoulders.

“You cannot control the waves, but you can learn to surf.” — Jon Kabat-Zinn

Studying various spiritual practices for a number of years now has helped to enforce the necessity of forgiveness, compassion, gentleness, letting go, and kindness for the self and others in good times and bad. Experiencing a setback is fuel for the fire of judgment, negativity, anger, and fear. Meditation practice and spirituality studies help to remember that negative noise and pessimistic pain are not who we are or what we are.

“The pain you feel is a signal that you need to change your way of thinking. It’s a wake-up call to become more conscious.” — Eckhart Tolle

We may not need meditation or spiritual practice to be kind and compassionate towards ourselves when we fail. We may not need to study philosophy to be accepting of what has happened to us, to focus on what is in our control, and to be aware of the impermanence of all things and situations whether good or bad. We humans are as hopeful as we are resilient by our nature. That is how we have survived.

Photo by Max Böhme on Unsplash

We may not necessarily need the aid that tools like philosophy, journaling, spirituality, and meditation can provide us, but they sure do help. In challenging times, in the face of setbacks and failure, we can use all the help we can get. Luckily for all of us, these tools are simple, easy, and quick to engage in.

Setbacks and failure are an inevitable part of life, but so are triumph and success. Both sides of the yin-yang are opportunities for personal growth and self-discovery. Failure and success are both necessary for us to even know what the other is. We don’t know what good times are without hard times and vice versa.

Gleaning resilience from philosophy studies and mindfulness from spirituality practices can help all of us turn our negatives into positives. Ultimately, the key to navigating life’s ups and downs lies in our ability to learn from our experiences, embrace change, and maintain a positive outlook.

“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” — Friedrich Nietzsche

Older Entries
Newer Entries