More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Jay Shetty
Read between
September 27, 2022 - February 28, 2023
goal of monk thinking is a life free of ego, envy, lust, anxiety, anger, bitterness, baggage.
“When you get stressed—what changes? Your breath. When you get angry—what changes? Your breath. We experience every emotion with the change of the breath. When you learn to navigate and manage your breath, you can navigate any situation in life.”
focus on the root of things, not the leaf of the tree
It is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else’s life with perfection.
I am not what I think I am, and I am not what you think I am. I am what I think you think I am.”
Our identity is wrapped up in what others think of us—or, more accurately, what we think others think of us.
our values are influenced by whatever absorbs our minds. We are not our minds, but the mind is the vehicle by which we decide what is important in our hearts.
What’s on your news feed is feeding your mind.
our values are tainted with envy, judgment, competition, and discontent.
When we tune out the opinions, expectations, and obligations of the world around us, we begin to hear ourselves.
on a daily basis I recommend you sit down to reflect on how the day went and what emotions you’re feeling. Second, once a month you can approximate the change that I found at the ashram by going someplace you’ve never been before to explore yourself in a different environment. This can be anything from visiting a park or library you’ve never been to before to taking a trip. Finally, get involved in something that’s meaningful to you—a hobby, a charity, a political cause.
No matter what you think your values are, your actions tell the real story.
What we do with our spare time shows what we value.
assess how you spend the time
Spend a week tracking how much time you devote to the following: family, friends, health, and self.
Higher values propel and elevate us toward happiness, fulfillment, and meaning. Lower values demote us toward anxiety, depression, and suffering.
higher values and qualities: fearlessness, purity of mind, gratitude, service and charity, acceptance, performing sacrifice, deep study, austerity, straightforwardness, nonviolence, truthfulness, absence of anger, renunciation, perspective, restraint from fault finding, compassion toward all living beings, satisfaction, gentleness/kindness, integrity, determination.
happiness and success are not among these values. These are not values, they are ...
This highlight has been truncated due to consecutive passage length restrictions.
The six lower values are greed, lust, anger, ego, illusion, and envy.
Reflect on the three best and three worst choices you’ve ever made. Why did you make them? What have you learned? How would you have done it differently?
What qualities do I look for/admire in family, friends, or colleagues? Are they trust, confidence, determination, honesty? Whatever they may be, these qualities are, in fact, our own values—the
Who you surround yourself with helps you stick to your values and achieve your goals.
Who you talk to, what you watch, what you do with your time: all of these sources push values and beliefs.
If you’re just going from one day to the next without questioning your values, you’ll be swayed by what everyone else—from your family to hordes of marketing professionals—wants you to think.
When we criticize others, we can’t help but notice the bad in ourselves. But when we look for the good in others, we start to see the best in ourselves too.
“Do not give your attention to what others do or fail to do; give it to what you do or fail to do.”
Negativity—in conversation, emotions, and actions—often springs from a threat to one of the three needs: a fear that bad things are going to happen (loss of peace), a fear of not being loved (loss of love), or a fear of being disrespected (loss of understanding).
From these fears stem all sorts of other emotions—feeling overwhelmed, insecure, hurt, competitive, needy, and so on.
if we adopt a victim mentality, we’re more likely to take on a sense of entitlement and to behave selfishly.
we’re surrounded by gossip, conflict, and negativity, we start to see the world in those terms,
The instinct for agreement has a huge impact on our lives. It is one of the reasons why, in a culture of complaint, we join the fray.
the more negativity that surrounds us, the more negative we become.
Don’t judge someone with a different disease. Don’t expect anyone to be perfect. Don’t think you are perfect.
Letting go gives us freedom, and freedom is the only condition for happiness. If, in our heart, we still cling to anything—anger, anxiety, or possessions—we cannot be free.”
The more we define ourselves in relation to the people around us, the more lost we are.
Real freedom is letting go of things not wanted,
The key to real freedom is self-awareness.
To purify our thoughts, monks talk about the process of awareness, addressing, and amending. I like to remember this as spot, stop, swap.
First, we become aware of a feeling or issue—we spot it. Then we pause to address what the feeling is and where it comes from—we stop to consider it. And last, we amend our behavior—we swap in a new way of processing the moment. SPOT, STOP, SWAP.
try not to complain, compare, or criticize for a week, and keep a tally of how many times we failed.
the more we might free ourselves from them.
Sometimes instead of reacting negatively to what is, we negatively anticipate what might be. This is suspicion.
What we judge or envy or suspect in someone else can guide us to the darkness we have within ourselves.
Negative projections and suspicions reflect our own insecurities and get in our way.
When we’re stressed, we hold our breath or clench our jaws. We slump in defeat or tense our shoulders.
Throughout the day, observe your physical presence. Is your jaw tight? Is your brow furrowed? These are signs that we need to remember to breathe, to loosen up physically and emotionally.
Remember, saying whatever we want, whenever we want, however we want, is not freedom. Real freedom is not feeling the need to say these things.
Judgment creates an illusion: that if you see well enough to judge, then you must be better,
Notice what’s arousing your negativity, over there on your frenemy’s side of the fence. Do they seem to have more time, a better job, a more active social life?
It is important to find our significance not from thinking other people have it better but from being the person we want to be.
