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You’ll also notice that, as you reach out and let others be “right,” they will become less defensive and more loving toward you.
imagine that whatever circumstance you are dealing with isn’t happening right now but a year from now. Then simply ask yourself, “Is this situation really as important as I’m making it out to be?
Life isn’t fair. It’s a bummer, but it’s absolutely true. Ironically, recognizing this sobering fact can be a very liberating insight.
One of the nice things about surrendering to the fact that life isn’t fair is that it keeps us from feeling sorry for ourselves by encouraging us to do the very best we can with what we have. We know it’s not “life’s job” to make everything perfect, it’s our own challenge.
if you allow yourself to be bored, even for an hour—or less—and don’t fight it, the feelings of boredom will be replaced with feelings of peace. And after a little practice, you’ll learn to relax.
Much of our anxiety and inner struggle stems from our busy, overactive minds always needing something to entertain them, something to focus on, and always wondering “What’s next?”
The beauty of doing nothing is that it teaches you to clear your mind and relax. It allows your mind the freedom to “not know,” for a brief period of time. Just like your body, your mind needs an occasional break from its hectic routine. When you allow your mind to take a break, it comes back stronger, sharper, more focused and creative.
stress” will always be under a great deal of it! So, if you teach people to raise their tolerance to stress, that’s exactly what will happen. They will accept even more confusion and responsibility until again, their external level of stress matches that of their tolerance.
What you want to start doing is noticing your stress early, before it gets out of hand. When you feel your mind moving too quickly, it’s time to back off and regain your bearings.
When you’re feeling out of control and resentful of all you have to do, rather than roll up your sleeves and “get to it,” a better strategy is to relax, take a few deep breaths, and go for a short walk.
You’ll find that when you catch yourself getting too stressed out—early, before it gets out of control—your stress will be like the proverbial snowball rolling down the hill. When it’s small, it’s manageable and easy to control. Once it gathers momentum, however, it’s difficult, if not impossible, to stop.
Once a Week, Write a Heartfelt Letter
Picking up a pen or typing on a keyboard slows you down long enough to remember the beautiful people in your life.
Even if you don’t have people in your life to whom you feel you can write, go ahead and write the letter to someone you don’t know instead—perhaps
The purpose of your letter is very simple: to express love and gratitude. Don’t worry if you’re awkward at writing letters. This isn’t a contest from the head but a gift from the heart.
While it can be a little scary or painful, it’s a good idea to consider your own death and, in the process, your life. Doing so will remind you of the kind of person you want to be and the priorities that are most important to you.
We take our own goals so seriously that we forget to have fun along the way, and we forget to cut ourselves some slack. We take simple preferences and turn them into conditions for our own happiness. Or, we beat ourselves up if we can’t meet our self-created deadlines.
The first step in becoming a more peaceful person is to have the humility to admit that, in most cases, you’re creating your own emergencies. Life will usually go on if things don’t go according to plan. It’s helpful to keep reminding yourself and repeating the sentence, “Life isn’t an emergency.”
Your back burner is an excellent tool for remembering a fact or bringing forth an insight. It’s an almost effortless yet effective way of using your mind when you might otherwise start feeling stressed out. Using your back burner means allowing your mind to solve a problem while you are busy doing something else, here in the present moment.
As you think of people to be grateful for, remember that it can be anyone—someone who allowed you to merge into traffic, someone who held the door open for you, or a physician who saved your life. The point is to gear your attention toward gratitude, preferably first thing in the morning.
If you wake up in the morning with gratitude on your mind, it’s pretty difficult, in fact almost impossible, to feel anything but peace.
there is virtually always a parallel between our attitude toward strangers and our overall level of happiness. In
think of strangers as being a little more like you and treat them not only with kindness and respect but with smiles and eye contact as well, you’ll probably notice some pretty nice changes in yourself. You’ll begin to see that most people are just like you—most of them have families, people they love, troubles, concerns, likes, dislikes, fears, and so forth. You’ll also notice how nice and grateful people can be when you’re the first one to reach out.
even though we often mess up, most of us are doing the best that we know how with the circumstances that surround us.
makes you feel angry. Now, close your eyes and try to imagine this person as a tiny infant. See their tiny little features and their innocent little eyes. Know that babies can’t help but make mistakes and each of us was, at one time, a little infant. Now, roll forward the clock one hundred years. See the same person as a very old person who is about to die. Look
become more interested in understanding others and less in having other people understand you.
When you understand where people are coming from, what they are trying to say, what’s important to them, and so forth, being understood flows naturally; it falls into place with virtually no effort.
When you try to be understood before you understand, the effort you exert will be felt by you and the person or people you are trying to reach.
Seeking first to understand isn’t about who’s right or wrong; it is a philosophy of effective communication.
Effective listening is more than simply avoiding the bad habit of interrupting others while they are speaking or finishing their sentences. It’s being content to listen to the entire thought of someone rather than waiting impatiently for your chance to respond.
We often treat communication as if it were a race. It’s almost like our goal is to have no time gaps between the conclusion of the sentence of the person we are speaking with and the beginning of our own.
Slowing down your responses and becoming a better listener aids you in becoming a more peaceful person.
as you wait for the people you are communicating with to finish, as you simply listen more intently to what is being said, you’ll notice that the pressure you feel is off.
There are always going to be people who disagree with you, people who do things differently, and things that don’t work out. If you fight against this principle of life, you’ll spend most of your life fighting battles.
Wouldn’t we live in a more loving world if, when someone acted in a way that we didn’t approve of, we could see their actions in a similar light as our teenagers’ offbeat behavior?
You have chances to “correct” people, privately as well as in front of others. What all these opportunities amount to are chances to make someone else feel bad, and yourself feel bad in the process.
if you pay attention to the way you feel after you put someone down, you’ll notice that you feel worse than before the put-down.
The next time you have the chance to correct someone, even if their facts are a little off, resist the temptation. Instead, ask yourself, “What do I really want out of this interaction?” Chances are, what you want is a peaceful interaction where all parties leave feeling good.
“If you had an hour to live and could make only one phone call—who would you call, what would you say, and why are you waiting?”
at the same time, it’s easy for me to forget all the things that my wife does on a daily basis. How convenient!
It’s really difficult to become a contented person if you’re keeping score of all you do. Keeping track only discourages you by cluttering your mind with who’s doing what, who’s doing more, and so forth. If you want to know the truth about it, this is the epitome of “small stuff.”
weatherproofing means that you are on the careful lookout for what needs to be fixed or repaired. It’s finding the cracks and flaws of life, and either trying to fix them, or at least point them out to others.
Occasional harmless comments have an insidious tendency to become a way of looking at life.
write off weatherproofing as a bad idea. As the habit creeps into your thinking, catch yourself and seal your lips. The less often you weatherproof your partner or your friends, the more you’ll notice how super your life really is.
When we expect to see things differently, when we take it as a given that others will do things differently and react differently to the same stimuli, the compassion we have for ourselves and for others rises dramatically. The moment we expect otherwise, the potential for conflict exists. I encourage you to consider deeply and respect the fact that we are all very different. When you do, the love you feel for others as well as the appreciation you have for your own uniqueness will increase.
little acts of kindness are opportunities to be of service and reminders of how good it feels to be kind and helpful.
Think of something that seems effortless yet helpful. It’s fun, personally rewarding, and sets a good example. Everyone wins.
Larry Le Shan’s
How to Meditate,
Richard Hittleman’s Yoga Twenty-eight-Day Exercise Plan.
