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July 2 - August 18, 2022
we do everything we can to optimize our entire existence so we can finally feel like we are enough. But perhaps this isn’t so optimal. In ancient Eastern psychology there is a concept known as the hungry ghost. The hungry ghost has a bottomless stomach. He keeps on eating, stuffing himself sick, but he never feels full.
Groundedness is unwavering internal strength and self-confidence that sustains you through ups and downs. It is a deep reservoir of integrity and fortitude, of wholeness,
when you prioritize groundedness, you do not neglect passion, performance, or productivity. Nor does groundedness eliminate all forms of ambition. Rather, it situates and stabilizes these qualities,
When you are grounded there is no need to look up or down. You are where you are, and you hold true strength and power from that position.
we’re all affected by what behavioral scientists call hedonic adaptation, or the “set-point” theory of happiness: when we acquire or achieve something new, our happiness, well-being, and satisfaction rise, but only for a few months before returning to their prior levels.
The Buddha taught that the only place true peace can be found is in our “loving awareness”— or what Westerners might call the soul, the part of us that rests underneath all the busyness and content of daily life,
The Stoics believed that in order to have a good life, we must shift from trying to attain status or the approval of others, both of which are fleeting, and focus on becoming “properly grounded,” relinquishing the need to look outside ourselves for satisfaction and fulfillment and instead finding it within.
Saint Augustine acknowledged the human propensity to crave worldly achievements, but, foreshadowing the arrival fallacy, he warned that if you become a slave to outward ambition you’ll be forever dissatisfied, always chasing the next best thing, always getting caught up in the ephemeral and fleeting, always looking for love in all the wrong places.
wise action. Wise action is very different from our default mode of reaction.
Out of a commitment to these principles—acceptance, presence, patience, vulnerability, deep community, and movement—comes a firm and resolute groundedness.
Shifting from being a seeker to a practitioner.
It’s one thing to understand something intellectually. It’s another to make it real, day in and day out. As the Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh says, “If you want to garden, you have to bend down and touch the soil. Gardening is a practice. Not an idea.”
motivated reasoning, or our propensity not to see things clearly but instead to reason our way into seeing things as we’d like them to be.
We engage in frantic and compulsory activity to distract ourselves from our problems and fears.
“The crux of the curious difficulty for the hero lies in the fact that our conscious views of what life ought to be seldom correspond to what life really is.”
in stories spanning cultures and traditions, at some point on their journey the mythical hero must close the gap between their reality and their expectations.
learning to practice acceptance and take wise action throughout our lives, even amid difficulty.
Hayes learned that the more someone tries to avoid unpleasant circumstances, thoughts, feelings, and urges—exactly what Hayes had been doing before his insight on that fateful night— the stronger and more frequent they become.
ACT suggests that when you’re in a difficult or scary situation—be it physical, emotional, or social—resisting it almost always makes it worse. Far better is to accept what is happening; to open yourself up to it, feel it deeply,
An integral part of ACT is giving yourself permission to not always have everything together. It’s about allowing yourself to feel pain and hurt and unease
Each time the Buddha is confronted with Mara, instead of being lured into a cycle of denial, delusion, and suffering, the Buddha simply says, “I see you, Mara,” and then proceeds to accept what is happening and take wise action, a clear expression of unshakable groundedness.
When you lie to yourself about your situation, doubt and anxiety almost always ensue. You go from playing to win to playing not to lose.
Michele McDonald developed a four-step method called RAIN that can help. When you find yourself resisting an experience or situation, pause for a moment and take a few breaths. As you do: Recognize what is happening. Allow life to be just as it is. Investigate your inner experience with kindness and curiosity. Note or practice non-identification, not fusing with what you are experiencing but rather viewing it from a larger perspective.
Numerous studies show that individuals who react to challenging situations with self-compassion respond better than those who judge themselves harshly. The logic behind this is straightforward:
Think of it as an ongoing practice of giving yourself the benefit of the doubt.
you want to marry self-discipline with self-compassion.
“What progress have I made?” wrote the Stoic philosopher Seneca, some two thousand years ago. “I am beginning to be my own friend. That is progress indeed. Such a person will never be alone, and you may be sure he is a friend of all.”
PRACTICE: MOOD FOLLOWS ACTION You cannot always control your circumstances, but you can control how you respond.
Taking actions that align with your values—regardless of how you are feeling—is often the catalyst for your situation to improve.
mood follows action.
people spend 47 percent of their waking hours thinking about something other than what is in front of them. We’ve been conditioned to believe that if we aren’t constantly scheming and strategizing, taking inventory of the past, or thinking ahead to the future, we’ll miss out on something and fall behind.
The second principle of groundedness is presence. It is about being fully here for what is in front of you.
we’ve come to associate nonstop notifications with validating our importance in the world.
LESS CANDY, MORE NOURISHMENT—A
Ed Batista is a lecturer at the prestigious Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB) and a counselor to numerous top executives in Silicon Valley. His course, the Art of Self-Coaching,
is important to remember that whenever you say yes to something you are saying no to something else.
If your phone is within your line of sight, it is probably contributing to the deterioration of your presence and attention.*
When you are fully present for what is in front of you, you become more likely to enter flow, a state in which you are completely absorbed in an activity—be
is described as a non-dual experience, the merging of subject and object—often
In ancient Greece, a primary moral virtue was arête, or excellence via the application of complete presence in one’s craft.
“I used to think there was an end zone or a goalpost that I’d arrive at. But that’s not true. There is no end zone. It’s a day-to-day decision. How do I want to show up? Where do I want to direct my energy and attention?
Buddhist psychology taught that we should think of ourselves as gardeners and our presence and attention as nourishment for the seeds. The seeds that we water are the seeds that grow. The seeds that grow shape the kind of person we become.
flow, and productive activity become more accessible when you remove the candy, the distractions. Many of the digital devices that prey on your attention are designed by highly skilled engineers and experts in behavioral addiction.
this is known as the Ulysses pact.
Block off periods on your calendar for full presence, or make them part of your regular routine. Knowing what you are going to do in these blocks ahead of time is key. Without this step of planning and intentionality, distraction too easily encroaches
Start with small chunks of distraction-free time, even twenty minutes, and gradually increase the duration. Psychologists call this process exposure and response prevention, or ERP. This treatment is the gold standard for anxiety.
the response you are preventing is checking your phone or getting caught up in rumination.
When I asked him about his transformation, he said it was fairly simple: he kept achieving little victories. He gradually realized that the more present he was, the better he performed and the better he felt.
“Each time you ride a wave of craving without giving in,” says Brown University neuroscientist Judson Brewer, “you stop reinforcing the habit.” In essence, you learn how to feel an urge to eat candy without needing to eat it. “These waves are like inverted U’s—you can feel them rise, crest, then fall,” Brewer says. Your work is to surf the waves.
In essence, you are training your brain to identify distractions as meaningless noise—not meaningful signals.
