What you think of as your worst qualities can have some surprising upsides.

Imperfect Harmony

In nature, nothing is ever black-and-white, and every yin has its yang. Time and time again we discover that things we thought were unequivocally unhealthy—like germs or UV rays—can sometimes be quite good for us. (We’re still waiting for some happy news about French fries.) And now researchers are beginning to find that the same is true of our habits and personality quirks. “In certain situations, what is typically a detrimental trait can turn out to be a good one,” says Bryan Gibson, PhD, professor of social psychology at Central Michigan University. In other words, what you perceive as faults—even minor ones like blurting out curse words when things go wrong or doodling whenever your boss fires up an Excel spreadsheet—can, in the right context, be strengths. Here’s why.

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By GINIA BELLAFANTE

The New York Times

IN her 23 years as a specialist in eating disorders, Dr. Margo Maine has received countless telephone calls from women worried that their teenage daughters might be dieting into a danger zone. But several years ago, Dr. Maine, a psychologist who runs an eating-disorders treatment program with a partner in West Hartford, Conn., noticed a shift in the telephone inquiries.

”Increasingly, our calls began to include a significant number of adults seeking help not for their children but for themselves,” Dr. Maine said. Some of those callers — women in their late 40′s and early 50′s — were relapsing after overcoming eating disorders in their youth, and others were experiencing them for the first time.

Naomi Burton Isaacs, a public relations executive in New York, had been obsessed about her weight most of her life, she said, but it was only at age 45 that her dieting grew extreme and she developed an addiction to laxatives. She swallowed 25 pills a day. Ms. Burton Isaacs, who is 5-foot-9, withered to 105 pounds.

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Manic depression pushed Ashley Prentice Norton to the brink of suicide. It took six months, her husband’s love, and 17 rounds of electroshock therapy to bring her back to her kids–alive.

It’s 8 a.m. on a Friday morning in early May. My 8-year-old daughter, Anderson, and I hold hands and walk up the three flights to her classroom. Normally, she leaves me standing outside in the crowd of parents, waiting for her to blow me a kiss. But today, I’m helping the girls make sandwiches for the local community food pantry. In her free hand, Anderson swings the supplies I bought the night before: a pound of smoked Virginia ham, a pound of Provolone, and three loaves of potato bread.

Almost all of the girls are already there, sitting in their mini-chairs with plastic gloves on. I know these girls. I was here in October to help them put on their costumes for the Halloween parade, have had them over for play dates, have listened to Anderson talk about them at the dinner table. I know they’re all going through a Harry Potter phase, racing to see who can finish the books first. They are adorable, familiar.

I turn and greet their teacher, and she returns my hello with an effusive hug. “Thanks for coming, Mrs. Norton. We’re so happy you’re here,” she says. It’s the enthusiastic welcome you’d expect after an absence far longer than the 18 hours it’s been since school pick-up–and I understand why. There was a time when I rarely made it to pick-up or drop-off, when I could barely slap together one sandwich, much less help with 40. I couldn’t retain the name of Anderson’s teacher. Honestly, I wasn’t even completely clear on where the school was.

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I wonder if nasty people know they’re nasty, or if they think they’re perfectly agreeable and good. Maybe they know they’re nasty, but don’t much care. I’d put nasty clown Donald Trump in that category.

I’m not talking about occasionally nasty people (I surely fit in that category). I’m talking full on nasty, 24/7. People who can’t utter a sentence without it sounding like they’re trying to put you on the defensive. People whose faces are perpetually scrunched into scowls, the corner of their mouths turned downward, their slitty eyes menacingly staring at you. These people are usually controlling and paranoid, too, a lovely combination that makes you want to scream.

By Mike Robbins

If you had to sum up your life’s story, would you say it’s inspiring? Boring? Tragic? Realize that not only are you the main character in your life, but you’re also the author—only you can determine if you think your story is good and what the next chapter will be!

Sometimes when I’m about to take a big risk, go for something important or step out in a bold way in my life, a judgmental question will pop up in my head: “Who do you think you are?” Does this ever happen to you?

This is one of the many ways the feelings of not being good enough or of unworthiness show up in your life and get in the way of your success, fulfillment and authenticity. Sadly, as most of people know, this question doesn’t come from your true self; it comes from your “Gremlin,” the little monster in your head whose only job is to keep you out of perceived danger. The more you listen to your Gremlin, the more you allow him or her to sabotage your life.
However, this question, “Who do you think you are?”—while often asked in a negative, critical way and is something you allow to stop you from doing, saying and going for important things in life—is also a very important question for you to ask and answer honestly. When you look at it on deeper level, you see that your answer to this question has a lot to do with how you experience life in general.
How life is for you has a lot less to do with your circumstances or situations and much more to do with how you relate to them and the thoughts you have. Some of the most powerful thoughts you think and the ones that have the most impact on you are the thoughts you have about yourself (i.e., who you think you are).
Everyone has a story about themselves and their lives. These stories are often dramatic, funny, scary, inspiring, sad, intense, boring, enjoyable or tragic (usually a combination of many of these things). In most cases, the story you have changes a bit, depending on how you’re feeling about life and yourself at any given time.
One of the things you may sometimes forget, however, is that you’re the author of the story of your life, not just the main character. You may think that your story has to do with all the things that have happened to you, the qualities you were born with or have cultivated, the stuff you’ve done or haven’t done yet. But, when you remember that your story is a function of your thoughts, most specifically the thoughts you have about yourself, you can be empowered to consciously transform not just your story, but your life as a whole.

Here are a few things to think about and do to enhance your thoughts about yourself and therefore enhance your experience of life:

Notice when your feelings of being not good enough or of unworthiness show up.
In other words, pay attention to when the question, “Who do you think you are?” stops you in your tracks and takes you out of the game of your life. When you’re able to notice this, be honest about and have some compassion for yourself, you can take your power back from your Gremlin in those moments and step more fully into who you really are.
Ask yourself more deeply, “Who do you think you are?”
Go deeper with this question, beyond the judgment, and really inquire about how you relate to yourself. What’s your story? The more honest you can be about the story you have about yourself, the easier it is for you to acknowledge it, own it and ultimately change it. Remember, these stories are not “true”—they are simply your interpretations, judgments and beliefs. You created them, so you have the power to transform them at any time.
Upgrade your story about yourself.
In the specific areas of your life where your story is not empowering, inspiring or fulfilling, see if you’re willing and able to “upgrade” it in an authentic way. This basically means you change your thoughts, words and feelings about your story in a genuine way. Because people often get so attached to their stories and tend to defend them passionately, this upgrading process can be challenging. It sometimes takes support, feedback and coaching from others in order for you to move beyond your story and remember that you have the power to upgrade it whenever you’re ready.

Who you think you are is one of the most foundational aspects of how you relate to life and yourself. As Henry Ford said in his famous quote: “Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right.” This simple quote is so wise and profound. And, whether you think you’re great not, you’re always right—it’s a function of who you truly think you are.

“Not one day in anyone’s life is an uneventful day, no day without profound meaning, no matter how dull and boring it might seem, no matter whether you are a seamstress or a queen, a shoeshine boy, or a movie star, a renowned philosopher or a Down’s-syndrome child. Because in every day of your life, there are opportunities to perform little kin

dnesses for others, both by conscious acts of will and unconscious example. Each smallest act of kindness—even just words of hope when they are needed, the remembrance of a birthday, a compliment that engenders a smile—reverberates across great distances and spans of time, affecting lives unknown to the one whose generous spirit was the source of this good echo, because kindness is passed on and grows each time it’s passed, until a simple courtesy becomes an act of selfless courage years later and far away. Likewise, each small meanness, each thoughtless expression of hatred, each envious and bitter act, regardless of how petty, can inspire others, and is therefore the seed that ultimately produces evil fruit, poisoning people whom you have never met and never will. All human lives are so profoundly and intricately entwined—those dead, those living, those generations yet to come—that the fate of all is the fate of each, and the hope of humanity rests in every heart and in every pair of hands. Therefore, after every failure, we are obliged to strive again for success, and when faced with the end of one thing, we must build something new and better in the ashes, just as from pain and grief, we must weave hope, for each of us is a thread critical to the strength—to the very survival of the human tapestry. Every hour in every life contains such often-unrecognized potential to affect the world that the great days and thrilling possibilities are combined always in this momentous day.”
― Dean Koontz, From the Corner of His Eye

We know, it’s morning. Asking you to smile before your AM coffee is as preposterous as asking you to do a triple back flip for the gold right now. But you may be surprised — even a fake smile can go a long way.

In a happy happy study that’s about to appear in the journal Psychological Science, researchers have found that smiling — any kind of smile — is a sure way of reducing stress.

Doctoral student Tara Kraft and Sarah Pressman, Ph.D., of the University of Kansas, grouped 169 university students and gave them facial expressions training, reportsPsychCentral.com. You know how there’s a the genuine, warm smile that wrinkles up the sides of your eyes and then there’s the pretentious, stiff kind that only works the muscles around your mouth? In this particular case, chopsticks were involved to help create both.

Post written by Leo Babauta

If you’re like me, you are constantly learning new skills — gardening, carpentry, pizza-making, languages, sports, and so on. And I think this is a fun and wonderful thing to do.

But what’s the most important skill?

That’s debatable. I think compassion is a huge one, as is mindfulness. I’d go with those two any day of the week.

But if I had to pick just one, it would be this: learning to be happy with yourself.

That seems too simple, to trite! Too mushy and New-Agey! And I’ll grant all of that, but I stand firmly by my pick.

Why? The answer has to do with how this one thing can affect everything else in your life. If you are not happy with yourself, or your body, you become insecure. You think you’re not good enough. You fear being abandoned and alone. You do lots of other things to compensate, and these lead to problems.

So many of the problems people have stem from this one thing — being unhappy with themselves (often in the form of being unhappy with their bodies). Let’s take a look at why, and then look at some ideas of how to master the skill.

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By David Kessler, O Magazine

Throughout my years of working with the dying and the bereaved, I have noticed commonly shared experiences that remain beyond our ability to explain and fully understand. The first are visions. As the dying see less of this world, some people appear to begin looking into the world to come. It’s not unusual for the dying to have visions, often of someone who has already passed on. Your loved one may tell you that his deceased father visited him last night, or your loved one might speak to his mom as if she were there in the room at that time.

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MINDFUL-MOD

A Modern Life for the Mindful…

Category Archives: Psychology

The Hidden Benefits of Anger, Cursing and Negativity

What you think of as your worst qualities can have some surprising upsides.

Imperfect Harmony

Family Secrets: Mom, Interrupted

Nasty People…

Who Do You Think You Are? Why You’re in Control of Your Destiny…

There’s No Such Thing As An Uneventful Day…

One More Reason To Smile…

The Most Important Skill to Master from Zen Habits…

Post written by Leo Babauta

What We Can’t Explain at the End of Life: Who and What You See Before You Die…

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A Modern Life for the Mindful…

Category Archives: Psychology

What you think of as your worst qualities can have some surprising upsides.

Imperfect Harmony

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