4 Rituals for Happiness

Advice on happiness from neuroscientist Alex Korb.

Summary:

• Ask “What am I grateful for?” No answers? Doesn’t matter. Just searching helps.
• Label those negative emotions. Give it a name and your brain isn’t so bothered by it.
• Decide. Go for “good enough” instead of “best decision ever made on Earth.”
• Hugs, hugs, hugs. Don’t text — touch.

Notice the noting style instruction to label your felt experience.

Do Nothing For 2 Minutes

Do Nothing For 2 Minutes.  An opportunity to meditate?  A challenge?  A break?  Betcha can't.  If you last it out, it takes you to a book and app called Calm.

On the Construction of a Self

Nice video on the construction of the Self.

Western psychology holds that humans are not born with a sense of self, but rather that the self is constructed over time, gradually emerging within the first two years of life. Further, much scientific research says that everything that exists in human awareness – sight, sound, even time itself – is all a construction of the mind. So what are the pitfalls of treating these constructs as objective truths? According to Mahāmudrā Buddhist teaching, explored here by the clinical psychologist Daniel Brown at Harvard University, the more enamoured we are of our selves, the more fixed we are in our own ‘realities’, limiting the possibilities of our awareness. Playing with these reflections on the self and awareness, the San Francisco-based animator Claudia Biçen uses a series of ink-and-pencil portraits of Brown to bring him into being and then let him disappear.

Research Identifies 27 Emotional Categories

In the wake of research that tended to reduce the number of basic emotions down to sometimes four (mad, glad, sad, afraid), a recent study found 27 unique categories of emotions.  Probably useful from the standpoint of noting meditation.  From the study:

Talking to Yourself in 3rd Person & Emotions

The study "talking to yourself in the third person can help you control emotions" reveals that this form of distancing oneself from emotions can alleviate emotional suffering.  This is not particularly surprising given that this is a very literal form of de-identifying and detaching, similar to the goals of meditation.  It also reminds me of one of my recommended practices, thinking out loud, which in itself is related to noting practice (link at right).

Part of the study included an inquiry type practice of "what is [Participants’ Name] feeling right now?"