Thoughts are the trojan horse that smuggle in emotions. Emotions are temporary: they are real, but not really you. They can capture you and own you.
You can stare down the emotion and rob the thought of it’s emotive force just by being aware of the trick.
Category: Self
- Theme: Self
Emotional trojans
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1–2 minutes - Theme: Self
Spend your life de-stressing
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1–2 minutesYour stress management is not removing stress: it is delaying it while stoking the embers.
To douse it, change your story.
- Theme: Self
Sensitivity is our superpower
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1–2 minutesTo participate in the world opens you to attack. Flexing your agency guarantees pain.
The antidote of "thick skin" merely numbs, while our sensitivity empowers us to continue the battle. - Theme: Self
Vulnerability for Trust
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1–2 minutesVulnerability reveals brokenness, and this allows for trust.
Recognition of mutuality leads to communion. Not hierarchy or perfection, not abstractions of should and good. - Theme: Self
It really is the small things
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1–2 minutesThe idiotic little chores are tiny burdens, so miniscule as to be nearly invisible. And so we succumb to their inevitability, writing off that portion of our life.
To have even one of these simple things lifted, our gratitude is immense and out-of-proportion, but every day will now be easier because of someone else’s thoughtfulness. - Theme: Self
Know the world before you try to change it
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1–2 minutesIf you don’t know what reality is, how can you fix the world?
Gandhi says "Change yourself before changing the world," but you can change into a more deluded person if you do not see the world clearly first. - Theme: Self
Protect yourself from yourself
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1–2 minutesDon’t wear yourself out.
Seriously. It just isn’t worth it to gain praise or even self-affirmation. Work hard, but know your limits.
(This comes from a continual battle with migraines.)
- Theme: Self
Empathy transforms individuals into us
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1–2 minutesComforting a hurting friend hurts, because we support (share and enable) their emotions to support them.
Empathy is taking on their hurt. We lose ourselves for solidarity, in order to pull them from solitude, transforming the distinct people into “us.”
- Theme: Self
Confrontation martial arts
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1–2 minutesConfrontation is alright, when done with respect and love, but it still fuels aggression rather than openness.
Confrontation takes twice as long, with three times the energy, to wear down somebody down to the point they will hear you. Alternatively, you could land one well placed, well timed, insightful question and unravel the illusion of separation and difference, of ego and identity.
Be a master martial artist, not a flailing slap fight.