Jeremiahs!

We all know what it’s like to have what we think is a good idea, excitedly tell it to someone, and then to have them say the idea sucks.

When someone tells you your view of things is wrong or ridiculous, there are a few possibilities.  They might be right.  Or you might be a bad salesman.  Certainly many bad ideas have been conceived, and many good ideas have been poorly presented.  But in addition to these possibilities, people seem to just be wired to think, by default, that anything that is too different from what they already “know”, is wrong.  And people seem to really enjoy telling others how wrong their ideas are.  Regardless of how great your ideas are, or how good of a salesman you are, people are going to tell you your ideas are crap.

Felix Dennis wrote an excellent book called “How To Get Rich”.  He says that no matter what, if you have a new idea there will be no shortage of people telling you your idea sucks.  He calls these people “Jeremiahs”, and I love this term because it gives a name to such a common experience.

If people criticize your ideas, first listen to them and see if they have valid points.  Try to improve your skills at selling your ideas.  But at the end of the day, if you still think your ideas are good, you should go ahead with them because the Jeremiahs will be out in full force regardless of how good your ideas are.

The next time someone tells you your view of the world is wrong, you can simply say, “Thank you Jeremiah!”

Tori Amos And A Moment Of Happiness

Walking home from work today I had a moment of real happiness.  A few days ago I dug my iPod out of its place at the back of my dresser drawer where its been for a few months, and have been listening to some of my old tunes.  One song I’ve really been enjoying again is Tori Amos’ “A Sorta Fairytale”.

Today as I walked home from work I listened to it, and felt a surge of genuine happiness.  You know, one of those rare moments when a big smile just bursts out of you, on its own and without you having to purposely produce it.  I even had to tone down the smile a bit so people on the street didn’t think something was wrong with me.

Integrating Meditation With Action

Meditation helps me to let go of some of the worries of the day and relax a bit.  When I meditate, I give my thoughts and feelings permission to be whatever they are, and focus on something simple like my breath.  In this way I sometimes feel like I am able to find a place that is “away” from the storm of the hustle and bustle of my life.

I typically meditate either alone at home, or while I’m walking to work in the mornings.  In both of these cases, I am able to focus on meditating since these activities don’t require much thinking.

I would like to be able to have this same sense of calmness as I go about my everyday activities — doing tasks at work, talking to people, or running errands.  However, when I’ve tried this it has been difficult to both maintain this state of mind and carry out my activities at the same time.

I’ve heard people talk about “mindfulness” as paying attention to everything that you’re doing as you’re doing it.  For example,drinking a cup of tea “as if the axis of the world turned on the movement of the cup”.  I can see how this might work, but it seems difficult to have a lot of  “mindfulness” AND think about what needs to be done for the task at the same time.  It seems to make thought-intensive tasks much slower than just doing them normally.

At any rate, I would love to hear any thoughts or insights on this from you.

Meditation – There Is Only The Breath

When I meditate, I often focus on my breath, which is a common technique in meditation.  Lately I’ve been adding another component to this, which is imagining that there is only the breath — in other words, imagining that the only thing in the universe is this breath right here.  This means imagining that there is no surrounding environment or people around you, and it also means imagining that there is no “breather”.  In other words, that there is no “me” and no personal life history — but only the breath.

I’m a relative newcomer to meditation — I’ve tried it briefly several times over the last few years, but have never been very consistent with it.  I’m trying meditation as one way to help me lessen the negative feelings in life — anxiety, sadness, regret — and boost the positive feelings.  My experience so far has been positive, but relatively mild — I do feel more relaxed and less anxious during and after meditating, but have by no means mastered those emotions.  I’ve also had a few experiences where I’ve felt moments of what I would call “joy” during meditation, but those have been relatively few.

One of the ways meditation is supposed to work is by “quieting” the mind — by stopping all of the thoughts about what you have to do, dangers to avoid, mistakes you’ve made, etc.  The idea is that these thoughts are the cause of negative feelings, and that if you can stop these thoughts, the negative feelings will go away, and perhaps even be replaced by happiness.

Imagining that “there is only the breath” may be one way to help disconnect from all of the thoughts and worries of everyday life.  In the moment when you’re meditating, there is only the breath — no you, no past, no job, no problems — just the breath.

How To Like People

Sometimes we find ourselves dreading being around people — small talk with co-workers, holidays with the relatives, a birthday party with people we find annoying.  And it’s true that people can sometimes have characteristics which aren’t the most pleasant — bragging, telling boring stories, pressuring us to do things we don’t enjoy, repeating the same tired phrases that are found throughout the culture, being “negative Nancy’s”, or being selfish.

But it’s also true that people sometimes have wonderful characteristics — they can be funny, compassionate, inspiring, helpful, refreshing, intelligent.  And sharing time with others can also be one of the absolutely most rewarding experiences.

So what makes the difference?  Why do we sometimes have wonderful experiences with people, and sometimes terrible experiences?  The first answer that may come to mind is that there are different kinds of people — some people are fun to be around, and others are a drag.  There’s certainly some truth to that — some people are, by nature, more friendly or outgoing or funny than others.

However, I would argue that the times we find others annoying, or boring, or pushy — are precisely those times that we find ourselves unable to successfully deal with their behavior.  In other words, it’s not just how other people act that causes us to have a bad time around them — it’s our own inability to successfully deal with those behaviors.  If we have the skill to deal with others’ behaviors, we don’t mind those behaviors and are free to enjoy ourselves.

For example, let’s say there is someone who is pushy — they are always pressuring you to do things you don’t really want to do, and you end up doing those things, or not doing them and somehow looking like a jerk for not doing them.  This is not a fun situation.  However, if you had the skill to deflect their attempts to pressure you in a way that didn’t make you seem like a jerk at all, then you could be free to enjoy being around that person, without having to do things you didn’t want to do.  In other words, more social skill results in a greater ability to deflect the negative characteristics people sometimes have and a greater ability to enjoy people.

I think the truth about people is neither “they’re mostly boring jerks” or “they’re mostly interesting and fun”.  Rather, (perhaps obviously) I think most people are some of both.  I view people as like piles of objects.  Some of the objects may be broken or unattractive or sharp, but among the objects are almost always to be found bars of pure gold.

I’m convinced that everyone (or almost everyone) has some really wonderful characteristics, however hidden they may be on first acquaintance.  One way to think about dealing with people is to try to handle the unpleasant aspects, and bring out as much of the pure gold that lies within as possible.

To come back to the main point of this post, then.  Q: How can we like people?  A: Get skilled at dealing with them.

Can Feelings Ever Be “Wrong” Part II

In Part I of this post, I talked about how feelings can give us valuable, correct information about the world and about the actions we should take in it.  Be can feelings ever be “wrong”, in the sense of giving us incorrect information or pushing us to make bad decisions?  I think the (perhaps surprising) answer to this question is “yes”.

We have probably all had experiences where we felt we should act in a certain way — but where it later turned out we had made a bad decision.  For example, we might have felt that someone was insulting us, and said something to put them in their place — only to find out we had misunderstood their intentions and in fact, they hadn’t been insulting us at all.

I think the evidence that feelings can sometimes be wrong is all around us.  Common examples might include the compulsive gambler who has a feeling that “this time they’re going to win big”, or the dieter who rationally “knows” that eating a particular dessert will undermine a long-term goal of losing weight, but still feels that they must have it.  Not to mention times when we have two (or more) conflicting feelings at the same time, which can’t both be right.

In my own life, growing up I had to deal with having too much fear — I was the kid who was afraid of swinging on the “big tree swing” at camp, or learning to roller skate, or talking to a girl that I liked.  Having these fears prevented me from doing things I would have liked to do.  I often “knew” that doing something would be in my own best interest and carried minimal risk, and yet still had a powerful feeling that doing that something would lead to “bad things”.

One of my own big discoveries was that sometimes feelings can be wrong.  This may seem obvious, but for me it was a revelation.  In my case, sometimes the feelings I had that a particular action carried high risk were simply not correct.

In a simpler world, we could either always trust our feelings (“going with our gut”) or always ignore them.  But since our feelings sometimes give us valuable, correct information, and at other times give us misleading, incorrect information, making the right choices is probably more complicated than either of these simple alternatives.

Since doing productive things often involves overcoming what your feelings are telling you to do (such as in dieting, quitting smoking, etc.), one of the challenges to self-improvement may be figuring out for yourself when you should trust your feelings, and when your feelings may be leading you in the wrong direction.

Can Feelings Ever Be “Wrong”? Part I

Feelings are widely discussed in popular culture, such as:

  • As the subject of popular songs, as in “I can’t fight this feeling”, “the way you make me feel”, etc.
  • The classic question of whether you follow your “heart” or your “head”
  • Phrases like “go with your gut” and “trust your instincts” suggesting that feelings lead you in the right direction

In many cases feelings are vital to making good decisions.  For example, Gavin de Becker’s classic book The Gift of Fear gives compelling evidence that our feelings can keep us out of dangerous situations which we might not even rationally recognize as dangerous, such as having a feeling that a certain person shouldn’t be trusted.

Similarly, Malcolm Gladwell’s book Blink gives many examples of people getting feelings about things (such as whether an expensive statue is a fake) which later turn out to be correct, without “knowing” why they have those feelings.

It seems pretty clear that feelings can “be right” in the sense of leading us in a direction which is in our own best interest.

However, what about the opposite question — can feelings ever be wrong?  In other words, might we ever get feelings about the way things are which later turn out to be incorrect, or which push us to act (or not act) in ways that ultimately aren’t in our best interest?

I think the (perhaps surprising) answer to this question is also “yes” — sometimes feelings can be wrong.  More to this point in Part II of this post.

Two Approaches To Happiness

From my initial explorations, there seem to be a two broad approaches to finding happiness:

  • Figure out what things and situations make you most happy, and become skilled at achieving them.  For example, you could learn how to have deep and meaningful relationships, make money, have a career that you love, obtain desirable sexual partners, have more self-control, etc.
  • Become skilled at feeling happy regardless of the situation or in a wide range of situations.  Some examples include meditation, cognitive psychology techniques like “reframing the situation”, religious beliefs, and drugs.

One big questions is – which of these techniques work, and which can produce the biggest changes?

An Easy Road To Happiness?

One question I have about happiness is perhaps a basic one – is it easy or hard to become happy?  In other words, is there some happiness secret, that if we only knew it would easily make us happy?

There are many popular books and websites devoted to finding happiness, as well as the beginnings of scientific research on it.  From everything I’ve seen so far, nothing seems to legitimately offer quick and easy happiness.

It remains to be seen whether we’ll be able to figure out a “secret” in the future, but for now, it seems like happiness must be the result of some relatively long-term process.

Healing Rhythms – A Review

I recently purchased the “Healing Rhythms” software and biofeedback device from Wild Divine (http://www.wilddivine.com).  Healing Rhythms consists of a biofeedback device that measures heart rate and skin conductance (a measure of anxiety or arousal), and computer software designed to help you relax and better manage stress.

You place the biofeedback device on three fingers, and the device measures changes in skin conductance, heart rate, and heart rate variability.  These physiological measures allow the program to estimate arousal, relaxation, and breathing, and are used to control various elements in the activities presented in the program.

For example, in one activity you must move “rocks” across the screen to create a stack of rocks on the other side of the screen.  The rocks must be placed precisely, and move up the more active or excited you become, and move down the more relaxed you become.  You thus must balance relaxation and more active energy to properly place the rocks.

A big part of the program is listening to guidance from three instructors – Dr. Andrew Weil, Dr. Dean Ornish, and Dr. Deepak Chopra – who give instruction in stress-reducing breathing exercises and meditation techniques.

I’ve just begun using the program, but initially on the whole it seems good.  There are many different takes on “meditation” out there, and here it is presented very clearly and basically, and without many of the religious beliefs that sometimes accompany instruction on meditation, which for me is a good thing.

The biofeedback element is interesting, and I think will end up being important in the future.  It is not perfect – measures of skin conductance and heart rate variability are likely not perfect measures of anxiety and relaxation, and additionally the sensors themselves are probably not always perfect at even measuring these things.  Still, the biofeedback gives some indicator (even if rough) of anxiety and relaxation.

I have only begun to experience meditation in my own life, but it seems likely to me that training one’s mind through meditation-like practices may end up being a very powerful way to bring more happiness into one’s life.  I think this is a great introduction to meditation for dealing with stress, and the biofeedback aspect adds an interesting element, and helps one to become more aware of one’s own internal state.