What you have in your bag as you make your way down the twisting road of life are your inner strengths. They include positive mood, common sense, self-compassion, integrity, inner peace, determination, self-esteem, and a warm heart. One third of our strengths we're born with and two thirds are developed. You get them by growing them. Great news! That means we can develop the happiness and other inner strengths that foster fulfillment, love and inner peace. But how?? Read on ...
Read MoreImagine that your mind is like a garden. You can simply be with it, looking at its weeds and flowers without judging or changing anything. Second, you can pull weeds by decreasing what's negative in your mind. Third, you can grow flowers by increasing the positive in your mind. In essence, you can manage your mind in three primary ways: let be, let go, let in.
Read MoreThe brain is the organ that learns and it takes its shape from what the mind rests upon.
What you choose to pay attention to - what you rest your mind on - is the primary shaper of your brain. And, on the whole, you have a lot of influence over where your mind rests.
What are you choosing to pay attention to?
Read MoreHere's the catch: In order to transfer positive experiences from short-term memory into long-term storage, you have to install them in the brain. Otherwise beneficial experiences, such as feeling cared about, are momentarily pleasant but have no lasting value. Meanwhile, because of negativity bias, your brain is rapidly & effectively turning unpleasant, negative experiences - feeling stressed, inadequate, hurt - into neural structure.
Read MoreYour brain is continually looking for bad news. As soon as it finds some, it fixates on it with tunnel vision, fast-tracks it into memory storage, and then reactivates it at the least hint of anything even vaguely similar. But good news gets a kind of neutral shrug: "Eh, whatever."
In effect, the brain is like Velcro for negative experiences and Teflon for positive ones.
Read MoreBecause of our brain's built-in negativity bias, we have to consciously make efforts to notice the positives. We vacuum up the smallest negative detail and overlook and take for granted the good things. To rebalance your brain, you have to actively seek anything that could remotely be positive and then soak it up into your system. It's nice to know that (1) we can change our brains and (2) there is endless opportunity to find good around us!
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