Happen to the World: The Gist: Recent Episodes
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The Gist is a podcast from happen.world that aims to give you the gist of interesting ideas about life, the universe and everything!
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Recently, in my part of the world, we celebrated Valentine’s Day and Family Day on the same long weekend. It is easy to get caught up and overwhelmed with all the commercialization that surrounds Valentine’s Day. The flowers, chocolates, gifts and its primary focus on romantic love. But Family Day offered an opportunity to look more broadly and examine the various types of love, warmth and connection that we all want and need in our lives.
See full transcript here.
Photo credit: Freestock
It is easy to become preoccupied with all the things we need to do, whether because of obligation or choice. Our responsibilities can start to feel like burdens. And so often our modern day pursuit of personal productivity blinds us to other more valuable things - like making mistakes, learning from them, and having fun along the way. Children have an incredible ability to do all three. Perhaps it is because they take themselves less seriously and bring a novice’s perspective. This way of looking at life is sometimes referred to as “beginner's mind.” The kind of mind that remains open to learning, seeking out varied information, and finding new possibilities. See full transcript here.
Photo Credit: Xavi Cabera
It might feel like the first week of this year has already flown by! But the rest of the year still stretches ahead of us. What will the year bring? Can we hope, plan, and work towards new goals? Can we take any lessons from the previous year has taught us and move forward?
We can choose to start each new year fresh, with curiosity about its possibilities. But uncertainty can also fill us up with a sense of dread. Sometimes our sense of impatience about the future can come from our unhealthy relationship with time or what is called ‘time poverty’ - a fear that time is always in short supply. Will we get everything done in the limited time we have each day or each year? But this fear creates a heightened sense of urgency which often leads to hasty decisions or actions as a way to relieve our restlessness. Often we mistakenly believe that doing something is better than doing nothing.
But there are no quick fixes for most meaningful things in life, which usually just take time, effort and patience.
See full transcript here.Photo credit: Jovica Smileski
As we go through our lives we might wonder whether we are spending our days as we should be. How much time should go into one thing versus another? How much effort is enough? While there are no easy answers to such broad questions, it helps to start by understanding our priorities and our intentions. Armed with this understanding, we can use a practice what is called “wise effort” – knowing when a lot of effort is warranted and when a lighter touch is more appropriate.
See full transcript here.
Photo credit: Barbara Horn
To everything there is a season, the saying goes. And here in many parts of North America, we are in the midst of my favourite one - autumn. To me, it is a season that brings together the best of the other three. There is a hint of lingering summer heat tempered by cooler breezes. Some days feel like spring with fresh rains and some green still left in the leaves. And as the trees start turning into shades of red and auburn, they remind us that autumn is keeping the winter snow at bay a little longer.
Fall also signals a time of change. For garden lovers, it's a time to close off our flower beds, wrap our evergreens in burlap blankets, and plant bulbs for the spring season. As an amateur gardener with mostly a brown thumb, I always admire the bountiful gardens of my friends and neighbours. and professionally landscaped botanicals with sprawling year round blooms and weed free beds.
But in a world so focused on outward curated perfection - perfect houses and lawns, perfect bodies and clothes, indeed perfect lives whatever that means to each of us - I have come to terms with my messy garden. In fact it has become a source of solace and joy, a place where I get to putter, to experiment, to try things with imperfect knowledge, and to learn by trial and error. A forgiving place where flowers and vegetables sometimes bloom in spite of my ignorance. A reminder that life is inherently messy and surprising despite our best attempts to control it.
See full transcript here.
Photo credit: Merlin's Hollow
This week marks the official start of autumn in the Northern Hemisphere. My thoughts always turn to the school year as children are settling into new grades and routines in most North American cities.
When the pandemic was first declared, no one could have imagined that the vast majority of the world's children would not be in school, atleast not in person. Technology, helped millions of children through online learning, with all its benefits and pitfalls.
Now, five years on, everyone from scientists and pediatricians, to educators and policy makers, will no doubt keep reflecting on the impact of the pandemic on education. It makes one wonder about education as a whole, what it means to learn and how that has changed over human history.
See full transcript on Substack or LinkedIn
Photo credit: Element5Digital
Last time, in Part 1 of this topic, we looked at how the remote versus in-person work debate is unfolding in different countries. Global trends aside, each of us must grapple with these questions individually. This debate rages on as we all try to navigate the ever changing waters of the workplace. Everywhere, people are wondering if remote work is here to stay or if it will be a relic of the pandemic?
For some of us its a moot point because certain front line jobs simply don't lend themselves to working from home. For the rest of us who do have the privilege of choice, it comes down to preference, perception and what we want to get out of work.
See full transcript including articles mentioned in this episode by clicking our blog link here.
Photo credit: Alexa Williams
After Covid bans started lifting a couple of years ago and some of us were going back to work in person, we shared a two-part update on global trends and individual choices we were making in returning to the office. Today, the debate continues as employees and employers grapple with the right balance, so this topic remains timely. We are revisiting it, since for many of us September is a month of transition. Children are returning to school and adults are resuming a regular work schedule. But a few years into a post-pandemic world, what does showing up for work really mean?
See full transcript here.Photo Credit: Nick Morrison
It is very easy to get wrapped up in everything we need to do day to day. When we feel busy or overwhelmed it is natural to vent to people who lend an empathetic ear. Whether that is having too much on our plates. Or a difficult person or situation we might be dealing with.
Whatever the problem, most of us find it comforting to have a calm presence to turn to - a caring spouse, a trusted colleague or a patient friend who is happy to let us get things off our chest or maybe offer a different perspective. I think of such people as an oasis, not just in times of crisis, but in the day to day business of living life, with its inherent ups and downs.
It doesn't hurt to reflect on how we can be that nurturing presence to others. If we want to build a more compassionate world with greater mutual understanding, there is no better place to start than with ourselves. Certainly we can all show kindness through outward acts. This could mean volunteering our time in local communities. Or donating to charities that have global reach. It may be through work that helps others or helps the planet as a whole.
But surprisingly what is often harder than these outward acts, is sustaining an inner equilibrium while we deal with smaller, everyday things in life. So how can we train ourselves to maintain presence? How can we be an oasis for others? Here are a few ideas. See full transcript here.
Photo credit: Benjamín Gremler
Although the Covid pandemic has thankfully passed, we continue to learn a lot about its toll on virtually every country around the world. The pandemic came with a shared sense of helplessness and fear. It shone a light on mental health as anxiety levels spiked. But even before Covid, anxiety was on the rise, and many people will continue to struggle with it in the future.
Of course, anxiety is a spectrum, with those on the mild end experiencing it in passing, and those on the severe end being debilitated by it. Until recently, doctors and therapists relied on tools such as medications and cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) to help patients manage anxiety. This was the case for Dr. Jud Brewer, a psychiatrist and neuroscience researcher at Yale and Brown universities, who uses these tools in his own practice. But he has also successfully incorporated mindfulness into his work. See full transcript here. See full transcript here.
Photo credit: Ben Mathis Seibel
If we were to look back in time a few centuries, we would see that so called “commoners” were going about their lives knowing they had little chance of joining the aristocratic classes. We have come a long way since then. Though socioeconomic barriers and inequalities persist, we now aspire to a world where anyone, with enough grit and talent, can become anything they set their mind to.
This message is central to our increasingly meritocratic societies the world over. It has its benefits and has provided tremendous opportunity where in the past there would have been oppression. More people can fulfill their potential and work their way towards a better quality of life. But is this core tenet of meritocracy true and what does it take, individually and collectively, to make it true? How has it shaped our notions of personal success and failure? See full transcript here.
Photo credit: Florian Schmetz
The idea of mindfulness, and related practices like yoga and meditation, has become more mainstream in recent years. From boardrooms to classrooms, sports fields to hospitals, the notion of working with our minds is not so foreign anymore. And yet translating these ideas into consistent action is where many of us get stuck.
If we are honest, we are often better at reading articles, listening to podcasts or watching videos on these topics, than we are at making time to be alone with our thoughts. So what holds us back from doing the hard work of actively taking care of our minds? See full transcript here.
Photo Credit: Keegan Houser
Whether we like it or not, life is full of change, both in the world around us and within our own lives. Most of us have a love hate relationship with change. We crave novelty, but too much change, too often can also feel de-stabilizing. With so much political, economic and environmental turmoil in the world right now, how can we maintain inner stability? How do we stay centered day to day, when it feels like the ground is always moving?
Photo Credit: Harry Cunnigham
We all know the power of good stories and we humans seem wired to build our lives around them. Throughout our history, our species has relied on oral tradition to share information, pass down knowledge and teach morality through myths and legends.
And every day each of us is writing our own stories. Our brains like to weave narratives out of daily events and fit them into a bigger storyline, in an attempt to make sense of life.
The trouble is, we also like stories to be tidy, for protagonists to solve their problems, for endings to offer a sense of closure. But the variability of real life means that many things remain unresolved. See full transcript here.
Photo credit: Kalen Emsly
It's safe to say that without a crystal ball, none of us know for sure how long our lives will be. Hence the expression, life is short, because in many ways it is indeed quite fleeting. Yet for some, life can also be long. Could we all embrace the secrets of people in the world who have lived the longest and healthiest lives? Maybe some of us dread living until a 100, because we imagine ourselves to be frail, bed ridden or not in control of our faculties.
But what if we could lead active lives into our triple digits, full of warmth, connection, laughter and best of all, a sharp mind. Sounds pretty good, doesn't it? Well, that's exactly what many of the centenarians in the so called 'Blue Zones' are doing. These zones are areas of the world that seem to consistently have the highest concentration of people living into their nineties or past one hundred.
See full transcript here.Photo credit: Hector Reyes
With Donald Trump on the cusp of taking the presidential oath - again - there is no end of analysis about why or how this could have happened. And certainly enough finger pointing and blame to go around. Plenty has been written about broader culpability, but we are where we are, so perhaps it is better to look at why our societies willingly give personalities like Trump so much power and credence.
After all, without his cadre of enablers, the narcissist-in-chief would not be able to move his agenda forward. And therein lies both the problem and the solution - narcissists and all manner of other antagonistic personalities are only as powerful as the attention and control we collectively allow them to have. See full transcript here.
Photo credit: Tabrez Sayed
We are ushering in a new year, fresh with possibilities. Around the world, leaders are changing hands, for better or for worse. With change, also comes uncertainty and sometimes the revival of old wounds or long standing grudges.
As U.S. President, Joe Biden, despite all his known faults, prepares to leave office, it's safe to say that he was clearly a different kind of leader than his predecessor. Specifically in terms of the civility he brought to the job. Despite myriad crises and so much acrimony, Biden continues to speak of healing and somehow manages to remain positive. That's possibly despite, or perhaps because of, the great personal tragedies he has endured.
It's also possible that a remarkably long political career, rather than making him cynical, has seasoned and humbled him, allowing him to let go of grudges and reach across party lines to do what needs to be done. Someone who might otherwise have settled into a quieter life, made one last attempt to re-imagine his country as it could be.
With his predecessor set to return to office once again, history books may yet write of Biden's naivete and misplaced faith in bipartisanship. But he has done one thing that is likely to be remembered, regardless of what his legacy becomes — he has set a tone at the top that demonstrates a belief in the value of empathy and civil discourse. A tone that is likely to take a sharp turn upon his exit.
Whether in politics, business or other aspects of life, kindness, while applauded in theory, is sometimes seen as weakness in practice. In a world that often rewards power and aggression, where do warmth and decency fit in? Does it make sense to take the high road, turn the other cheek— let bygones be bygones?
See full transcript here
Photo credit: Kostiantyn-Li
Right now in the Northern Hemisphere most of us are in the midst of a change of season. The hot days of summer days, along with school holidays and vacation travel, are behind us. We are in the thick of autumn, refocused on work, school routines, or personal projects. And already, there are hints of cooler weather, with winter just around the corner.
Each time the seasons change, we can take a cue from nature to reflect on how life is ever changing. Transitions, whether seasonal, personal or professional, can come with mixed emotions. By embracing seasonal living, we can welcome change into our lives and the full range of emotions that come with it. See full transcript here.
Photo Credit: Johannes Plenio
The pandemic has forced many of us to reflect on our lifestyles - both at home and at work. It is wonderful that we are thinking more carefully about where and how we work. But a recent Economist article urges us to go even further and pay attention to what actually constitutes work. Should sitting in meetings and responding to emails be considered work? Undoubtedly both are a necessary part of modern work. But we are all guilty of booking too many meetings and sending too many emails.
It is important to challenge these kinds of habitual behaviours. Can the content of an email be handled through a group chat or people collaborating in a shared document? Can a meeting be 15 minutes forcing all parties to get to the point? Changing these behaviours also creates time for two very important elements of life -first, deep work and second, boredom. See full transcript here.
Photo credit: Annie Spratt
The beloved Canadian literary character, Anne of Green Gables, famously said 'I'm so glad to live in a world where there are Octobers'. I for one agree with Anne. October is a wonderful month, an in-between time where the cooler fall air means wearing cozy sweaters, drinking hot cocoa and sitting by the fire watching the leaves change colour. But the best part of October, for kids and adults alike, might just be Halloween. An opportunity to dress up and be someone else for a day. I was reminded of this just last week with all the neighbourhood children, along with mine, out in droves in their costumes.
I've written before about how children relish in the opportunity to embody different characters on Halloween or through make belief and storytelling. But really, don't we already play many different roles throughout our lives as adults? Even in a given day we are many different people depending on where we are and who we are with. During Covid, some of these lines between our different roles started to blur - work and home, formality and leisure. Maybe that has contributed to the notion of bringing more of our private selves into the public realm, even into the workplace. So as we say goodbye to October and usher in a new month, it's helpful to reflect on what an authentic self really means, if it exists at all in a consistent way or if it is ever changing.
See full transcript here.
Photo credit: Paige Cody
While decision making on a large scale has been studied extensively - as it applies to leadership, business, policy development - we often don't apply much rigor to decisions in our individual lives. Most of us don't formally learn decision making. We pick it up indirectly by watching our elders or leaders and through our own life experience. By trial and error, by making mistakes and gradually (hopefully!) making better decisions as we mature.
But what if we viewed decision making as a key life skill, approaching each decision more systematically, not reactively? Would this make the process less fraught with stress? Could we better prepare our children by delegating responsibility earlier, not hovering as much, and letting them build their decision-making muscle?
An important first step is to realize that not all decisions are equal. We face a range of decisions in life. Small versus large transformative decisions differ in size, but sometimes little recurring choices made consistently - like what we eat, how active we are - can have as much long term impact as more major life decisions like who to marry, where to live or what career to follow.
At times we face simple choices where no matter what we pick we won't go wrong. But at other times, decisions can be complex with high stakes and present both opportunities and consequences. Here we can preserve our mental resources by making the simpler decisions quickly and investing more time in careful, deliberate analysis of the riskier ones. Too often we spend too long on simple matters leaving us drained and unable to deal with bigger decisions.
Easy decisions are easy because there is a clear best option. But when we have multiple options that may be equally good or bad with no clear criteria to help us decide, that can feel much harder. In the case of these hard choices we must, as philosopher Ruth Chang says, dig deep, develop our own criteria and select a path based on what we value most at the time.
Having assessed what type of decision we are facing, the next step is to go about making a decision with as much clarity of mind as we can muster. Here are a few ideas that might help us all with that process…
See full transcript here.
Photo Credit: Cody Moore
While almost all animals have unique ways of communicating, the development of complex, language-based communication sets humans apart. It allows us to express ourselves through speech and the written word. With inventions ranging from paper to computers and smartphones, the capacity and reach of human communication continues to grow. And yet it is as fraught with potential for misunderstanding and harm, as it is for positivity and change.
Most of us take this incredible human ability for granted. Children are naturally wired to pick up multiple languages almost effortlessly. And as adults we often don't spend enough time thinking about the importance of language. But who would we be as a species and as individuals without words? See full transcript here.
Photo credit: Chris Montgomery
While going through the self check-out recently, I witnessed what is, no doubt, a common grocery store event - a spectacular, full-bodied toddler meltdown. The drama, the tears, the anger - an overreaction to something seemingly small, but very real and relevant to the child. How we respond to a distressed child has a direct impact on its behaviour. While our first instinct might be to lecture or discipline, we all know that kindness and understanding generally work better. Helping the child to breathe and relax goes a long way towards its ability to self-soothe in the future.
But let's be honest, emotional self-regulation isn't just hard for toddlers - many of us struggle with it throughout our adult lives. How often are we standing at the self check-out feeling tired, frazzled, or overwhelmed? How often do we take the time to do a self check-in? To breathe and take a moment to center ourselves. Here are some simple yet effective things we can do to embrace the relaxed way of life we might be craving. See full transcript here.
Photo credit: Faye Cornish
It may be true that some periods of life are genuinely more intense than others. And that may be the case whether you are a single person in your twenties, or middle-aged with family responsibilities, or a retiree! At any stage of life there are times when there really is a lot going on all at once. After all, how often do we hear the phrase "I'm crazy busy"? It seems to have become the norm, and unfortunately even a badge of honor. Often we feel surrounded by busyness through the hustle and bustle at our workplaces, in the congestion of traffic or even in the noise and chaos of our households.
But what if busyness is also a feeling we carry around? If we take some time to examine our thoughts and emotions, it becomes clear that our sense of busyness is biased by our internal state. Some days, there could be a whirlwind of activity, but we somehow handle it all in zen-like fashion. Other days might be lighter with just a few to dos on our list, but we feel frantic, overwhelmed, or unsure of how we will get through the day. So what's going on? See full transcript here.
Photo Credit: Mauro Mora
Each summer we select audience favourites from The Gist archives to share with all of you. This year we are doing a throwback to our early days with a series on the senses and their impact on our collective well-being. Not just our five physical senses but also our awareness which allows us to develop better habits of mind, feel more compassion for others and practice grateful living. Given the degree of upheaval and hyper-partisanship around the world there is no better time to revisit how we can think about and respond more critically to everything going on within and around us. Whether you've been with us from the beginning or are new to The Gist, we hope you enjoy this summer selection.
This week we examine how grateful living provides us with that much needed sense of integration. One of my favourite authors, Benedictine monk and scholar David Steindl-Rast, has made gratefulness his life's work. Having read and listened to so many different authors, there is something about Brother David that really stands out for me. Perhaps it is his simple but eloquent words, the warmth and humility he exudes, or the depth of his wisdom. Whatever it may be, I find his ideas on gratitude nourishing and very accessible to all of us, no matter our age, race, or culture.
Brother David believes that gratitude goes beyond thankfulness for our worldly possessions or feeling happy when life is easy. He sees gratefulness as an orientation towards life that we carry with us through all its ups and downs. That is why he prefers the term grateful living because he sees it as a stance we take, a choice we make. He points out that grateful living doesn't mean that we can be grateful for everything in our lives or in the broader world. Certainly when life presents us with difficult circumstances, or when someone hurts us, it is not possible to be grateful. Nor is it possible to feel gratitude for all the pain, suffering and injustice we see in the world. But he proposes that it is possible to feel grateful in each moment for the opportunity that moment presents. See full transcript here.
Photo Credit: ANIRUDH
Each summer we select audience favourites from The Gist archives to share with all of you. This year we are doing a throwback to our early days with a series on the senses and their impact on our collective well-being. Not just our five physical senses but also our awareness which allows us to develop better habits of mind, feel more compassion for others and practice grateful living. Given the degree of upheaval and hyper-partisanship around the world there is no better time to revisit how we can think about and respond more critically to everything going on within and around us. Whether you've been with us from the beginning or are new to The Gist, we hope you enjoy this summer selection.
Last week we looked at how psychiatrist Dr. Jud Brewer helps his patients create a sense of integration between body and mind to heal from addictions and anxiety. He is able to guide patients towards newer, healthier behaviours as they work to overcome engrained negative patterns.
This week we examine the work of Dr. Dan Siegel who extends this idea further. Siegel is also a psychiatrist and a pioneer in the field of Interpersonal Neurobiology (IPNB for short). This field brings together multiple disciplines ranging from anthropology to biology and neuroscience to systems theory. See full transcript here.
Photo Credit: JJ Ying
Each summer we select audience favourites from The Gist archives to share with all of you. This year we are doing a throwback to our early days with a series on the senses and their impact on our collective well-being. Not just our five physical senses but also our awareness which allows us to develop better habits of mind, feel more compassion for others and practice grateful living. Given the degree of upheaval and hyper-partisanship around the world there is no better time to revisit how we can think about and respond more critically to everything going on within and around us. Whether you've been with us from the beginning or are new to The Gist, we hope you enjoy this summer selection.
Recently we have been examining the writings of Jon Kabat-Zinn on the power of our senses and how they keep us grounded in the present moment. But it is easy for us to think of our senses, and in fact our whole body, as disconnected from our minds. Jon often refers to a funny quote from James Joyce's book the Dubliners where one of the characters, Mr. Duffy, is described as living 'a short distance from his body'. While funny, this statement isn't too far from the truth for most of us. We think of our minds as the command centre of our lives, with our bodies tagging along. But what if we could have a more integrated sense of self? See full transcript.
Photo Credit: Gabriel Crismariu
Each summer we select audience favourites from The Gist archives to share with all of you. This year we are doing a throwback to our early days with a series on the senses and their impact on our collective well-being. Not just our five physical senses but also our awareness which allows us to develop better habits of mind, feel more compassion for others and practice grateful living. Given the degree of upheaval and hyper-partisanship around the world there is no better time to revisit how we can think about and respond more critically to everything going on within and around us. Whether you've been with us from the beginning or are new to The Gist, we hope you enjoy this summer selection.
We have been exploring John Kabat-Zinn's book Coming to our Senses, with particular attention to one sense each week. When we put all of them together they form what John calls the bodyscape. The bodyscape forms our sensory experience which is ultimately interpreted into a message, maybe even a narrative in our minds - what John calls the mindscape. The bodyscape is really part of the mindscape which houses our sense of awareness.
John notes that 'when we become aware, when we rest in the knowing, we are resting in the deep essence of the mindscape, in the basic empty spaciousness that is awareness itself. It is its own sense. Perhaps the ultimate sense.' See full transcript.
Photo Credit: Ante Hamersmit
Each summer we select audience favourites from The Gist archives to share with all of you. This year we are doing a throwback to our early days with a series on the senses and their impact on our collective well-being. Not just our five physical senses but also our awareness which allows us to develop better habits of mind, feel more compassion for others and practice grateful living. Given the degree of upheaval and hyper-partisanship around the world there is no better time to revisit how we can think about and respond more critically to everything going on within and around us. Whether you've been with us from the beginning or are new to The Gist, we hope you enjoy this summer selection.
This week we look at touch, the last of the five senses. Some of our senses can be more easily impacted - we might lose our sight or hearing with age, we might get sick and not be able to smell or taste as well. But touch is the one sense that is very difficult to lose - almost everyone can either touch or be touched throughout their lives.
See full transcript here.
Photo credit: Dahiana Waszaj
Each summer we select audience favourites from The Gist archives to share with all of you. This year we are doing a throwback to our early days with a series on the senses and their impact on our collective well-being. Not just our five physical senses but also our awareness which allows us to develop better habits of mind, feel more compassion for others and practice grateful living. Given the degree of upheaval and hyper-partisanship around the world there is no better time to revisit how we can think about and respond more critically to everything going on within and around us. Whether you've been with us from the beginning or are new to The Gist, we hope you enjoy this summer selection.
We continue with John Kabat-Zinn's exploration of the senses. He talks about taste as fundamental to our survival. Outside of breathing, eating and drinking are essential to our existence. Our ancestors used a keenly developed sense of taste to forage for food. As humans discovered agriculture, the art and science of cooking grew over centuries into the incredible array of flavours and varieties of food in global cuisine.
Few of us today have to cultivate or hunt for our food but eating remains quite central in our lives. Ironically, as our food supplies have grown and many of us are privileged to have plentiful to eat, we have begun to take food, and in turn taste, for granted. We are no longer just eating for sustenance, but to meet other needs like social bonding over food, eating for pleasure or over-eating as a way to deal with negative emotions. See full transcript.
Photo credit: Louis Hansel
Each summer we select audience favourites from The Gist archives to share with all of you. This year we are doing a throwback to our early days with a series on the senses and their impact on our collective well-being. Not just our five physical senses but also our awareness which allows us to develop better habits of mind, feel more compassion for others and practice grateful living. Given the degree of upheaval and hyper-partisanship around the world there is no better time to revisit how we can think about and respond more critically to everything going on within and around us. Whether you've been with us from the beginning or are new to The Gist, we hope you enjoy this summer selection.
We have been exploring our sensory world through John Kabat Zinn's book 'Coming to Our Senses'. This week we examine what John calls 'our most delicately attuned sense'. Remarkably our noses can detect even the faintest aroma with even as little as a few parts per trillion. Our sense of smell is of course largely dependent on our environment and the molecules that are carried by the air around us.
But even more remarkably our brains can conjure up olfactory memories as if they were real and close to original smells that are particularly fixed in our minds - perhaps pleasant smells of comfort foods, our favourite flowers, the soil after a rain, the fresh scent of clean laundry. Equally we might recoil at unpleasant smells that we recall from past experiences. See full transcript here.
Photo credit: Paula Corberan
Each summer we select audience favourites from The Gist archives to share with all of you. This year we are doing a throwback to our early days with a series on the senses and their impact on our collective well-being. Not just our five physical senses but also our awareness which allows us to develop better habits of mind, feel more compassion for others and practice grateful living. Given the degree of upheaval and hyper-partisanship around the world there is no better time to revisit how we can think about and respond more critically to everything going on within and around us. Whether you've been with us from the beginning or are new to The Gist, we hope you enjoy this summer selection.
This week we continue to look at the senses through the work of John Kabat-Zinn. Similar to the extraordinary gift of sight, John also describes hearing as having many layers. He examines the richness of our soundscape, all the many sounds that surround us every day.
He brings to life a fall morning where he is sitting and simply trying to hear the sound of the rain outside his house, on the stones, against the windows, the accompanying wind. He challenges us, as he does himself, to just be with the rain. How often do we take a few minutes be still and actually absorb the sounds that are around us. Unlike our eyes, we can't close our ears as easily so sounds always filter into our consciousness. The quality of attention we bring to listening is as important as sight. What would we lose by just taking a few moments each day to hear things differently. And what are we losing by not doing so. See full transcript here.
Photo Credit: Aboodi Vesakaran
Dr. John Kabat-Zinn has been a pillar in the mindfulness movement for decades. His book 'Coming to our Senses...Healing Ourselves and the World through Mindfulness' builds on his previous writing. This book is expansive, covering topics such as meditation, our ability to pay attention, the benefits of silence, and our relationships. The crux of the book lies in John's exploration of the sensory world.
He begins with the incredible sense of sight that so many of us take for granted. How often do we stop to be thankful that we have eyes that can see? The remarkable range of things to see in the world, the array of colours present all around us. John takes us on a walk through a beloved trail that he frequents. He always makes a deliberate attempt to sit and gaze at the fields beyond the trail. He talks of the rich red fescues, purple flowers in the grass, the way the light hits a farmhouse in the distance. And how each time he walks, the field looks different, there is always something new to notice if only we take the time. And this noticing, this attending to things with our sight nourishes us in ways that we would miss altogether if we rush through life on autopilot.
See full transcript here.
Photo credit: Artur Rutkowski
It's easy for most of us to grasp that money, time and health are precious resources. Still, we don't often think of our attention in the same way. But leading neuroscientists like Richard Davidson have been collecting mounting evidence that chronic distraction makes us feel less happy and integrated. So how can we create the conditions to pay attention more deliberately? See full transcript here.
Photo credit: Joshua Kettle
Being human and telling stories seems to go hand in hand. We have used stories throughout our history to pass on information, to explain the unexplained or for pure entertainment. Our brains need stories to make sense of the world and our place in it.
The theatre of the mind though, can be even more complicated and dramatic than the fiction we consume. But if we are willing to live an examined life, one in which we question anything and everything, our own minds should also be fair game. So how can we challenge the stories we tell ourselves? See full transcript here.
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I am so glad that we live in an age where we can talk about feelings more openly but I've also noticed a curious paradox. We seem drawn to idea that we can and should always be happy. Yet at the same time we are becoming increasingly anxious. So let's dig into what is at the heart of this conundrum and how we can find more emotional balance. See full transcript here.
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For most of us, the pull of distraction is all too familiar. The main culprits of course are our overly busy lives and our always on devices. Neuroscientist and author Maryanne Wolf, examines this phenomenon in the context of reading. Her new book, Reader Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World, explores how we are getting worse at reading information slowly. We are becoming a world of scanners because words, or anything else for that matter, don't hold our attention for as long as they used to.
But I think this phenomenon goes well beyond reading. It impacts the way we work, the way we spend time together, and even day to day activities like driving or cooking. I wonder how we can expect to feel calm or to produce anything of quality, when our attention spans are rapidly shrinking? Wolf suggests that we can learn to focus better by developing what she calls cognitive patience. Here are a few ways to do just that. See full transcript here.
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These days the internet is full of critical views on modern communication. Some people feel that the pendulum has swung too far with all of us being over sensitive to speech, particularly the younger generations. It's fair to say that our societies can't thrive if we make it impossible to discuss matters truthfully and openly. But on the other hand, there is a place in our world for compassionate communication. We can disagree without being disagreeable, to paraphrase Barack Obama.
Of course this is easier said than done especially when we're busy, frustrated or stressed out. But remembering Stephen Covey's advice about 'seeking first to understand, then to be understood' goes a long way. Here are some ways we can connect with people first, before we correct, advise or convince. See full transcript here.
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The recent solar eclipse has got me thinking about shared human experiences. As the skies took centre stage, I found myself caught up in this celestial wonder along with millions around the world. Maybe you did too. But only a lucky few, at the right location, with clear weather were able to witness it fully. As Emma Brockes of the Guardian writes it was 'an event that rewards a small number of people with an awe-inspiring experience and (leaves) everyone else staring at clouds while murmuring “wow” and wondering when they can leave.' Jokes aside, the next day the internet was full of people who felt they missed the experience of a lifetime, feeling a genuine sense of loss.
This feeling of FOMO - the fear of missing out - has become widespread. Whether it is about Taylor Swift concert tickets or the trendiest vacation spot, FOMO is on the rise. Even when people do get what they are chasing after, they are sometimes left feeling empty after the fact. Some teenagers are susceptible to a post-Taylor-Swift-concert comedown, saying they're scared they'll 'never feel the same happiness again'. Clearly, the race for the most social media worthy experiences seems to also be fuelling deep disappointment. But this is where JOMO - the joy of missing out - can help. See full transcript here.
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Despite stress and burnout being a central topic in the media, in medical research and indeed in our own lives over many decades, things don't seem to be getting better. You would think that with ever more technology being created, we would feel less burned out but weren't not. So what's going on? See full transcript here.
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Recently I have been reflecting on all the people who have crossed my path over the years. As a consultant I've been privileged to work with people all over the world, at all levels, across many organizations. So why did certain people make a lasting impression? Was it their outward successes or their inner character that left their mark on me? This is the question that journalist and author David Brooks tackles in his book The Road to Character.
The central theme is the distinction between what he calls resume virtues (our external achievements) versus eulogy virtues (our internal traits). Brooks proposes that in an increasingly status and brand focused culture, we are ignoring the most important part of our development, our character, that is shaped not by success alone but rather by adversity and struggling with our own demons. Let's take a closer look at what he means. See full transcript here.
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With each passing year, I realize that life is just one big classroom. My days of sitting in an actual classroom with a teacher lecturing in the front are far behind me. And yet, everyday I am learning something anew. Perhaps you feel the same way? In the curriculum of life, teachers come in all shapes and sizes. They may be strangers somewhere in the world, thousands of miles away that somehow inform or move us. Life lessons can also come from people who briefly cross our path but leave an indelible or make us see things differently forever. But often, our closest ties teach us the most because of the enduring nature of such relationships. So today, let's reflect on the many teachers we all have, including the youngest ones. See full transcript here.
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One of the greatest joys as a mother is watching how my children change. Of course it is most obvious physically, like when they started getting taller and towering over me. But what fascinates me more is their minds. When they were small they saw the world in black and white terms. Now as they move through their teens toward adulthood, I see them grappling with the realization that life is nuanced, full of grey areas. Very few things are absolutely good or bad, and that perfection is a myth. While our adult brains can better handle contradictions, we are still prone to black and white thinking which can narrow our world view and how we approach problems and opportunities. This is where cultivating dialectic thinking - a way of embracing paradoxes and using them to our benefit - can be a game changer. So what is dialectic thinking? Let's find out...See full transcript here.
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One of my favourite quotes on writing comes from the wise and loveable Albus Dumbledore, the wizard of wizards from the Harry Potter series. He says, "Words are, in my not-so humble opinion, our most inexhaustible source of magic." And I couldn't agree more.
Writing has a powerful impact on all of us - it forces us to slow down our thinking and get what's in our heads onto a medium outside ourselves. This gives us some distance from our own thoughts, some objectivity which can help us reframe situations and gain clarity. So let's explore a few ways that we can easily incorporate writing into lives and reap its magical benefits. See full transcript.
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While we are all busy living, we often do everything we can to avoid thinking about death. It's easy to believe that illness and loss is something that happens to other people until we are confronted with it directly. That's exactly what happened to Dr. B. J. Miller when, as a care free 19 year old student at Princeton, he had a freak accident that would alter his whole life. Miller, out one night with his college buddies, climbed on top of a parked commuter train while crossing some train tracks. He was electrocuted with 11,000 volts that resulted in several months in a burn unit, coming very close to his own death, and eventually losing both legs and his left arm. See full transcript here.
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Whether its young children on the playground or grown ups in a board room, we all experience friction in our interactions from time to time. Of course it's natural to yearn for a world where we all just get along, but the reality is we all have to deal with difficult people. And if we are honest, we can all be the difficult people that others have to deal with as well. So what are some things we can do to make our interactions more harmonious and productive? See full transcript here.
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As much as February is considered the month of love, it can also be a time when we feel out of sorts. A nagging malaise or feelings of loneliness are not uncommon and we might look outside ourselves for explanations. Things like the weather, where we live or work and our relationships can certainly impact our moods. But we often overlook the importance of a healthy interior life that offers strength, stability and warmth, no matter what is happening around us. So what kind of interior decorating, if you will, can nourish us through our own moods and the shifting sands of the outer world? See full transcript here.
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Each year, when February rolls around, I can't help but turn my attention to relationships. It's hard not to, when we are surrounded by marketing about, the now almost ubiquitous celebration of, Valentine's Day. Like many modern holidays, I wonder why we've dedicated this single day to celebrate love, particularly romantic love. And yet, it is a good reminder to pay attention to our relationships, romantic or otherwise.
Like it or not, relationships form a core part of our lives. As they say, people come into our lives for 'a reason, a season, or a lifetime'. And especially in long relationships, it's interesting to observe the cycle of closeness and distance. So let's dig into this complex world of connections and see if we can look other people with fresh eyes. See full transcript here.
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We kicked off this year with our Being Well series covering the benefits of nutrition, sleep, exercise and mental resilience. It seemed apt to wrap the series up with a review of Dr. Peter Attia's book, Outlive, which shows us just how crucial these four factors are as we age.
Dr. Attia, a physician and longevity expert, provides an in-depth look at how we can improve both our lifespan and what he calls our healthspan. So whether you choose to read it or listen to the audio version narrated by Attia you will walk away with some solid insights on longevity. Here is the gist on his fascinating and engaging book. See full transcript here.
Photo Credit: Centre for Disease Control (CDC)
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No one, not even the wealthiest amongst us, can escape illness and aging. And despite all our medical advances, science is showing us that prevention is still our best option. Small investments now can pay off in the long run. Assuming we have developed the habits necessary to support our overall physical well-being, there may be at least one other thing that will help us weather the inevitable storms that we will encounter throughout life. It goes by different terms— grit, resilience, forbearance, stoicism— but it ultimately relates to our ability to recover from setbacks— not necessarily avoid them. See full transcript here.
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We live in an age that is obsessed with not just “being”, but instead with well-being. And we live in a time when it seems eminently possible to be better than well, even. We can now strive to be the fittest, strongest, healthiest humans that ever existed. But we do not need to achieve such levels of “wellness” and fitness to thrive. Consider that modern humans have been around for some 300,000 years and our genus is perhaps 2 million years old. For most of that time, we did not have much of an understanding of health and nutrition. And exercise was not a pursuit unto itself.
But contrary to prevalent and popular messages, we do not have to become extreme athletes to avail the benefits of movement. In fact, the very notion of exercise as a distinct activity is a modern one. As the journalist and author, Dan Harris, humorously pointed out, fifty years ago if you told some one you were running, they would wonder who was chasing you. So how can we fit more movement into our lives more easily? See full transcript here.
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Health, as they say, is the greatest wealth because without it we can't achieve any of our goals, care for our loved ones or contribute to society. Of course one of the biggest contributors to health is our diet but information on food can be confusing and contradictory. So let's get back to the basics on food and see how we can incorporate healthy eating into our daily lives.
See full transcript here.
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The start of a new year is often the time when we resolve to take better care of our health. But before we know it, our health goals can take a back seat as we deal with the busyness of life. We may get away with it for a while maybe relying on luck or good genes or youth, but sooner or later, health issues start cropping up for everyone. So over the next few weeks, let's examine the elements of health we can control and the benefits we reap by putting our well being first.
Let's start with sleep. See full transcript here.
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At the beginning of each year many of us look back at what we accomplished in the last one or look ahead at what we could achieve in the coming twelve months. Taking stock is a useful exercise because it forces us to pause and evaluate what we define as success and failure.
In an increasingly performative world, its easy to equate external accolades and trendy experiences with the perfect life. So it is ever more important to think critically about the true measures of success. There are no easy or right answers to something so personal, but here are some questions we can ask ourselves...See full transcript here.
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As we head into holiday season we often mark this time of year by gift giving. Whether its food, clothes, or money we look for ways to treat our loved ones to something special. Amid the shopping frenzy, we usually don't think of giving each other the gift of silence. Yet, there are so many reasons why silence makes the perfect present, both for ourselves and others. Here's why...See full transcript here.
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Recently, as I was running errands with my youngest son, he was busy people watching. Out of the blue he asked me, "do all these people know who we are?'' It had dawned upon him that most people in the world were strangers to us. And, in turn, most of them didn't know we existed at all, let alone know us well.
My son quickly went back to watching the world go by, but his question stayed with me. It's true that we only know a small number of people in our lifetimes. We know an even smaller number well. In fact how well do we really know anyone or even ourselves? How do we change with time and circumstance? Science is showing us that the idea of one, authentic self is actually a myth, so let's explore what that means. See full transcript here.
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Heading into the home stretch of this year, the pressure is on to get everything done before the new one. Of course some of that pressure is external but some of it is self-imposed. So how do we sift through everything on our plates and figure out what really matters?
When we feel torn between competing demands, our ability to prioritize can profoundly impact our productivity and our well-being. It is no surprise then, that everyone keeps looking for better and faster ways to get things done. I like to fall back on some simple, tried-and-true methods that have worked well for me. See full transcript here.
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Harvest festivals are common to cultures around the world. In Canada, the autumn harvest is a time when we are surrounded by fruits, vegetables and a spectacular array of leaf colours. The chilly fall weather makes the warmth of loved ones that much more special along with the smell of good food and the sound of crackling fires.
To me, it is a time to relish the simple things in an over stimulated world. A reminder that we are surrounded by magic even in seemingly mundane moments. We don't need a lot of time, money or spectacle to experience this wholesome feeling. See full transcript here.
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Human history is full of examples of our innate curiosity and creativity. As we evolved, we slowly but surely built on the knowledge of our ancestors. Occasionally, through some combination of luck and resourcefulness, we discovered or developed something truly revolutionary. Fire, the wheel, the compass, paper and agriculture. And more recently, electricity, flight, vaccines, the internet and artificial intelligence.
Yet today, words like innovation and transformation are thrown about with little grounding in substance. Everywhere we turn firms are continuously transforming something, an oxymoron in itself. This might make for glossy corporate publicity, new consumer trends and catchy headlines. But it behooves us to use language carefully and apply a powerful label like innovation when it is deserved and tangibly delivered.
In our age of seemingly endless new information, it is surprising that the pace of innovation has actually been declining in recent decades. It's important to understand why, to separate hype from reality and to consider the future of human innovation. See full transcript here.
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Last time, in Part 1 of this topic, we looked at how the remote versus in-person work debate is unfolding in different countries. Global trends aside, each of us must grapple with these questions individually. This debate rages on as we all try to navigate the ever changing waters of the workplace. Everywhere, people are wondering if remote work is here to stay or if it will be a relic of the pandemic? See full transcript.
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For many of us, September is a month of transition. We're on the cusp of a new season, an autumnal chill in the air. Children are returning to school and adults are resuming a regular work schedule. But in a post-pandemic world, what does showing up for work really mean?
It seems that some employers are heading towards a full return to work in person. Others are adopting a hybrid model, but still mandating a specific number of days at the office. With all the lessons learned from Covid and the increasing power of technology, the approach to work doesn't have to be so prescriptive. A more nuanced view that addresses the needs of employers and employees alike could serve us all well. See full transcript here.
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Last week, in part one of the productivity paradox, we looked at two main ideas - how small productivity changes over time end up having a big impact, and also how focusing on the process of getting to an outcome is as or even more important than the outcome itself. This week we look at how to stay focused and also balance immediate tasks with long term goals. See full transcript here.
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Although productivity is something that’s talked about so much, it seems like a tough nut to crack. So over the next couple of weeks we’re going to dig into it a little more. Ever since the industrial revolution, it seems that our global culture has become increasingly focused on productivity. From assembly lines to office work, from teams to individuals, we seem obsessed with doing ever more in the least amount of time. But to what end? Where are we headed with all this productivity?
Organizational productivity is a topic onto itself, best saved for another day. But on a personal level, we are all inundated with books, videos and articles on methods to squeeze the most out of our day. Output, it seems, is a measure of self-worth. Productivity is of course necessary and important, but can we reframe it to find a balance between doing and being? Here are some things to consider. See full transcript here.
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With all manner of gadgets at our disposal, it is little wonder that we have trouble attending to one thing at a time. As we wrote recently, our addictive devices can rob us of time to do deep work, be bored or daydream - all of which are vital for creativity.
It is easy to get caught up online, clicking one link after another, consuming information of little value. Junk food for the mind if you will, which adds up to many wasted hours. Not to mention the nagging guilt that comes with distracting ourselves from the things that really matter.
Our over stimulated environments make it difficult to tame the beast of distraction. But a few nuggets of advice I have collected over time have proven effective for me. Perhaps they will be helpful to you as well. See full transcript here.
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We humans share a capacity for learning from and adapting to our environments. A common belief is that we all fall into a predominant learning style - visual, auditory, reading/writing, and kinesthetic (i.e by doing) - or VARK. Presumably, if knowledge is presented to us in a way that matches our preferred learning style, then we will understand it better.
But Derek Muller, who has a doctorate in physics education and hosts the successful YouTube channel Veritassium, shows that there is no evidence to support the VARK model. People don't fall neatly into one learning style. Most of us learn best when we are engaged in a subject and presented with information in different formats.
All this does beg the question of whether we view learning too narrowly. True learning is so much broader than academics alone, and includes combining information, knowledge and experience across our multiple intelligences. Today we look at a more expansive view of learning that we can integrate into skilful living. See full transcript here.
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At a time when many people in our world have higher standards of living than any previous time in human history, there seems to also be a paradoxical and pervasive feeling of lack. Many of us are blessed not only with having our basic needs met, but also the kind of affluence that our ancestors could never have imagined. And a level of material comfort that is still wildly out of reach for millions of people.
So what is behind this sense of not enough? And how can we move towards greater satisfaction with what we already have? See full transcript here.
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A while ago, we wrote about the amazing gift of language that is unique to our species and how it shapes our minds. Given how important speech and writing are to our lives, it is worth pausing to examine if we can do both more mindfully. Today we explore some key elements of day to day communication. See full transcript here.
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As we go about our days, with a full 'to do' list and various responsibilities, we sometimes forget to be still. It is easy to get caught up in the inner and outer restlessness of life, to always focus on the next problem, to look for the clouds in the silver lining.
We also make the mistake of looking at joyous people and assuming that they must be lucky, have blessed lives where things just go more smoothly for them. But we all know people who objectively have everything they need to be happy but are not. And yet others, who through seeming hardship, remain cheerful. So what's going on here? See full transcript here.
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The summer months are upon us and with that comes the opportunity for a less scheduled existence, at least for a short while before everyone gets back to work and school in autumn. Many of us are likely craving some 'me time' this summer, a fairly modern phenomenon borne of having more leisure than our ancestors. While leisure is important and wonderful, me-time can also be about reflection. We could all benefit from using some of it to take an honest look at who we are and re-imagine who we want to be. See full transcript here.
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I first came across the idea that life is not an emergency when reading the book Don't Sweat the Small Stuff...and it's all Small Stuff by the late psychologist and author Richard Carlson.
I was in my twenties then, full of ambition and ready to compete, so I couldn't fully relate to this idea but it stayed with me.
As I've grown older, it makes more sense to me with each passing year. I certainly notice my own tendency to rush around with the sense that time is running out, that I'm falling behind and that everything on my to do list is urgent. But I've also learned that this way of being is not sustainable and in fact counter productive. Maybe you find yourself in the same boat sometimes. So why do so many of us look at life this way and what can we do differently? See full transcript here.
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In many parts of the world, people are starting to move into vacation mode. Children are wrapping up the school year, dreaming of lazier summer months. Along with them, we adults might be looking forward to a slower pace too, to getting away from the everyday to relax or travel. Yet, planning and going on vacations can involve its own busyness, leaving us longing for home again, relishing it's comforts just a little more when we return. So today we look at why the idea of home is so important to us and how it grounds us in ways big and small. See full transcript here.
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There are times in our lives that feel like lulls - valleys between busier peaks of activity. Those periods might leave us feeling bored, searching for busyness again. Yet, such lulls can be a precious time to reflect on our experiences. And we don't even need to wait for life to present us with these opportunities for stillness. We can, in fact, carve out a little bit of time to pause and consider all that has happened in a given day or week or month. It's easy to just keep moving forward on autopilot from one experience to the next. But without stopping to integrate those experiences into our inner world, we often fail to realize what they have taught us and how they shape our personalities. So here are a few simple ways to make sense of the impact of our daily lives on ourselves and others. See full transcript here.
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Across time and cultures, humans have always loved a good story, filled with themes of adventure, love, and good against evil. Even today we seem to enjoy drama, whether its in modern day books and movies, political scandals or celebrity gossip. But when it comes to our own lives, drama can be draining and hold us back from doing constructive, positive things.
Being human means that difficult patches throughout life are inevitable and sometimes teach us a lot. Change, loss, and pain, are all intertwined into each life. Yet with some awareness, we can see that many dramas are avoidable if we pick our battles skillfully. So what are some ways to stop stirring up our own dramas? See full transcript here.
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Now that my own children are growing up, I find myself nostalgically observing babies and toddlers I see. I am always amazed, and a little jealous frankly, of their ability to be in the moment. In their world, everything happens right now. Whatever they are experiencing - joy, sadness, hunger, sleepiness - takes over and they remain blissfully unconcerned with past or future.
Of course, we can't continue to function like this for very long. And before we know it we hit our teens and adulthood, complete with insidious habits - like regretting the unchangeable past and fearing the uncertain future. We begin to look back and wonder how we got here. Could we have done some things differently? Or worse, we look at the road ahead and wait for our lives to really begin. See full transcript here.
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As modern humans, we seem intent on keeping busy. But where in all this hustle and bustle can we find time to care for ourselves? While we hear a lot about self-care these days, it can feel like yet another thing we have to do! But with a little creative thinking and by expanding our definition of self-care, it doesn't have to be. So let's explore some ways of nourishing ourselves amidst our busyness. See full transcript here.
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If you're a Beatles fan like me, you might remember the song with the lyrics 'all the lonely people, where do they all come from, where do they all belong?' (titled Elanor Rigby). It has the simple yet beautiful musical arrangement that the band is famous for. But more than that it gets to the heart of a ubiquitous human emotion - loneliness. Since virtually everyone experiences it, loneliness warrants a closer look. If we can understand it better we can find ways to manage this feeling when it inevitably hits. See full transcript here.Photo Credit: Lili Kovac
Everyday many of us deal with reams of emails, texts, documents and media that can overwhelm our brains. So keeping track of all this content has become an entire field in and of itself. This is certainly true for organizations large and small . But it's also a real challenge on a personal level. How can we manage and decipher what information is useful? How do we separate sense from nonsense? And more importantly does any of it make us more effective or creative? Here are some things to consider as we grapple with these questions. See full transcript here.
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Often, in the early morning hours, when my house and the world around me are quiet, I notice how full my mind is with different voices. Not literally, but in the sense that many ideas and opinions from conversations, reading and other media are floating around through my mind. Perhaps you notice this too if you are an early riser, or in the silence at night or simply during that rare quiet moment in your day. If we pay close attention during these times, we might realize two things - that the majority of our thoughts are recurring and that they are not necessarily our own but rather shaped by our external lives. So how, amidst all the soundbites, news feeds and data out there, can we learn to find our own voice, to decipher our own thinking from the rest of the world? Here are a few ways that have worked for me. See full transcript here.
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With all the recent layoff announcements in the media - especially from major companies like Google, Amazon and Microsoft - it's a good time to think about how much our work defines us. After all, the majority of us have to take part in this thing called work. It is our livelihood, allowing us to provide for ourselves and our loved ones. So it's natural that what we do starts to seep into who we are. But what happens when that work changes or is taken away from us - because of layoffs or health issues or retirement? Who are we without our jobs and the potential status and money that comes with them? See full transcript here.
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Well it's February again and with Valentine's Day becoming a worldwide festival, many people are thinking of romantic relationships. Maybe you took the day to celebrate with someone special or you cringed at its commercial nature and moved on. Either way, its a good day to pause and think about all the relationships in our lives, romantic or otherwise. Being social creatures, relationships are a core part of being human. They are at once exasperating and nourishing. Undoubtedly complex, because each person is complex. So let's explore why we need relationships at all and how to make the best of them. See full transcript here.
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There was a time in human history when we had very little control over our lives and limited information on which to base decisions. But today, it is almost unthinkable that the Internet didn't exist until just a few decades ago. How did we survive without browsers and apps that, with a few keystrokes, deliver a deluge of content before us. Yet there comes a point when this information seeking can become compulsive. It can go beyond the need to research and enter the realm of obsessive analysis. We might find ourselves unable to stop searching for just one more nugget of information. I wonder if our minds, as amazing as they are, can rationally sift through all this content. Can we really make sense of it all or does it lead to a confused and muddled mind? See full transcript here.
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As our daily lives unfold, it's easy to believe that whatever is in front of us might stay that way forever. But all the while, the reality of impermanence is with us, a constant companion, whether we choose to see it or not. So how can we stay rooted in the present without forgetting that it is fleeting? And how can we be less afraid to face our unknown futures? See full transcript here.
Photo Credit: Aaron Burden
It's still early in the year and with many months stretched out ahead of us, it's exciting to imagine what lies ahead. Yet such excitement is often dampened by a fear of failure. What if the year comes and goes without a sense of accomplishment? Will we just just fall back into old habits we've been trying so hard to break. What if we keep making the same mistakes we've made before? In fact, fear of making mistakes is so common that most of us hold ourselves back from doing certain things we actually value a lot. But getting to the root of this fear can help us understand how to move through it. See full transcript here.
Photo credit: Sarah Kilian
As we kick off a brand new year, it's useful to reflect on what we've learned from the last one. What did we do well? What could we do better? A common reflection I hear from friends and family is the wish to simplify their lives. So many of us over complicate things and get in our own way. I know I do, so I am trying to apply a 'less is more' philosophy in my own life. Here are a few ideas on how we can manage our calendars, declutter our spaces and clear our minds so we can simplify and savour life. See full transcript here.
Photo credit: Sarah Dorweiler
I don't know about you, but I like resolutions. The kind that we set at the start of the year, or on a birthday, or as we usher in a new season. The ones that signal new beginnings. But I also like the other kind of resolutions, which are the endings of things. When something comes full circle or a difficult situation finally gets resolved and I can feel relieved. Let's tackle both kinds of resolutions. Let's ask ourselves why we need them and why we can't let them go.
See full transcript here.
There is someting about a fresh start that is so appealing isn't there? Even as a child I remember that feeling of a new school year, fresh with new clothes, new books, sharpened pencils, unused erasers. As an adult this same sense of eager anticipation sprung up in university, when I started new jobs or moved to new places. Of course the start of a brand new calendar year is no exception. But these feelings of excitement can be mixed with fear of what challenges the year might bring. Or doubt about our own ability to meet our goals, however big or small. So here are a few thoughts on how to grapple with the feelings that accompany new goals and new beginnings.
See full transcript here.
Due to the pandemic, it may have been a while since any of us have been on a plane. But we can likely remember times when we were excited about traveling somewhere, only to have our plane enter a holding pattern. Flying circles over the airport, waiting for clearance to land. Or stuck on the tarmac awaiting a gate.
Sometimes, life can feel this way. During Covid we have all no doubt felt 'stuck' atleast occasionally, waiting for life to happen, waiting to move on. But if we look closely, life isn't always about external things - going places, seeing people. A lot is happening even when it seems that we are going nowhere. Here are some ideas to start feeling unstuck.
See full transcript here.
Even with smart devices and artificial intelligence, our brains can do things that no machine can yet match. From processing emotions to learning language to creative problem solving, we haven’t figured out how to replicate what the mind does.
Yet our beautiful minds can also lead us astray into negativity, violence or self-sabotaging behaviour. At a minimum, most of us can relate to the experience of being lost in our own minds. We might be going about our day when we are triggered by a thought. Our minds start building stories based on fear or erroneous assumptions. Before we know it, a passing thought has spiralled out of control into a full blown catastrophe. We know deep down that we have better things to put our attention on, but try as we might, we can't seem to refocus.
So what can we do to stop our ‘runaway brains’ in their tracks and regain some much needed perspective?
See full transcript here
We all know in theory that life is full of impermanence. And yet when we face changes in our own lives, big and small, we seem to forget this fundamental truth. We resist change and feel safer when we stick with all that is familiar, sometimes even when a situation is not good for us. So why do we fight change and what are we losing by clinging so tightly to our comfort zones? How can we learn to stretch ourselves, remain open to new things and build resilience to deal with change?
See full transcript here.
It is easy to get embroiled in the minutia of daily life. Whatever is happening at the moment can seem all consuming, all important. And we can quickly forget that this moment is but one in a full, and hopefully long, lifetime. For times like this it can help to hang on to sayings or images as signposts that point to a more healthy perspective.
See the full transcript here.
We're looking at a how luck shapes our lives. Are our successes or failures determined by our own abilities and hard work, or are they just a matter of luck?
See transcript here
Today we are exploring humility, a word that is easy to throw around but hard to genuinely embody. In our modern world, where self-promotion is deemed necessary for success, being humble can even be seen as negative. And we are all guilty, at times, of proclaiming humility though our words and actions suggest otherwise. But can we cultivate true humility by looking at it differently?
The Oxford English Dictionary defines humility as 'a modest view of one's own importance'. The word modest is a good one because it conveys balance between thinking too lowly of ourselves and being overconfident. I love the saying 'Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it is thinking of yourself less'. (Rick Warren, C.S. Lewis). This saying allows me to reframe humility as a quiet superpower, a trait that permits us to support our own worth without taking anything away from others. When we cultivate this kind of humility, the benefits become apparent quite quickly.
Being humble allows us to get out of our own way, by shedding the personas we sometimes trap ourselves in. Trying to appear knowledgeable and confident takes a lot of energy. Humility frees us to redirect that energy to what we are doing rather than worrying about how others perceive us. When our focus is on learning, working hard and doing our best, we tend to bring more curiosity and motivation to the task at hand. Paradoxically, this can lead to true knowledge and inner confidence that comes through us naturally, without having to try so hard to project those qualities. In other words, it allows us to be more comfortable in our own skin.
Humility also allows us to connect more easily with others, and we might find ourselves drawn to people who exude this grounded quality. When we are not consumed with ourselves, we are better able to see the good in others, to see what they have to teach us, and support their triumphs or struggles. This not only applies to other people, but to animals, trees and nature as a whole. When we humble ourselves, we are able to maintain a healthy perspective about our place in a larger environment. Humility reminds us of how connected and interdependent we all are and revives our sense of awe at the complexity, scale and power of nature.
Finally, humility makes us more accepting of the limits of our knowledge. In his New York Times column, journalist David Leonhardt recently penned a fascinating piece on hubris and humility. He says, 'The trouble is that human beings tend to overstate their ability to predict events. People who can resist that hubris — who can mix knowledge with humility — are often at a competitive advantage.' It is easy to believe that we humans are all knowing, given our achievements throughout history. Our technological prowess can make us feel invincible. Yet we need only look at climate change, a problem of our own making, to realize that we cannot always understand or predict the long-term impact of our collective actions.
On a more personal level, humility makes us feel less entitled, more able to accept uncertainty and more willing to keep striving knowing we may not always get what we want. It can also make us more grateful for all that we already have. I will give the last word to author David Steindl-Rast who is known for his teachings on gratitude. He beautifully sums up humility as 'that down to earth quality that has nothing in common with humiliation but makes us stand tall and acknowledge both the humus that feeds us and the stars to which we aspire. May I learn to practice, and to honour in others, this sparking humility, which is the dignity that we, as human beings, cannot afford to lose'.
Hopefully those powerful words will help you ponder what role humility might play in your life.
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We write a lot about individual growth and self-inquiry. But it doesn't hurt to do some collective soul searching, whether as a family, a school or an organization. Today we look in particular at business. After all, the notion that a company exists to do more than generate a return for its shareholders is not new. But by and large it has failed to take root in any significant way.
Nonetheless, many businesses and managers will protest. They earnestly believe that they create value for society at large, that they care about social issues, the environment, about their employees. But the proof, as they say, is not just in the pudding but in the eating of it. That is, some companies can be prone to lip service, and even when there is action, it is more often symbolic than substantive.
In 2019, the Business Roundtable, which is composed of the CEOs of some of the largest and best-known American corporations published a policy statement that, for the first time, declared that corporations did not exist simply to generate profits but also to "deliver value to their customers, invest in employees, deal fairly with suppliers and support the communities in which they operate."
This time they seem to be serious about making specific investments in the wake of social movements such as Black Lives Matter and a global health crisis. But it may be wise to wait before drawing any conclusions about whether or not this is anything more than good public relations.
Corporate actions during the covid-19 pandemic have not been encouraging—an analysis by the Washington Post found that 45 of the 50 biggest U.S. corporations laid off staff while continuing to make money and pay out profits to investors. And as talk about a recession heats up, so do the spate of announcements about layoffs.
Companies, like people, are creatures of evolution by natural selection and as such subject to all kinds of cognitive bugs that often lead to poor decisions. Many of these bugs have been highlighted by the pioneering work of psychologists like Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, who pointed out our distorted view of costs and risks, as well as the tendency to base decisions on the most recent information we can access or that which is most available.
Such bugs in the human operating system create a lot of problems with our perception and judgement. But what is relevant in the context of businesses claiming to have evolved beyond profit, is a particular bug that sociologists call the "attitudinal fallacy." This says that there is often discord between our stated values or beliefs and our actions. That is, we don't walk the talk. And organizations, too, are prone to such human foibles. Many companies aren't exactly living up to their lofty commitments. And there are invariably contradictory actions that go against the very beliefs these companies espouse. For instance, denouncing inequality in the world while perpetuating it through hiring practices, promotions, and board appointments.
It's possible that sometimes the values are espoused in a cynical way, to seem virtuous and to gain good will with little intention of following through. How else can we explain the speed with which major companies abandon their celebrity ambassadors or charitable "partners" at the mere whiff of scandal? Was it ever about what those people or organizations were doing or was it more about riding their coattails when the going was good?
Other times promises may have been sincere, but nonetheless there is no action. The result is the same. Promises made. Promises broken. And nothing much changes. With this in mind, perhaps we can all reflect on what part each of us can play in all this. Can we take a more active role in encouraging organizations to look deeply and commit to substance over profit and perception?
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If you are like most people, you're probably having a very busy day. Modern life comes with a laundry list of daily tasks and deadlines across many areas of our lives. Work, family, events, household responsibilities and other activities. This, combined with all the information coming at us through our devices, makes for a pretty noisy existence. It also leads to an outsized emphasis on external things. So where can we find time for an inner life which serves as the foundation of who we are?
Let's face it, much of our time and resources are put towards external goals. There is certainly nothing wrong with that. We all need to work to meet our basic needs. And beyond that, aspiring towards bigger goals can be joyful. Yet, if our sense of identity is completely tied to external goals, we can quickly feel empty after the initial high that comes of achievement. Or a sense of despair can set in if don't achieve our goals. We get trapped in restlessness, always looking for that next success that might finally give us lasting contentment.
There may be many reasons for this restlessness. Maybe we have internalized other people's definition of success, so our goals don't feel innately fulfilling. Or perhaps we have never gone below the surface of our lives to find our inner voice, to question what we value, and let those values guide our notions of success and failure. This kind of self-inquiry takes time, patience and some tolerance for discomfort. Self-reflection often forces us to confront difficult emotions or wade through a swamp of confusing thoughts. Who wants to deal with that? It's easier to just keep busy with our daily lives.
But befriending our minds and learning how to stay above the noise in the world, is well worth the time and effort. Creating space for an inner life can look different for each of us. It may mean taking much needed time off for contemplation. Or it might mean building daily practices like meditation, journaling, or walking to develop greater self-awareness. If we are in a particularly busy phase of life or dealing with difficult circumstances - say as an overloaded student, a parent of young children, or working multiple jobs to make ends meet - we might only have a few minutes of quiet in the morning or evening, maybe over a cup of tea, to find ourselves amidst the demands of life.
Whatever our life situation, even a small amount of time spent pausing can pay dividends over time. Slowly but surely, these snippets of stillness can help us dust off our inner compass that has always been with us, allowing us to move through life with greater clarity. As much as possible we can try to shape our life choices based on this compass. There will always be circumstances where we have to take on commitments that we might not want to. In such situations, we do what we must, using our inner strength to stay as centered as possible. But all the while keeping ourselves open to opportunities that ultimately take us in the direction we want to go.
Mindfulness expert Jon Kabat-Zinn sees this inner development as our main task in life, calling it the hardest work in the world. But he says that we can use our daily lives as the curriculum to develop self-awareness, because it is the work of a lifetime and is never really done.
So, as you go through this week, I hope you can occasionally pause and check in with yourself in whatever way works for you. And remember that these small pauses are not a waste of time but an investment in our own inner wisdom so we can navigate more skillfully and peacefully through each day.
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Welcome to The Gist. Today we're talking about cheerfulness. The writer and painter, Herm Albright once quipped that ‘A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.’ Sometimes it seems like there are people who are just always cheerful and have a positive attitude. The rest of us might look enviously at them and wonder if they were just born that way! Personality does play a role in determining our overall mood. But we have more say in our happiness than we might think.
After all, feelings can be contagious. Simply smiling at one another costs nothing and its surprising what a big impact such a little thing can have. When we are around positive people, we tend to absorb those good feelings. For anyone who has watched the show Ted Lasso, the wildly successful feel-good comedy of the pandemic, Ted's genuine good humour breaks down even the staunchest of cynics.
But similarly, we can also feed off each other's negativity. I am most acutely aware of this around my children, whose mood can be directly affected by mine. So as a mother, I have tried, often unsuccessfully, to be a cheerful presence. But children are smart. They know when we are simply putting on a happy face. That’s why pretending to be cheerful is not healthy but choosing to be cheerful is constructive. It is a small but significant distinction, because the element of choice is empowering.
Pretending is about stuffing our feelings and slapping on a smile. Not dealing with tough feelings can lead to insincere, toxic positivity and create anxiety because we are denying our true emotions. Choosing to be cheerful, however, is about honouring our moods, but also knowing that there is an enduring, deeper self that emerges by working through these feelings.
When we are experiencing big negative emotions, we can become reactive, lash out or melt down. Or we can practice choosing a more constructive response. Maybe that means taking some quiet time to ourselves or walking off our frustrations or nourishing ourselves with healthy food and rest. With time, we can get better at realizing that our bad moods don't last forever. And that we have a great deal of agency over how quickly we move through them.
Psychotherapist and author Nick Wignall sees cheerfulness not as an inate trait reserved for the lucky few but as a virtue that can be cultivated. He describes it as a verb, an active engagement of our rational minds that allows us to proactively choose positive behaviours that we value. While we may not have control over feelings that bubble up, Nick says that 'we can change the way we feel indirectly by changing how we think and behave, two things we actually have direct control over'.
Of course, it’s easy to be cheerful when life is going well. But by exercising more agency in how we manage our low feelings, we can behave more cheerfully even when things are challenging. Not only does this type of practice sustain us internally, but it impacts others in our environment. It's surprising how a little good cheer can quickly grow, benefit and be reflected by other people around us. So, as we go through this week, maybe we can take a more active role in bringing a little bit more lightness and cheer to a world that very much needs it. Have a great week and see you next time on The Gist.
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Welcome to The Gist. The beloved Canadian literary character, Anne of Green Gables, famously said 'I'm so glad to live in a world where there are Octobers'. I for one agree with Anne. October is a wonderful month, an in-between time where the cooler fall air means wearing cozy sweaters, drinking hot cocoa and sitting by the fire watching the leaves change colour. But the best part of October, for kids and adults alike, might just be Halloween. An opportunity to dress up and be someone else for a day.
We've written before about how children relish in the opportunity to embody different characters on Halloween or through make belief and storytelling. But really, don't we already play many different roles throughout our lives as adults? Even in a given day we are many different people depending on where we are and who we are with. During Covid, some of these lines between our different roles started to blur - work and home, formality and leisure. Maybe that has contributed to the notion of bringing more of our private selves into the public realm, even into the workplace.
Both The Economist and The New York Times have written recently about the idea of 'Bringing Your Whole Self to Work' and the perils of doing so. They argue that on the whole, maintaining a separation between your professional and personal selves is beneficial. And they point out the downsides of oversharing in the workplace, an environment in which it may not be beneficial or appropriate to delve into the details of our problems and triumphs outside of work.
At the same time, sharing allows us to connect on a human level, whether we are at work or otherwise. In fact, research into social bonding has shown that allowing ourselves to be genuine and vulnerable in front of people leads to a stronger sense of connection, through the stories and experiences we share. Certainly, close relationships cannot thrive unless we are honest about who we are and feel safe to let our true selves show. Even in more distant relationships, like with neigbours or work colleagues, our days are more pleasant if we open ourselves up to each other’s lives, to our interests, joys and difficulties.
So, it seems that this business of being our whole selves is a complicated one. Starting with the question of, what does it really mean to be a whole or authentic self? Do any of us have a single definition of who we are? And how much of our different selves are we willing to reveal in different settings? Even within our most intimate relationships, all of us need space to ourselves, to just enjoy the privacy of our own thoughts.
Ultimately, the balance of openness and privacy is one that each of us has to find individually and it may vary at different points in our lives and in different situations. So, as we head into Halloween, whether you are dressing up or not, it might be a good time to think about what costumes you wear in your daily life, how much or little of yourself you want to share with others, and what it means to be your whole self. Wishing you a great week ahead and see you next time on The Gist.
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Welcome to The Gist. It's safe to say that without a crystal ball, none of us know for sure how long our lives will be. Hence the expression, life is short, because in many ways it is indeed quite fleeting. Yet for some, life can also be long. Could we all embrace the secrets of people in the world who have lived the longest and healthiest lives? Maybe some of us dread living until a 100, because we imagine ourselves to be frail, bed ridden or not in control of our faculties.
But what if we could lead active lives into our triple digits, full of warmth, connection, laughter and best of all, a sharp mind. Sounds pretty good, doesn't it? Well, that's exactly what many of the centenarians in the so called 'Blue Zones' are doing. These zones are areas of the world that seem to consistently have the highest concentration of people living into their nineties or past one hundred.
Dan Buettner, an award-winning journalist, best-selling author and National Geographic Fellow, has written extensively on this topic. He has worked with medical researchers, anthropologists, demographers and epidemiologists to identify five regions in the world that have people with outstanding longevity - Barbagia, a mountain highland of inner Sardinia, Ikaria, an Aegean Island in Greece, Nicoya Peninsula in Costa Rica, Okinawa, Japan and Loma Linda, California. In his numerous books and on his Blue Zones website, Dan outlines the main findings from research conducted on people living in these regions.
Certainly, these people have won the genetic lottery to be able to live so many decades with good health. But combined with genes, they also have remarkably common lifestyle habits despite living in very different parts of the world. Here are five key habits that stood out for me from Dan's work:
1. 80 % Rule with Food - Learning to stop short of being completely full gives Blue Zoners a much higher chance of maintaining a healthy weight and staving off all sorts of chronic physical problems such as diabetes and arthritis. They also eat little to no processed foods, choosing fresh whole foods instead. And the majority of Blue Zone diets are plant-based with meats and fish forming an occasional part of a meal, generally on special occasions.
2. Moving naturally - Blue zoners don't hit the gym and train for ultramarathons. Instead, they lead very active lives filled with daily activities such as gardening, housework, walking to run errands and carrying groceries up and down stairs.
3. Having Purpose - Living life with a sense of purpose leads to a positive mindset. And gets people excited to wake up in the morning to engage in the unfolding of each day. Blue zoners continue to find life meaningful in big and small ways, which keeps them going day after day.
4. Downshifting - Blue zoners enjoy life! They have learned to recognize when they are feeling tired, unwell or overwhelmed and choose activities to de-stress on a regular basis. Be it through post-meal walks, enjoying the company of loved ones, or relaxing through meditation.
5. Belonging - People in these zones feel very content with their lives due in large part to their sense of connection and belonging. They tend to be immersed in a very supportive, positive family or community structure, what Buettner calls their 'right tribe'. They also put their loved ones first, making close intimate relationships a priority in their lives.
So, while we can never predict how long we will be here, by following some of these healthy habits that people in Blue Zones around the world seem to share, we can feel good about having done all we can to live a long, healthy and wonderfully content life. We will close off on that positive note hoping that all of us get to put some of these ideas into practice this week. And we will see you next time, on The Gist.
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Welcome to the GIST. Most of us would agree with the idea that focus is a good thing. But is it? What if we spend too much of our time focusing on the wrong things. This is where cultivating gratitude can help us direct our attention towards the right things. We talk a lot about gratitude and there is no better time than the Thanksgiving holiday to be reminded about all the benefits of grateful living. Here in Canada we just finished celebrating this holiday and next month Americans will be doing the same. There are many festivals around the world that happen throughout the year that include opportunities to give thanks or simply reflect on life.
Hopefully the attitude of thankfulness continues beyond these occasions and becomes a daily practice. While I feel that mindfulness and gratitude go hand in hand, sometimes the latter is a little more easily accessible and tangible. Acclaimed mindfulness teacher, author and researcher Jon Kabat Zinn defines mindfulness as 'paying attention, on-purpose, moment by moment, non-judgmentally'. It can be practiced through formal meditation which allows you to sit quietly and notice your thoughts. And then extended to daily living by noticing your thoughts as each day unfolds and bringing yourself back into the moment that you are experiencing.
To me, gratefulness is simply another flavour of mindfulness because to be grateful, you also need to notice small things happening in each moment with an open rather than a judgmental mind. We get so caught up in our days, rushing from one task to the next, always thinking of the future. So often it doesn't even occur to us to be grateful for any part of our day. But slowing down to notice the abundance in our lives creates a deep and lasting sense of joy. It might be as simple as taking note of our healthy bodies and the hundreds of processes that have to happen lock step to allow us to function. Or it could be soaking in the colours on a forest trail. Or appreciating the miracle of technology that permits us to do innumerable things that we often take for granted.
Gratitude for others is also incredibly helpful in our relationships. We are quick to focus on the flaws of other people, especially people we interact with frequently like partners, children, or colleagues. Acknowledging other people's limitations is important, especially if they are causing harm in some way. But by and large, relationships are much more enjoyable if we choose to shine a light on the many wonderful qualities that other people might bring into our lives.
Of course, being thankful in good times is much easier than when we are facing challenges. But even in those moments, we can consider whether we are potentially blowing a situation out of proportion. Are we letting small problems cloud our ability to see all the good in each day that is happening right alongside. By shifting our focus to all that is going well, we can put problems in perspective and handle them with more grace.
Grateful living is not about being relentlessly positive which can be toxic to ourselves and others. Rather, it is about acknowledging life in its entirety, including difficulties, but not letting those difficulties overtake our minds and blind us to the beauty in life. Perhaps the hardest time to feel grateful is when we feel like we have failed, when things didn't go as expected or we are dealing with a deep sense of disappointment.
At the heart of these feelings is fear, that we can't handle the consequences of a certain failure, or that we will be unable to correct it. It is easy to slip into catastrophic thinking during such times. It may feel almost impossible or utterly ridiculous to even consider gratitude when we are so down. It might only be in hindsight, when we have come out of our dark mood and sufficient time has passed, that we can interpret a particular failure as a lesson that we grew from in unexpected ways. Or realize that we were capable of getting through it and were able to move on from it successfully.
However, if we make a commitment to gratitude as a daily practice, the benefits to our minds and bodies become apparent. I have noticed that I feel more joyful day to day, more emotionally stable, and more physically relaxed when I remember to have a grateful orientation towards my life. I am better able to appreciate the people in my life, smile or laugh more, and generally take things a little less seriously. But the best way to experience the benefits of gratitude are by trying it in your own unique way and developing a practice that feels good for you.
So, whether you are celebrating a thanksgiving festival or are just interested in finding a simple way to bring more joy and positivity into your life, try giving thanks. Maybe it will be a silent practice in your own mind, or a journal you keep or expressed to others through your words or actions. Whatever path you choose I hope it brings you contentment and peace of mind. Wishing you a wonderful week and see you next time on the Gist.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit happen.substack.com
Welcome to the Gist. Right now in the Northern Hemisphere most of us are in the midst of a change of season. The hot days of summer are behind us, and with it the busyness of family gatherings, school holidays, and vacation travel. We are ushering in autumn, which comes with a sense of refocusing - on work, school routines, or personal projects and goals. Each time the seasons change, we can take a cue from nature and reflect on how life is ever changing. Transitions, whether seasonal or personal, can come with mixed emotions. By embracing seasonal living, we can welcome change into our lives along with the full range of emotions that come with it.
In your corner of the world, there will be seasons specific to your area, and you can stop to notice the special features of each one. While I love many things about spring, summer and winter, autumn is by far my favourite. To me it is the perfect mix of all the seasons - there is still some greenery in gardens and bouts of rain like spring, warm spells that remind of the summer heat, and cool crisp mornings which hint at the coming winter snow.
I love to walk in my neighbourhood where we are blessed with forest trails and ponds, the leaves turning colour to brilliant shades of yellow, red and auburn. I see the squirrels busy at work burying pinecones for the winter, the rabbits seeking warmth in the bushes, and birds flying south for their annual migration. Nature reminds us that change is normal and necessary. And that the seasons of our lives are a natural cycle - each to be lived fully, one not better or worse than another, just different. As with any change, it is ok to experience contradictory feelings at the same time - like feelings of loss but also anticipation, or fear and yet curiosity about what is to come in the future. These times of conflicting emotions can be confusing but we can trust that we are capable of handling them and allow them to be.
Sometimes with change, we get mired in sadness, afraid to let go of something familiar and comfortable. It might feel like whatever is coming next, whatever is new or unknown, is going to be worse than what we have now. But if we look back into our own past, we may find that transitions worked out better than we thought. That maybe the future brought with it new experiences and joys we could not have known about. And that unforeseen obstacles were surmountable, perhaps even teaching us more about ourselves than our successes.
Author and Benedictine monk David Steindl-Rast talks of the blessing of change, “in the seasons of the year from snow to greening, flowering, fruiting and harvest, in the seasons of life, from childhood to youth, full ripeness and saging, all living things keep changing. May I welcome change as a sacred opportunity to grow and savour in each unrepeatable moment in its fleetingness what is beyond change.”
So where ever you are today, and whatever season you are in, I hope you can savour it and embrace all the changes it brings. Wishing you a wonderful week ahead, and we will see you next time on the Gist.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit happen.substack.com
While decision making on a large scale has been studied extensively - as it applies to leadership, business, policy development - we often don't apply much rigor to decisions in our individual lives. Most of us don't formally learn decision making. We pick it up indirectly by watching our elders or leaders and through our own life experience. By trial and error, by making mistakes and gradually (hopefully!) making better decisions as we mature.
But what if we viewed decision making as a key life skill, approaching each decision more systematically, not reactively? Would this make the process less fraught with stress? Could we better prepare our children by delegating responsibility earlier, not hovering as much, and letting them build their decision-making muscle?
An important first step is to realize that not all decisions are equal. We face a range of decisions in life. Small versus large transformative decisions differ in size, but sometimes little recurring choices made consistently - like what we eat, how active we are - can have as much long term impact as more major life decisions like who to marry, where to live or what career to follow.
At times we face simple choices where no matter what we pick we won't go wrong. But at other times, decisions can be complex with high stakes and present both opportunities and consequences. Here we can preserve our mental resources by making the simpler decisions quickly and investing more time in careful, deliberate analysis of the riskier ones. Too often we spend too long on simple matters leaving us drained and unable to deal with bigger decisions.
Easy decisions are easy because there is a clear best option. But when we have multiple options that may be equally good or bad with no clear criteria to help us decide, that can feel much harder. In the case of these hard choices we must, as philosopher Ruth Chang says, dig deep, develop our own criteria and select a path based on what we value most at the time.
Having assessed what type of decision we are facing, the next step is to go about making a decision with as much clarity of mind as we can muster. Here are a few ideas that might help us all with that process:
1. Apply an objective lens: It is easy to get swept up in emotions or get overwhelmed by information. It helps to have an objective framework to evaluate options. There are numerous tools on the Internet that might help, but I find it best to keep things simple. A pros and cons list or a hand drawn decision tree or flowchart always work well for me. The act of writing helps to slow down our thinking and apply logic to the problem at hand, with something concrete and tangible to base our decision on.
2. Listen to your body: While our minds allow us to apply reason, the body provides its own wisdom. In decision making it is helpful to stay attuned to how our bodies are feeling - tense, relaxed, restless - and what that might mean in terms of the direction we want to take in a particular situation. Keeping our bodies calm can in turn help our minds feel spacious while decision making.
3. Avoid overthinking: Once we've looked at the facts, applied logic and observed our physical sensations, we can arrive at a decision. At this point, it is time to move forward with our chosen path and stop overthinking. We waste so much precious time and energy overthinking decisions rather than trusting the process we followed to get there. We can never know for sure how things will turn out, but that is the nature of life and overthinking will certainly not change that fundamental fact. This is what Daniel Kahnemann, the famed behavioural economist and Nobel laureate, often calls the 'focusing illusion' where nothing is really as important as we think it is while we are thinking about it. We get trapped in our own minds and loose all perspective on the bigger picture. We become consumed by a situation and forget that in a week, a month or a year, this won't matter as much as we think it will.
4. Resist second guessing: As we start acting on a given decision, it is natural to have doubts from time to time. But chronic second guessing robs us of our self confidence. It is important to stay positive and see how things unfold. We can do everything possible to make our decision work out in the manner that we hope, but we are never in full control. Life happens, circumstances change, and we don't know what we don't know. That doesn't mean our original decision was wrong.
5. Let go of perfect outcomes: Sometimes we have difficulty making decisions because we are in the grips of FOMO and FOBO - fear of missing out and fear of better options. We go into a mental spin cycle trying to figure out the optimal solution to a problem. But life is messy and things rarely work out exactly as we had hoped. Even so there is always something we can learn from each experience. Something we can do better next time. Or sometimes enjoy seeing that things worked out differently, but better, than we could have imagined. The important thing is to commit to a path fully and then make course corrections along the way.
As with most things in life, we get better the more we do them. Life presents us with decisions all the time, moment by moment, day after day. So there are lots of opportunities to practice making decisions! As with any habit, we can start small. We can practice getting good at making small decisions and apply that confidence to bigger decisions. Then we can be more relaxed, skillful and keep a healthy perspective while dealing with whatever forks in the road we might face throughout life.
On that note, wishing you a great week ahead as you tackle the many decisions in your life. And we'll see you next week on The Gist.
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The pandemic has forced many of us to reflect on our lifestyles - both at home and at work. As several countries start to reopen, people are navigating social and work interactions. Employers are offering greater flexibility to work remotely at least some of the time, or even on a permanent basis.
It is wonderful that we are thinking more carefully about where and how we work. But a recent Economist article urges us to go even further and pay attention to what actually constitutes work. Should sitting in meetings and responding to emails be considered work? Undoubtedly both are a necessary part of modern work. But we are all guilty of booking too many meetings and sending too many emails.
It is important to challenge these kinds of habitual behaviours. Can the content of an email be handled through a group chat or people collaborating in a shared document? Can a meeting be 15 minutes forcing all parties to get to the point? Changing these behaviours also creates time for two very important elements of life -first, deep work and second, boredom.
We all understand the significance of deep work which requires thought, planning and creativity. It also requires large blocks of time for our minds to think freely, expansively or in great detail to produce something of quality - be it a piece of writing, a work of art, or an impactful speech.
Boredom, which is perhaps the opposite of deep work, is sadly less valued but equally important. It is a state where we are not mentally engaged in a specific activity, where the brain can rest and activate its 'default mode network'. This network allows our imagination to flourish in an unstructured way, our ideas to percolate and our brains to synthesize information. It also allows us to do what's called 'autobiographical planning' - reflecting on what we have learned in the past and imagining our future.
Most of us tend to pack our days with tasks leaving little buffer room in between. This makes us too drained to do important deep work and no time to be bored at all. What's more, we often confuse boredom with leisure - such as hobbies or going on vacation. True boredom comes from being still and letting our mind wander. Or giving our minds room to work peacefully in the background as we are doing routine physical tasks like folding laundry, going for a walk or enjoying a coffee alone on a patio. The ideas that occur to us during true boredom can in turn feed our deep work, not to mention our relationships and emotional life, creating a virtuous cycle.
In our device-rich, 'doing' obsessed culture, it is easy to be distracted, to resist boredom. A recent study is quite telling, as physicist Derek Muller points out. People were instructed to sit alone in a room with the only form of distraction being a buzzer which, if pressed, would administer a mild shock to their bodies. Most of the study participants surprised themselves by becoming so uncomfortable after a few minutes of boredom that they chose to hit the shock button! But rather than seeing boredom as a discomfort, a waste of time, an enemy, what if we could reframe it as an investment similar to sleep, exercise and a healthy diet?
The opportunity cost of not letting ourselves be bored is high, according to a recent TedTalk by journalist Manoush Zomorodi. In partnership with leading researchers, she undertook a study called "Bored and Brilliant - The Lost Art of Spacing Out' with 20,000 participants to examine cell phone habits and the detrimental effects of not giving our brains any down time. Her findings show that by robbing ourselves of boredom, we inhibit neural connections that help us connect ideas and promote creative problem solving. She points out that this is particularly important for the young generation who have never known a world without the Internet and smart devices. They need to become particularly comfortable with boredom so their developing minds can grow and flourish.
So the next time you are about to fill your time with another meeting or reach reflexively for a device, give boredom a chance instead. Who knows where this investment in your own mind will take you?
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While almost all animals have unique ways of communicating, the development of complex, language-based communication sets humans apart. It allows us to express ourselves through speech and the written word. With inventions ranging from paper to computers and smartphones, the capacity and reach of human communication continues to grow. And yet it is as fraught with potential for misunderstanding and harm, as it is for positivity and change.
Most of us take this incredible human ability for granted. Children are naturally wired to pick up multiple languages almost effortlessly. And as adults we often don't spend enough time thinking about the importance of language. But who would we be as a species and as individuals without words? A recent Nautilus article explored what happens when we cannot access our language skills.
It turns out that as children, while our brain is still developing, removing language can dramatically affect its growth as a whole. But as adults, if we lose our ability to communicate due to say illness, trauma or aging, the rest of our cognitive functions remain remarkably in tact because of the foundation of language. It seems that "our language is but a scaffold for our minds: indispensable during construction but not necessary for the building to remain in place."
While this is reassuring, language still affects our capacity to interact with the world and can have a lasting impact on those around us. So it might serve us well to look more closely at how we use this precious resource. We can learn a lot about ourselves if we observe the words we use. Too often, we are not intentional enough and just let them spill out. So much unnecessary confusion or pain can come from ill-considered words. Pausing and bringing awareness to what we say allows us to articulate ourselves clearly, thoughtfully and assertively. In so doing, we have the potential to transform our relationships for the better. This is particularly true with our children because our speech becomes their template for speaking with others.
But language is not just an external phenomenon. Most of us have a near constant running conversation in our own heads. In fact, it seems almost impossible to think without words. As with outer communication, this inner dialogue has the power to be constructive or destructive. Words matter and how we talk to ourselves can profoundly shape our personalities and our degree of contentment. A harsh inner voice can lead to feelings of low self-esteem, depression or anger. Conversely, a gentler, nurturing and grateful inner conversation style can be a form of self-soothing and personal encouragement.
It is also helpful to work on quietening this inner dialogue altogether and to give our brains a rest from language. We can try instead to just witness and absorb the world in silence, minimizing the urge to speak or always label what we see with words. We can also prioritize the words we consume through various other means like television, videos, podcasts, books, articles, emails, texts and marketing messages. We can't bury our heads in the sand to avoid all negative messaging or hide from the difficult realities of the world. But we can be selective about the words we expose ourselves to.
Given the power of language to shape our minds and our relationships, being deliberate about how we speak, how we listen and what we read becomes foundational to our overall wellbeing. Perhaps we can all bring a little more thoughtful attention to language and make better choices about how we both use and consume it.
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While going through the self check-out recently, I witnessed what is no doubt a frequent grocery store event - a spectacular, full-bodied toddler meltdown. The drama, the tears, the anger - an overreaction to something seemingly small, but very real and relevant to the child. How we respond to a distressed child has a direct impact on its behaviour. While our first instinct might be to lecture or discipline, we all know that kindness and understanding generally work better. Helping the child to breathe and relax goes a long way towards its ability to self-soothe in the future.
But let's be honest, emotional self-regulation isn't just hard for toddlers - many of us struggle with it throughout our adult lives. How often are we standing at the self check-out feeling tired, frazzled, or overwhelmed? How often do we take the time to do a self check-in? To breathe and take a moment to center ourselves. Here are some simple yet effective things we can do to embrace the relaxed way of life we might be craving.
Reframe Relaxation: Too often we think of relaxation as something that is the opposite of work and chores - a vacation or an activity we have to carve out time for. This line of thinking makes our daily responsibilities feel like a burden, and means that we can only be relaxed under certain conditions. Yet relaxation can be more of an orientation towards life. We can, in a sense, be relaxed all the time, as we are doing day to day things - meeting with clients, cleaning the house, walking our pets. Living this way brings a lightness to life. It also allows us to develop a quiet inner confidence, that no matter what is going on around us, we can rise to the occasion and figure out what needs to be done.
Practice Urge Surfing: Our behaviour during times of stress, is typically very reactive. We have a thought or feeling and we follow it, often down a rabbit hole. But if we stay still and pay attention something curious happens. Things pass, sometimes much faster than we think. Andy Puddicombe, former Buddhist monk and Headspace founder, points out that we are good at knowing when a particular feeling wells up and peaks. But we rarely notice when a feeling subsides and ends. Observing the full wave of an emotion until it passes is often called 'urge surfing'. This practice allows us to feel more in control, rather than being at the mercy of our own knee jerk reactions that keep us from feeling relaxed.
Keep things simple: Leading a relaxed life is much more feasible if we simplify the small things that cause stress - many of them of our own doing. In his Ted Talk on staying calm Canadian neuroscientist Daniel Levetin reminds us of how cortisol hijacks our rational thinking under stress. Our minds become too clouded to even recognize that we are being irrational. He suggests simplifying our lives by having processes in place to manage all the little things that trip us up on a daily basis. He gives the example of having a consistent place to put things that we lose easily - keys, glasses, wallets - so that we don't get frantic looking for them. Changing such seemingly small habits can add up to a more relaxed day.
Conduct a pre-mortem: For bigger situations in life that are more fraught with risk Levetin also suggests we prepare in advance. He recommends conducting what his friend, economist and Nobel laureate Daniel Kahnemann, calls a 'pre-mortem'. This involves imagining how we might handle big stress-inducing things in our lives - like facing health issues, moving to a new place or starting a new job - and preparing our response to them while we are calm. By thinking through what could go wrong in each situation and how we want to manage our emotions, this exercise can help us stay more relaxed as and when those big things come to fruition.
Maybe right now, being a relaxed person seems like an impossibility to some of us, something that only a lucky few can achieve. But by implementing one or more of these ideas, we can move closer to embodying relaxation and integrating it into everything we do.
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Welcome back to the Gist. For the last several weeks we have been looking at how we can feel more integrated both within ourselves and with others. This week we examine how grateful living provides us with that much needed sense of integration. One of my favourite authors, Benedictine monk and scholar David Steindl-Rast, has made gratefulness his life's work. Having read and listened to so many different authors, there is something about Brother David that really stands out for me. Perhaps it is his simple but eloquent words, the warmth and humility he exudes, or the depth of his wisdom. Whatever it may be, I find his ideas on gratitude nourishing and very accessible to all of us, no matter our age, race, or culture.
Brother David believes that gratitude goes beyond thankfulness for our worldly possessions or feeling happy when life is easy. He sees gratefulness as an orientation towards life that we carry with us through all its ups and downs. That is why he prefers the term grateful living because he sees it as a stance we take, a choice we make. He points out that grateful living doesn't mean that we can be grateful for everything in our lives or in the broader world. Certainly when life presents us with difficult circumstances, or when someone hurts us, it is not possible to be grateful. Nor is it possible to feel gratitude for all the pain, suffering and injustice we see in the world. But he proposes that it is possible to feel grateful in each moment for the opportunity that moment presents.
Even in the midst of personal difficulty or the darkest periods of our shared human history, he invites us to look for the opportunity to learn something, to be instruments of change, to be an oasis for others and support them where we can. Brother David proposes that this kind of gratitude grounds us deep within ourselves and allows us to connect more easily with others because we become less angry, less fearful and more open to learning and helping. And as he would say “It is not happiness that makes us grateful, but gratefulness that makes us happy."
Brother David also speaks a lot about fear, which he distinguishes from anxiety. He suggests that anxiety is inevitable in life as we have new experiences, navigate the unknown and deal with difficulties. But fear, he says, is optional. While anxiety can come and go as a response to something happening in our lives, fear can cripple us into inaction. He gives the example of birth, where each of us come through the birth canal, a tight and uncomfortable space, into a totally unfamiliar and overwhelming world. But the only way we survive is to trust the process, to keep moving through the experience, anxiety and all. If in that moment fear paralyzed us we would never be born nor go on to experience the fulness of our lives.
Steindl-Rast also believes that fear is what stops us from feeling more connected to others. He believes our competitive, hierarchical structures may have been useful over the course of human history, but are not serving us as well any more. He thinks the world must move more towards a network approach to human interaction. This concept is at the core of the community he has established, called The Grateful Living Network. Using the power of the internet, Brother David and others working with him, have connected millions of people around the world through this simple, secular practice of grateful living. The more we can see our human commonalities and our fundamental equality, rather than our differences the more we can relate to each other harmoniously and work towards an integrated world. One in which we cannot go on treating others as adversaries, use violence to solve problems, or keep consuming resources as if they were limitless.
Throughout his life, Brother David has reached well beyond his Christian roots and started interfaith dialogues with those practicing other religions such as Buddhism. He has found common ground with others across faith groups through a shared sense of gratefulness. And he hopes to bring more wisdom, mutual respect and civilized dialogue into the world through his teachings on grateful living. Along with a sense that we each belong to the human race so we must, as Brother David would put it, say a shared yes to belonging.
If you want to learn more about Brother David and his work, you can go to https://gratefulness.org/ or read his books including Gratefulness, the Heart of Prayer. You can also try one of his many videos on YouTube including his TedTalk.
I hope you have enjoyed this blog series on our senses and on how we can connect our bodies, minds and behaviours to feel more present. And that we can extend this sense of presence to feel more integrated as individuals and in our relationships through mindfulness and grateful living.
We will be back after a short break to kick off our fall blogs and podcasts. Until then, wishing you well as you continue to explore your world within and without.
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Welcome back to The Gist. Last week we looked at how psychiatrist Dr. Jud Brewer helps his patients create a sense of integration between body and mind to heal from addictions and anxiety. He is able to guide patients towards newer, healthier behaviours as they work to overcome engrained negative patterns. This week we examine the work of Dr. Dan Siegel who extends this idea further. Siegel is also a psychiatrist and a pioneer in the field of Interpersonal Neurobiology (IPNB for short). This field brings together multiple disciplines ranging from anthropology to biology and neuroscience to systems theory.
The central idea behind Dan's work is integration, both inside each individual and between people. Siegel sees integration as 'the essential mechanism of health as it promotes a flexible and adaptive way of being'. Dan's research and clinical work shows that integration leads to greater kindness, compassion and resilience, as well as overall well being. He has developed a framework of human experience with three parts - a coherent mind, an embodied brain and empathic relationships - and the flow of information and energy that is exchanged between these parts.
On a biological level, integration in the brain means that 'separated areas with unique functions, become linked to each other through synaptic connections' both in the brain itself and across the body. These links enhance certain capabilities such as 'insight, empathy, intuition and morality', and result in an embodied brain.
On a personal level, integration involves stronger connections between distinct elements of mental processing. For example linking 'thoughts with feelings or bodily sensations with logic', which leads to a coherent mind.
In relationships, Dan believes that integration means finding a balance between each of us needing a sense of autonomy and self differentiation, while still feeling connected to others through communication and interaction. This in turn forms empathic relationships.
In fact Dan goes even deeper to identify 9 domains of integration including memory integration to synthesize past events in our lives, narrative integration where we develop stories about our lives and temporal integration where we bring together experiences across time.
An important element of interpersonal neurobiology is mindfulness practice. Dan's brain imaging studies show that the act of paying attention to our thoughts and feelings changes the very structure and the wiring of our brains. Because, as Dan says, 'this state of attentional focus alters our relationship, our internal stance, toward our own mental processes'. Through consistent mindfulness practices like meditation we can develop greater self awareness. The shift in attention over time and with repetition has long term, positive impacts on our brains. This ability, to more clearly see and constructively redirect our thinking, is what Dan refers to as 'mindsight'.
At his Mindsight Institute, Dan continues to conduct fascinating research in this area. He believes that we can all learn the vital skill of mindsight, and realize that we are capable of freeing ourselves from our scattered, incessant thoughts. We can transform our automatic reactivity into a more discerning state of mind. Then our sense of self can come more from within (what Dan calls 'bottom-up' input) rather than being overwhelmed by the 'top-down' input of our external environments. Using our mindsight allows us to quieten old narratives about who we are and who we should be, and become more attuned to our direct, experience of life as it unfolds in the present moment.
I hope you've enjoyed learning about Dr. Siegel's work. If you want to delve deeper you can go to his website: https://drdansiegel.com/ or try one of his books including The Developing Mind, The Mindful Therapist and *Mindsight: The New Science of Personal Transformation.
Wishing you a wonderful week ahead filled with greater mindsight and a stronger sense of integration within and without. Next week we will be looking at the work of one of my favourite teachers and authors, Benedictine monk David Steindl-Rast, who shows us how we can create a more integrated world through the practice of grateful living.
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Welcome back to The Gist. Recently we have been examining the writings of Jon Kabat-Zinn on the power of our senses and how they keep us grounded in the present moment. But it is easy for us to think of our senses, and in fact our whole body, as disconnected from our minds. Jon often refers to a funny quote from James Joyce's book the Dubliners where one of the characters Mr. Duffy is described as living 'a short distance from his body'. While funny, this statement isn't too far from the truth for most of us. We think of our minds as the command centre of our lives, with our bodies tagging along. But what if we could have a more integrated sense of self.
Psychiatrist and author Jud Brewer uses this notion of an integrated self in his practice. He encourages patients to let the body lead us back to our minds, to help us break through unhealthy behaviours and mental habits. He has worked extensively with people who have addictions of various kinds. He combines therapy with mindfulness by inviting patients to put their attention on their bodies when they feel addictive urges.
Jud gives the example of a patient who had a food addiction and would indulge in emotional eating. By asking her to eat more slowly and mindfully the next time she opened a bag of chips, his patient was able to better engage her senses. Remarkably she noticed that after the first few chips, her craving had started subsiding. She didn't even really want to eat any more, but usually did so habitually to feed her negative emotions until the bag of chips was empty. The chips, of course, were a distraction from having to deal with underlying difficult feelings. By helping patients see the link between their bodies and their behaviours, Brewer has been successfully able to change addictive patterns. If they can address the root cause of their negative habits, they can slowly learn healthier ones.
Brewer has also extended this approach to anxiety, which he sees essentially as an addiction, just one that's not linked to a physical substance. It is more a mental addiction, an unhealthy set of thought patterns that we engage in reflexively. Jud once again invites patients to pay attention to what is happening in their bodies when anxiety arises. Where in the body do they feel the anxiety most acutely - perhaps as tightness in the chest, or a knot in the stomach or as a racing heartbeat. By addressing these physical symptoms, patients can begin to slow down their anxious thoughts and create some emotional distance from them. With this distance comes a sense of awareness which allows patients to apply some critical thinking and make a connection between what triggered their anxiety and what behaviour ensued.
Once this understanding has been established they can work constructively with Brewer to choose a different response the next time - what he calls the BBO. The bigger, better option. By approaching their anxiety with curiosity and kindness, patients realize that they can get through the discomfort of an anxious feeling and make it through to the other side. Rather than giving in to a spiral of anxious thoughts, they can instead choose to engage in deep breathing, or self-care or go for a walk. Over time, the BBO starts to become their new habitual response to old triggers and hopefully their overall level of anxiety subsides. If you want to learn more about Jud Brewer's work and his methods you can pick up one of his books including 'The Craving Mind' and 'Unwinding Anxiety'.
So this week if you find yourself engaging in some habitual behaviours like addictive eating or reaching for another substance. Or if you are getting stuck in common thought patterns like ruminating about the past and obsessively worrying about the future try Jud's approach. Slow down, engage your senses, and bring your attention into your body. Bring curiosity and kindness to what is happening internally and notice any underlying restlessness or discomfort. And consider what your BBO is to replace your usual knee-jerk response.
By doing so we can approach life as a more integrated self, grounded in the realization that we are whole and can solve problems in healthy ways. That we are stronger than we think and can handle and resolve difficult emotions by sitting with them, rather than distracting ourselves from them.
Wishing you a great week ahead exploring the idea of an integrated self. Next week we extend this idea to look at various types of physical, mental and social integration through the work of Dr. Dan Siegel. See you then!
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Welcome back to The Gist. Over the last several weeks, we have been exploring John Kabat-Zinn's book Coming to our Senses, with particular attention to one sense each week. When we put all of them together they form what John calls the bodyscape. The bodyscape forms our sensory experience which is ultimately interpreted into a message, maybe even a narrative in our minds - what John calls the mindscape. The bodyscape is really part of the mindscape which houses our sense of awareness.
John notes that 'when we become aware, when we rest in the knowing, we are resting in the deep essence of the mindscape, in the basic empty spaciousness that is awareness itself. It is its own sense. Perhaps the ultimate sense'
Awareness is the sense that gives us the ability to witness our own experiences, thoughts and feelings. It is ever present in us, in our interior lives, beyond words and labels. Even if we lived a different life, looked different, were called by a different name, our awareness would remain unchanged. While awareness itself is not tangible, has no center or periphery, it is the sense that allows us to cradle all our other senses in it.
John encourages us to stop living on autopilot and to regularly practice closely seeing, hearing, smelling, touching, tasting, and also 'awarenessing'. Being aware means to 'drop in' on our interior life frequently, through formal practices like meditation, and through the living of daily life. To carry with us the sense that, whatever is happening in this moment, deserves our full attention and acceptance just as it is.
At the same time, while awareness brings us into the present moment, it also connects us with something much bigger than ourselves. It reminds us that we are but a part of a very large universe where everything is impermanent yet also, in some sense, timeless. By cultivating awareness we can be both fully present in this moment, without losing the perspective that the moment is also fleeting.
To understand how awareness can help us stay present, it is best to give John the last word, who eloquently talks about it in this excerpt from his book. 'When we know something of the mindscape through a sustained cultivating of intimacy with how things actually, we are better able, in any and every moment, to let go of our fears that things will not work out for us (the future), and to let go of our various strivings to make sure that they will work out the way we want by subtly or not so subtly attempting to force them to (again the future)' For now is already the future and it is already here. Now is the future of the previous moment just past, and the future of all those moments that were before that one. Remember back in your own life for a moment, to when you were a child, or an adolescent, or a young adult, or to any other period already gone. This is that future. The you you were hoping to become, it is you. Right here. Right now. You have already turned out.’
It has been wonderful to explore each of our senses in turn. This week we can try to hold all our senses together in our awareness and practice paying attention, moment by moment, to our experience of daily life.
Wishing you a wonderful week as you attend to each moment. Over the next few weeks we turn to the work of other scientists and authors who have examined how we can live in a more integrated way both within our own minds and bodies, and also in relation to the world around us.
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Welcome back to The Gist. This week we look at touch, the last of the five senses. Some of our senses can be more easily impacted - we might lose our sight or hearing with age, we might get sick and not be able to smell or taste as well. But touch is the one sense that is very difficult to lose - almost everyone can either touch or be touched throughout their lives.
In his book, Coming to Our Senses, John Kabat-Zinn talks about the importance of touch in human development. It is well documented that babies and children benefit enormously from being cradled, caressed, and playing physically with caregivers or other children. When babies are nursed by their mothers and held close by loving adults, their brains and bodies develop well. Sadly children who face neglect or isolation for prolonged periods without human interaction, can suffer developmental setbacks.
But John points out how touch is important throughout our lives. As adults, we continue to need and want physical affection. Touch is also a way we communicate comfort and familiarity and safety with one another. We generally only get physically close enough to touch those people or animals that we trust.
Touch also plays an important role in healing whether it is helping someone who is physically sick, supporting an aging loved one, or attending to someone who feels mentally or emotionally down. Touch can convey love and reassurance in ways that even sight and sound cannot. Just holding someone's hand when they are down communicates so much and can have deep, profoundly healing biochemical effects.
Equally, touch may create negative feelings if it is unwelcome and inappropriate. It can cause physical pain if we are touched harshly or beaten. Or cause emotional trauma if touch creates feelings of shame and anger, making us want to recoil or defend ourselves in some manner. Just as loving touch can have long term benefits, being touched in unwanted ways, where our bodily sovereignty feels violated, can be very damaging to our human psyche. Such is the power of this particular sense.
Closely related to the sense of touch, is also proprioception which John explains are 'the sense of knowing where the body is’ in space. This means that at any given moment, most of us know where our nose, our hands, our feet are without touching those body parts or without those body parts actively touching anything. Proprioception is so innate that we rarely think about it or acknowledge that it exists, but it plays an important function in operating in the world.
Beyond external touch, John also talks about how our skin and our bodies are in constant interplay with our surroundings, how our bodies are always moving in air. Unlike swimming in water, we may be unaware of the air most of the time but we are forever immersed in it, and breathing it in and out. Our skin is also our largest organ, protecting us and providing us to an interface to textures and temperatures. We all know the feeling of a soft warm blanket, a cold burst of fresh water, a breeze blowing over us on an autumn walk. Our most sensitive areas - usually our lips, our fingertips and our feet - are constantly sending us information about whether things are safe to touch - too hot, too cold, too rough, too prickly. Our skin is forever changing throughout our years, from tender newborn skin, to fresh youthful skin, to the softer wrinkled skin of our later years - all beautiful in its own ways at each stage.
So this week, let's take a little time out to notice how we touch and are touched by others - our family members, our pets, our plants, even all the inanimate objects we handle throughout the day. Is our touch automatic and thoughtless or intentional and mindful. Are we sensing all the many ways the air, fabrics, and furniture surrounds and interacts with our bodies. The textures and temperatures of daily life that go so easily unnoticed. And perhaps we can talk a little better care of our bodies, our skin, that works so hard for us throughout our lives.
Wishing you a wonderful week ahead as you reflect on this powerful sense we call touch. And see you next week where we bring all our senses together.
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Welcome back to The Gist as we continue with John Kabat-Zinn's exploration of the senses. He talks about taste as fundamental to our survival. Outside of breathing, eating and drinking are essential to our existence. Our ancestors used a keenly developed sense of taste to forage for food. As humans discovered agriculture, the art and science of cooking grew over centuries into the incredible array of flavours and varieties of food in global cuisine.
Few of us today have to cultivate or hunt for our food but eating remains quite central in our lives. Ironically, as our food supplies have grown and many of us are privileged to have plentiful to eat, we have begun to take food, and in turn taste, for granted. We are no longer just eating for sustenance, but to meet other needs like social bonding over food, eating for pleasure or over-eating as a way to deal with negative emotions.
In Coming to our Senses John describes one particular meal of cilantro fish curry and rice that was intensely flavourful and memorable, bite after bite. And yet, he could not fully communicate this taste experience to anyone else, not even his wife who was enjoying a different meal. Taste is perhaps the sense that is most difficult for us to convey through words. Another person can only truly understand our experience by sharing a bite of what we are eating. Even then, their sense of taste may be a little different than our own.
In his mindfulness work, John regularly has workshop participants engage in eating a single raisin slowly and intentionally. He asks them to hold it in their mouths for a long time, feeling the texture with their tongues, tasting the flavour when they first starting eating. Noticing how it changes as they consume it. This might seem like a silly thing to undertake, but it brings to light how little attention we normally pay to what we are eating. Instead of enjoying the richness of food, we might hurriedly scarf down our meals, often standing and eating, or even in transit on a bus or nibbling as we drive! While this may be unavoidable at times, how would our experience of eating and tasting be different if we took our time?
Perhaps we would take the time to prepare a flavourful breakfast and start our day feeling nourished, aware of what we are putting into our bodies. What if we used our lunches and dinners as opportunities to truly step away from our tightly controlled schedules? To reconnect with our food and with the people or pets who might accompany us as we eat. Could meals be a time to pause in our hectic days and remember the importance of living life as a sensory experience. If we punctuated our days to honor this essential act of eating, to find joy in the complexity of flavours and textures, we might better appreciate how food sustains us day in and day out. And recognize how many people in the world do not have this privilege.
There are still many parts of the world where people struggle to get enough food for themselves and their families. Yet in other parts of the world, food is so abundant, we rarely even think of not having access to it. This almost dims our appreciation of this great resource and can result in tremendously wasteful behaviours. Easy access to food and the low cost of unhealthy food together contribute to the health issues we see today especially in the West - such as obesity, heart disease, and diabetes. Emotional eating has also become more common particularly in countries with little food scarcity and an over emphasis on convenient, highly processed foods.
Kabat-Zinn invites us to eat mindfully and notice how, after the first few bites of a favourite food we might actually feel satisfied, but we keep eating out of habit, to feed an emotional craving, or simply to relieve boredom. A wonderful way to become more mindful about eating is to become more engaged in selecting and preparing the food we eat. The closer we feel to our food, the more likely we are to enjoy it and savour it. While cooking can be daunting to many people, the process of choosing ingredients, putting together a meal, serving and sharing it, can create a love and respect of food in a way that fast food or frozen meals cannot. Especially for children, being engaged in cooking from their early years can set them on a lifelong path of healthy eating.
So this week let's enjoy our sense of taste for it is the doorway to nourishing our bodies, our minds and our relationships. Let's pause and really relish the nuanced flavours in our meals. We can take a bite, put down our cutlery and chew slowly before taking the next one. Noticing the savoury and the sweet, the tart and the bitter, the texture and temperature, that can all come together and heighten the pleasure of eating. The whole experience can be magical if we don't rush through it and take it for granted.
Bon Appetit! And we will see you next week as we continue to explore our senses!
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We have been exploring our sensory world through John Kabat Zinn's book 'Coming to Our Senses'. This week we examine what John calls 'our most delicately attuned sense'. Remarkably our noses can detect even the faintest aroma with even as little as a few parts per trillion. Our sense of smell is of course largely dependent on our environment and the molecules that are carried by the air around us.
But even more remarkably our brains can conjure up olfactory memories as if they were real and close to original smells that are particularly fixed in our minds - perhaps pleasant smells of comfort foods, our favourite flowers, the soil after a rain, the fresh scent of clean laundry. Equally we might recoil at unpleasant smells that we recall from past experiences.
The ability to smell has had an important evolutionary purpose - it allowed us to distinguish what is safe and what is not. Kabat-Zinn says that it served a 'biological imperative of approach and avoidance'. Based on smell we could decipher which plants might safe to eat. We could sense danger when we smelled certain animals. And chemicals called pheromones that are released by our bodies allow us to detect people that are known to us versus those who are not. Of course pheromones play an important role in attraction to partners and in forming bonds with our children who, especially as babies, know their parents through their scents.
Many other animals have far superior olfactory abilities than humans. John talks about taking walks with his dog who needs to have the freedom to explore her environment through her sense of smell. He notes how she needs 'to be free to wander wherever her nose carries her, but this has its own problems in a human-dominated world'. As is often the case, we forget that we are but one species on this planet and thousands of other animals, insects, and plants occupy the same space we do and are impacted by the smells in the environment.
Smells and scents have a way of grabbing us even in our busiest moments. We may be walking or driving somewhere, perhaps is a rush as we humans often tend to be, and then a smell suddenly hits us. It has the power to invoke all sorts of positive or negative emotions. A foul smell may turn our stomachs or ruin our appetite. Equally, passing a neighbours house or a restaurant with delicious smells coming our way can make our mouths water. Walking into a familiar place like a parents or grandparents home, or a favourite trail we like to frequent, can invoke joy through smells that signal a sense of comfort, safety, love or aliveness.
Like most of our senses, it is possible to become de-sensitized to smells. Certainly if we spend a long time in a space, a new scent that hits us when we first encounter it, fades as we become accustomed to it. As John says 'the nose is a fine instrument, but it tires quickly if overwhelmed. It's hard for us even to smell the food we are eating right through a meal.'
So as with our other senses, it is easy to lose track of the rich smellscape all around us. The nuanced aromas that add to the richness of each day. Smells that connect us to our environment and to those in it. And to the food that nourishes not just our bodies but my hearts and minds. So this week, we can take particular notice of the smellscape as our days unfold. Smells wafting in through an open window - maybe the flowers outside, the fresh-cut grass, the soil after a heavy rain. Maybe we can hold our children a little tighter breathing in their baby smell or their freshly washed hair. And ofcourse, the glorious varieties of smells in our kitchens from that first morning coffee brewing, eggs cooking at breakfast, garlic and onions and herbs mingling together on our stove tops and in the air. Being mindful about the world of scents around us is just one more way to be immersed in the moment by moment experience of life unfolding. It may surprise us how much we have missed, and what has been right under our noses all along.
Wishing you a wonderful week again as you savour the aromas in your life and see you next week as we continue to explore our sensory experience.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit happen.substack.com
Welcome back to The Gist. This week we continue to look at the senses through the work of John Kabat-Zinn. Similar to the extraordinary gift of sight, John also describes hearing as having many layers. He examines the richness of our soundscape, all the many sounds that surround us every day.
He brings to life a fall morning where he is sitting and simply trying to hear the sound of the rain outside his house, on the stones, against the windows, the accompanying wind. He challenges us, as he does himself, to just be with the rain. How often do we take a few minutes be still and actually absorb the sounds that are around us. Unlike our eyes, we can't close our ears as easily so sounds always filter into our consciousness. The quality of attention we bring to listening is as important as sight. What would we lose by just taking a few moments each day to hear things differently. And what are we losing by not doing so.
In the soundscape, we can have a confluence of sometimes contradictory sounds. John talks of hearing birds and nature sounds outside his window one morning, and in parallel the sound of traffic, modern machinery and gadgets. How can we just absorb all these various sounds without judgement or labeling or bringing in the thinking mind? Can we just immerse ourselves in them rather than being separate from them. And can we pay particular attention to the silence between sounds, to relish the healing power of quiet. Silence, which we rarely get to experience in our world, is not just a lack of sound. It has its own aliveness that nourishes us deeply if we allow it to do so.
Outside of the general soundscape, two particular types of sound came to my mind while reading Kabat-Zinn's work - music and conversation. Music is often called the universal language as it goes beyond knowing any particular vocabulary. It appeals to us across cultures and races. Even without understanding a word of what is being said we can love a song for its musicality, its rhythm, for its ability to make us want to dance. And its profound ability to evoke an incredible range of emotions. In fact, some people when they are training in mindfulness, choose silence to avoid stirring up thoughts and feelings.
As for conversation, as humans we have developed the unique power of communicating in complex and nuanced ways - language is quite phenomenal if we stop to think about it. And we have a multiplicity of languages around the world, which moved from oral traditions to writing. Verbal communication makes up a vast majority of our day to day lives. We take in all kinds of words through television, videos, emails, tweets. But the more we take in, the more we need to question whether we are really paying attention to conversations and communication. Are we actually listening to what another person is trying to convey or are we letting our own thoughts get in the way? Are we being with other people in a way that conveys presence and genuine interest? Sitting in silence as they speak, noting what is being said as well as what is not, taking note of their body language or expressions.
So as we go through each day this week, let's see if we can focus on our sense of hearing. Perhaps we can take a moment when we wake up to notice that special silence while our homes are quiet or the sounds of nature around us. We can savour the sound of our own heartbeat or that of our partner. The voices of our children not just today but over time as they change from cooing babies, to babbling toddlers, to the mature voices of young men and women. Maybe we can choose to relish the gentle windchimes at our window or the kettle boiling for tea. And open our ears, minds and hearts to the words we take in.
Wishing you a wonderful week reflecting on your own unique soundscape and we will be back next week as we continue exploring our senses.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit happen.substack.com
For the next several weeks, we are doing something a little different. We will be posting The Gist - a series of weekly blog posts also available in audio - which highlights ideas we are exploring through the work of various authors and speakers. We start with the work of John Kabat-Zinn to examine our senses and the ways in which they shape our experience of the world. We then examine the idea of integrating our physical senses with our minds through the work of: Jud Brewer on forming new habits of mind; Dan Siegal on interpersonal neurobiology; and David Steindl-Rast on connecting our world through grateful living.
Dr. John Kabat-Zinn has been a pillar in the mindfulness movement for decades. His book 'Coming to our Senses...Healing Ourselves and the World through Mindfulness' builds on his previous writing. This book is expansive covering topics such as meditation, our ability to pay attention, the benefits of silence, and our relationships. The crux of the book lies in John's exploration of the sensory world.
He begins with the incredible sense of sight that so many of us take for granted. How often do we stop to be thankful that we have eyes that can see? The remarkable range of things to see in the world, the array of colours present all around us. John takes us on a walk through a beloved trail that he frequents. He always makes a deliberate attempt to sit and gaze at the fields beyond the trail. He talks of the rich red fescues, purple flowers in the grass, the way the light hits a farmhouse in the distance. And how each time he walks, the field looks different, there is always something new to notice if only we take the time. And this noticing, this attending to things with our sight nourishes us in ways that we would miss altogether if we rush through life on autopilot.
John also talks of how those without sight become 'whole body seers' using their other senses to develop a mental picture of what is happening around them. He notes that Helen Keller could get a 'scent impression' of a person simply by being in a room with them. From the smells lingering on their clothes she could decipher if someone worked in a kitchen, as a gardener, or in a hospital. But we don't have to lose a particular sense in order to appreciate it. John invites us to re-engage with our miraculous sense of sight by revisiting everyday things with fresh eyes - the faces of the people we love, the flowers in our garden, the animals we pass in our all too familiar neighbourhood. After all, as Marcel Proust noted, "The journey of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having fresh eyes".
What struck me most was how John talks not only of seeing, but of being seen. He and his wife, Myla Kabat-Zinn have worked with many families on mindful parenting. They often ask parents to remember a time as children, when they felt really seen. Maybe it was a special, quiet moment with a loving parent or grandparent, or a teacher who really saw and encouraged their unique way of being. By invoking these memories, parents can better understand their own children and the lasting impact when we feel fully attended to. This means seeing other people as who they are, not as we want them to be. We miss so much when we don't see and value what each person can bring to this world, no matter how small. A new perspective, a talent all their own, a contribution that only they can make to the world. In the words of St. Theresa of Lisieux, If every tiny flower wanted to be a rose, spring would lose its loveliness.'
So this week let's all take some time to pause and really take in everything around us. To engage our sense of sight and feast on colours and shades. To notice the play of light and dark in nature or in our homes and gardens. To look up at the sky and notice its vast expanse. And to look with fresh eyes at the people and animals in our lives. To notice when they feel seen by us and see us in return.
Wishing you an insightful week and we will be back next week to continue exploring our senses.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit happen.substack.com