Meditate
Meditation is to the mind what aerobic exercise is to the body. Like exercise, there are many good ways to do it and you can find the one that suits you best.
Primary topic: Positive Psychology
340 views
Read articleArticles
Articles by Rick Hanson
Browse every published article connected to Rick Hanson, with exact attribution and full-archive search.
- articles
- 254
- shown per page
- 50
- search signals
- Topic + expert
Articles
254 articles by Rick Hanson · showing 50
Browse every published article connected to Rick Hanson, or search within this exact expert archive.
Kindness to You is Kindness to Me; Kindness to Me is Kindness to You
I usually describe a practice as something to do: get on your own side, see the being behind the eyes, take in the good, etc. This practice is different: it's something to recognize. From this recognition, appropriate action will follow. Let me explain.
Primary topic: Positive Psychology
170 views
Read articleGive Them What They Want
Research shows that relationships are built from interactions, and interactions are built from moments. A critical moment in an interaction is when one person wants something from the other one. ("Wants" include wishes, needs, desires, hopes, and longings.) The want could be simple and concrete, like "Please pass the salt." Or it could be complex and intangible, such as "Please love me as a romantic partner."
Primary topic: Positive Psychology
323 views
Read articleLove Freely
In my early 20's, I went through Rolfing, a form of deep-tissue bodywork, and I nervously anticipated the 5th session, the one that goes deep into the belly. But instead of gobs of repressed emotional pain, what poured out was love - waves, and waves of love that I'd pushed down due to embarrassment, fears of closeness, and my struggles with my mother.
Primary topic: Positive Psychology
247 views
Read articleSee What's Likable
Liking feels good, plus it encourages us to approach and engage the world rather than withdraw from it. Your brain continually tracks whether something is pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. In essence, is it a carrot, a stick, or safely ignored? Naturally, we like - we enjoy - what's pleasant, dislike what's unpleasant, and with what's neutral would get pleasant pronto.
Primary topic: Positive Psychology
386 views
Read articleBe Home
Throughout history, people have wondered about human nature. Deep down, are we basically good or bad?
Primary topic: Positive Psychology
383 views
Read articleDrop Tart Tone
I remember times I felt frazzled or aggravated and then said something with an edge to it that just wasn't necessary or useful. Sometimes it was the words themselves: such as absolutes like "never" or always" or over-the-top phrases like "you're such a flake" or "that was stupid." More often, it was the intonation in my voice, a harsh vibe or look, interrupting, or a certain intensity in my body. However, I did it.
Primary topic: Positive Psychology
433 views
Read articleFind Your North Star
I did a meditation retreat (at Spirit Rock, a wonderful place, including for workshops). One evening as we walked out of the hall after the last sit, I was feeling rattled and discombobulated. (One of the benefits of a retreat - though it can be uncomfortable - is that it stirs up the sediments of your psyche, which can muddy your mental waters for a while.)
Primary topic: Positive Psychology
378 views
Read articleFeed the Wolf of Love
I once heard a teaching story in which an elder, a grandmother, was asked what she had done to become so happy, so wise, so loved, and respected. She replied: "It's because I know that there are two wolves in my heart, a wolf of love and a wolf of hate. And I know that everything depends on which one I feed each day." This story always gives me the shivers when I think of it. Who among us does not have both a wolf of love and a wolf of hate in their heart?
Primary topic: Positive Psychology
443 views
Read articleDrop The Case
Lately, I've been thinking about a kind of "case" that's been running in my mind about someone in my extended family. The case is a combination of feeling hurt and mistreated, critique of the other person, irritation with others who haven't supported me, views about what should happen that haven't, and implicit taking-things-personally.
Primary topic: Positive Psychology
479 views
Read articleLower the Pressure
Things come at us with so much urgency and demand these days. Phones ring, texts buzz, emails pile up, new balls have to be juggled, work days lengthen and move into evenings and weekends, traffic gets denser, financial demands feel like a knife at the neck, ads and news clamor for attention, push push push PUSH.
Primary topic: Positive Psychology
444 views
Read articleBe the Body
As a kid, I was really out of touch with my body. I hardly noticed it most of the time, and when I did, I prodded it like a mule to do a better job of hauling "me" - the head - around.
Primary topic: Positive Psychology
399 views
Read articleMake The Offering
One of the strangest and most meaningful experiences of my life occurred when I went through Rolfing (ten brilliant sessions of deep-tissue bodywork) in my early 20's. The fifth session works on the stomach area, and I was anticipating (= dreading) the release of buried sadness. Instead, there was a dam burst of love, which poured out of me during the session and afterward. I realized it was love, not sadness, that I had bottled up in childhood - and what I now needed to give and express.
Primary topic: Positive Psychology
431 views
Read article369 views
Read articleEmbrace Fragility
The truth of anything is like a mosaic with many tiles and many parts. One part of the truth of things is that they are robust and enduring, whether it's El Capitan in Yosemite or the love of a child for her mother and father.
Primary topic: Positive Psychology
486 views
Read articleRelax, You've Arrived
We spend so much of our time trying to get somewhere. Part of this comes from our biological nature. To survive, animals – including us – have to be goal-directed, leaning into the future. It’s certainly healthy to pursue wholesome aims, like paying the rent on time, raising children well, healing old pain, or improving education. But it’s also important to see how this focus on the future – on endless striving, on getting the next task done, on climbing the next mountain – can get confused and stressful. It’s confusing because of the brain:
Primary topic: Positive Psychology
447 views
Read articleLeave the Red Zone
There I was recently, my mind darting in different directions about projects in process, frazzled about little tasks backing up, uneasy about a tax record from 2010 we couldn’t find, feeling irritated about being irritable, hurrying to get to work, body keyed up, internal sense of pressure. Not freaked out, not running from an attacker, not suffering a grievous loss, my troubles tiny in comparison to those of so many others – but still, the needle on my personal stress-o-meter was pegged in the Red Zone.
Primary topic: Positive Psychology
406 views
Read articleDon't Beat Yourself Up
A previous JOT - admit fault and move on - was about our relationship with other people. This JOT applies the same practice to ourselves. Most people know they have less than wonderful qualities, such as too much ambition (or too little), a weakness for wine or cookies, something of a temper, or an annoying tendency to rattle on about pet interests. We usually know when we make mistakes, get the facts wrong, could be more skillful, or deserve to feel remorseful.
Primary topic: Positive Psychology
401 views
Read articleStep Into the Cloud
I had a lightbulb moment recently: I was feeling stressed about all the stuff I had to do (you probably know the feeling). After this went on for a while, I stepped back and kind of watched my mind, and could see that I was thinking of these various tasks as things, like big rocks that were rolling down a hill toward me and which needed to be handled, lifted, moved, fended off, or broken into pebbles.
Primary topic: Positive Psychology
443 views
Read articleKnow You're a Good Person
For many of us, perhaps the hardest thing of all is to believe that "I am a good person." We can climb mountains, work hard, acquire many skills, and act ethically - but truly feel that one is good deep down? Nah!
Primary topic: Positive Psychology
411 views
Read articleRest
This practice is definitely a case of teaching what you need to learn: I've been working through a big bucket of tasks lately with little chance to rest. (I console myself knowing that the bucket is emptying a lot faster than it's filling with new tasks.)
Primary topic: Positive Psychology
477 views
Read articleRest Your Weary Head
The traditional saying that's this week's practice has been sinking in for me lately. Thoughts have been swirling around like a sandstorm about work, things I've been reading, household tasks, finances, conce s about people, a yard that needs mowing, loose ends, projects, etc. etc. The other day I told my wife: "I'm thinking about too many things." Know the feeling?
Primary topic: Positive Psychology
399 views
Read articleGive Over to Good
In every moment, you and I and everyone and everything else – from quantum foam to fleeting thoughts, intimate relationships, rainforest ecosystems, and the stars themselves – are each a kind of standing wave, like the ever-changing through a persistent pattern of water rising above a boulder in a river.
Primary topic: Positive Psychology
439 views
Read articleAvoid The Rush
As I was meditating one morning, our cat hopped up onto my lap. It felt sweet to sit there with him. And yet - even though I was feeling fine and had plenty of time, there was this internal pressure to start zipping along with emails and calls and all the other clamoring minutiae of the day.
Primary topic: Positive Psychology
348 views
Read articleAdmit Fault and Move On
Have you ever watched two people quarrel, or otherwise be stuck in a conflict with each other? Usually, if either or both of them simply acknowledged one or more things, that would end the fight.
Primary topic: Positive Psychology
426 views
Read articleEnjoy Four Kinds of Peace
“Peace” can sound merely sentimental or clichéd (“visualize whirled peas”). But deep down, it’s what most of us long for. Consider the proverb: The highest happiness is peace. Not a peace inside that ignores pain in oneself or others or is acquired by shutting down. This is a durable peace, a peace you can come home to even if it’s been covered over by fear, frustration, or heartache.
Primary topic: Positive Psychology
593 views
Read articleWater Your Fruit Tree
My wife and kids tease me that the title of this practice is corny - and it is. Still, I like it. If you don't nourish the things that nourish you, they wither away like a plant in dry stony ground. Looking to the year ahead for you - a year that can begin whenever you want - what's one key thing that will bear lots of fruit for you if you take care of it?
Primary topic: Positive Psychology
543 views
Read articleAvoid The Rush
As I was meditating one morning, our cat hopped up onto my lap. It felt sweet to sit there with him. And yet - even though I was feeling fine and had plenty of time, there was this internal pressure to start zipping along with emails and calls and all the other clamoring minutiae of the day.
Primary topic: Positive Psychology
615 views
Read articleTry Being Less Serious
On the path of life, most of us are hauling way too much weight. What's in your own backpack? If you're like most of us, you've got too many items on each day's To Do list and too much stuff in the closet. Too many entanglements with other people. And too many "shoulds," worries, guilts, and regrets.
Primary topic: Positive Psychology
721 views
Read articleIs It Worth It?
Life is full of tradeoffs between benefits and costs. Sometimes, the benefits are worth the costs. For example, the rewards of going for a run - getting out in fresh air, improving health, etc. - are, for me at least, worth the costs of losing half an hour of work time while gaining a pair of achy legs. Similarly, it could well be that: getting a raise is worth the awkwardness of asking for one; teaching a child good lessons is worth the stress of correcting her; and deepening intimacy is worth the vulnerability of saying "I love you."
Primary topic: Positive Psychology
999 views
Read articleWhere Does It Hurt?
We're usually aware of our own suffering, which - broadly defined - includes the whole range of physical and mental discomfort, from mild headache or anxiety to the agony of bone cancer or the anguish of losing a child. (Certainly, there is more to life than suffering, including great joy and fulfillment; that said, we'll sustain a single focus here.)
Primary topic: Positive Psychology
1,020 views
Read articleWhat's Precious To You?
The word, sacred, has two kinds of meanings. First, it can refer to something related to religion or spirituality. Second, more broadly, it can refer to something that one cherishes, that is precious, to which one is respectfully, even reverently, dedicated, such as honesty with one's life partner, old growth redwoods, human rights, the light in a child's eyes, or longings for truth and justice and peace.
Primary topic: Positive Psychology
1,041 views
Read articleAre You Thinking Too Much?
The traditional saying that's this week's practice has been sinking in for me lately. Thoughts have been swirling around like a sandstorm about work, things I've been reading, household tasks, finances, conce s about people, a yard that needs mowing, loose ends, projects, etc. etc. The other day I told my wife: "I'm thinking about too many things." Know the feeling?
Primary topic: Positive Psychology
1,270 views
Read articleWhat Helps You Carry Your Load?
We're all carrying a load, including tasks, challenges, worries, inner criticism, mistreatment from others, physical and emotional pain, loss and illness now or later, and everyday stresses and frustrations. Take a moment to get a sense of your own load. It's very real, isn't it? Recognizing it is just honesty and self-compassion, not exaggeration or self-pity.
Primary topic: Positive Psychology
1,036 views
Read articleWhat Is Your Sense Of Peace?
“Peace” can sound merely sentimental or clichéd (“visualize whirled peas”). But deep down, it’s what most of us long for. Consider the proverb: The highest happiness is peace. Not a peace inside that ignores pain in oneself or others, or is acquired by shutting down. This is a durable peace, a peace you can come home to even if it’s been covered over by fear, frustration, or heartache.
Primary topic: Positive Psychology
1,072 views
Read articleWhat’s Your Deepest Nature?
Throughout history, people have wondered about human nature. Deep down, are we basically good or bad?
Primary topic: Positive Psychology
1,269 views
Read articleWhat's Changing?
The fifth of my personal Top 5 practices (all tied for first place) is open out, by which I mean relaxing into a growing sense of connection, even oneness, with all things. (The other four are be mindful, love, take in the good, and go green.)
Primary topic: Positive Psychology
1,113 views
Read articleWhat Do Others Want?
Hustling through an airport, I stopped to buy some water. At the shop's refrigerator, a man was bent over, loading bottles into it. I reached past him and pulled out one he'd put in. He looked up, stopped working, got a bottle from another shelf, and held it out to me, saying "This one is cold." I said thanks and took the one he offered.
Primary topic: Positive Psychology
1,115 views
Read articleWhat Can I Do?
I'm doing a series on my personal top five practices (all tied for first place), and have so far named three: meditate (including mindfulness, self-awareness, and, if you like, prayer), take in the good, and bless (including compassion, generosity, and love).
Primary topic: Positive Psychology
1,061 views
Read articleWhat Are You Fighting?
By "war" I mean here a mindset, not combat between nations with tanks and bombs. The "war" I'm referring to is an attitude of conflict and animosity toward a person, object, or condition. Parents can feel at war with a misbehaving teenager, and certainly vice versa. Neighbors quarreling over a fence. Spouses edging toward divorce; divorced parents continuing to battle over holidays. Someone stuck in traffic, at war with other drivers. Ideologues reviling the other side. Kicking the chair after stubbing a toe against it.
Primary topic: Positive Psychology
1,105 views
Read articleWhat Are You Resisting?
As general clusters that each include a number of specific methods, my Top 5 types of practices (all tied for first place) are: * Be mindful * Love * Take in the good * Go green * Open out
Primary topic: Positive Psychology
1,099 views
Read articleWhat's The Hurry?
As I was meditating this morning, our cat hopped up in my lap. It felt sweet to sit there with him. And yet - even though I was feeling fine and had plenty of time, there was this internal pressure to start zipping along with emails and calls and all the other clamoring minutiae of the day.
Primary topic: Positive Psychology
1,038 views
Read articleCan You Be With The Whole Of Your Psyche?
When you're young, the territory of the psyche is like a vast estate, with rolling hills, forests and plains, swamps and meadows. So many things can be experienced, expressed, wanted, and loved.
Primary topic: Positive Psychology
1,233 views
Read articleWho Are You Resisting?
I admit it: whether close to home or far away, I wish some people were different. Depending on who they are, I wish they'd stop doing things like leaving cabinet doors open in our kitchen, sending me spam emails, or turning a blind eye to global warming. And I wish they'd start doing things like being friendlier toward me or spending more money on public education. Even if it doesn't affect me directly, for their own sake I do wish that various people I care about were more energetic, less anxious, or less self-critical.
Primary topic: Positive Psychology
1,336 views
Read articleIs There Enough?
One slice of the pie of life feels relaxed and contented. And then there is that other slice, in which we feel driven and stressed. Trying to get pleasures, avoid pains, pile up accomplishments and recognitions, be loved by more people. Lose more weight, try to fill the hole in the heart. Slake the thirst, satisfy the hunger. Strive, strain, press. This other slice is the conventional strategy for happiness. We pursue it for four reasons.
Primary topic: Positive Psychology
1,422 views
Read articleOut Of Balance?
By "sobriety," I mean healthy self-control, a centered enjoyment of life, and an inner freedom from drivenness. We typically apply this sense of balance and self-care to things like food, drugs and alcohol, sexuality, money, and risky behaviors. And if you like, you could bring sobriety to other things as well, such as to righteousness, contentiousness, over-working, or controlling others. At bottom, sobriety is the opposite of craving, broadly defined: you're not going to war with what's unpleasant, chasing after what's pleasant, or clinging to what's heartfelt.
Primary topic: Positive Psychology
1,102 views
Read articleWhere Are You Headed?
The Practice. I recently did a meditation retreat (at Spirit Rock, wonderful place, including for workshops). One evening as we walked out of the hall after the last sit, I was feeling rattled and discombobulated. (One of the benefits of a retreat - though it can be uncomfortable - is that it stirs up of the sediments of your psyche, which can muddy your mental waters for awhile.)
Primary topic: Positive Psychology
1,091 views
Read articleAre You Exaggerating Sticks While Downplaying Carrots?
"Tell the truth." It's the foundation of science, ethics, and relationships. But we have a brain that evolved to tell lies to help us survive. As I've written before, over several hundred million years our ancestors:
Primary topic: Positive Psychology
1,240 views
Read articleDo You Accept The Gift?
Life gives to each one of us in so many ways. For starters, there’s the bounty of the senses – including chocolate chip cookies, jasmine, sunsets, wind singing through pine trees, and just getting your back scratched. What does life give you? Consider the kindness of friends and family, made more tangible during a holiday season, but of course continuing throughout the year.
Primary topic: Positive Psychology
1,142 views3/5 (1)
Read articleTo What Is Your Mind Given?
I'm old enough to remember a time when people usually answered "good" when you asked them the standard, "How are you?" (often said "harya?"). These days the answer is commonly "busy." In the last few months I've been very busy myself and starting to feel dispersed: juggling a dozen priorities at any moment, attention skittering from one thing to another, body revved up, feeling stretched thin and spread out like an octopus squished between two sheets of glass.
Primary topic: Positive Psychology
1,088 views
Read article