How To Be Alone 101
Put down your cell phone and the constant quest for companionship with others, and open up to what life is like being with you…
Relationships and relating
The body’s response to being excluded – and how we might use that to ward of depression
Researchers found that when people are left out of a group, their body temperature drops. But holding a warm cup not only made them feel less excluded, it made them feel more social. Perhaps they should serve hot chocolate at school dances?
The strength of vulnerability
Let’s face it, we all all imagine a time when we “have it together” and we are “on our game” and in control of our lives. However, Brene Brown’s research underscores that living a whole hearted life, is only as possible as our capacity for feeling vulnerable. She asks, “Is it possible to do a courageous act without feeling vulnerable?” Below is a wonderful radio interview and a video with this engaging woman.
Facebook got you down?
How does it feel when few people if any “like” your status update? Unworthy, perhaps? Or you see people smiling at an event to which you were not invited? Unwanted? You are not alone in experiencing the downside of the social media world…
Facebook not so friendly to those with low self Esteem (3 min NPR show)
Suspending the “self” and living from our essence
“We each have a self — but I don’t think we are born with one.” This is an eloquent and powerful 14-minute talk on the struggle with self-identity by movie actor Thandie Newtown, daughter of a white man from England and a black woman from Zimbabwe. But it is not just about racial identity. It is about the relationship between who we are, our essence, and the “selves” we have constructed, which she says are “projections our clever brains create”. “When the self is suspended” as when she is fully engaged in dancing or acting, she says, “so is divisiveness, and judgement.”
I honestly believe, that the key to my success as an actor, and my very progress as a person, has been the very lack of self that used to make me feel so anxious and insecure. I always wondered why I could feel others’ pain so deeply, why I could recognize the somebody in the nobody.It’s because I didn’t have a “self” to get in the way. The thing that was a source of shame, was actually a source of enlightenment.
Watching cognitive distortions in flight
Cognitive distortions + rumination = “super creepy”. This powerful 15-minute radio drama uncovers the raw, scary places our minds can take us if we aren’t paying attention. It is gripping; don’t start it unless you have time to finish it.
Listen to Episode 462 of This American Life by clicking below:
Episode 462: Own Worst Enemy
Apr 13, 2012
Stories of people who can’t seem to stop getting in their own way — sabotaging everything from their romantic relationships to their physical health. Featuring a new radio drama by Jonathan Mitchell.
Eat broccoli, walk and… be alone
Psychology and Western culture have had an unfortunate emphasis on the negative side of being alone. It’s as if alone=lonely. However, there is a growing body of research — nicely described in this article — that points to the values of alone-time: creative thinking, increased empathy, better memorization, deeper spirituality and (paradoxically) an increased ability to connect with others. Like exercise and good sleep, it turns out that solitude is an important part of healthy living.