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My apologies to my readers. I have been busy with additional duties and have neglected my blog. I will catch up soon and thank you for your patience.

Week 24: Enjoy Humility

This is a much bigger topic than this humble little chapter would suggest. Humility is as difficult to teach as it is to learn. As Peterson and Seligman point out, “modern Western culture encourages the pursuit of pride” (Character Strengths and Virtues, Chapter 20, page 462) and our culture has become increasingly narcissistic. We end up with candidates running for public office literally being caught with their pants down.

Tangney (2000, 2002) identified key features of humility:

• Accurate sense of self, both strengths and limitations
• Ability to acknowledge errors and shortcomings
• Openness to advice and new experience
• Keeping self in perspective, even forgetting the importance of self
• Appreciation of others

Peterson and Seligman observed that humble individuals do not “willfully distort information in order to defend, repair, or verify their own self-image.” It is about being sufficiently objective about one’s own behavior that we can respond to challenges to our behaviors, viewpoints and opinions in a non-defensive manner.

There are several areas where lack of humility causes distress:

• Relationships—John Gottman identifies two destructive relationship patterns: Contempt and Defensiveness. A contemptuous person attempts to gain superiority by putting other people down, whereas a defensive person blames others for their shortcomings and blocks all feedback and interpersonal learning. Marriage becomes a constant battle ground when partners rely on these patterns of interaction.
• Medical care and therapy—many illnesses have a behavioral component that is often very hard to change. Despite costly consultations and the weight of “empirical evidence,” people often persist in thinking that the experts don’t really understand them and that they are unique exceptions who can defy the odds and continue with their lifestyles. Einstein said the definition of insanity is “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.” Humility allows us to accept feedback and make changes for the better. Likewise, practitioners who reject the lived experience of their patients cannot provide truly compassionate care.
• Society—with too much self-admiration and unhealthy competition, risk-taking and cheating become problems in the workplace and the community (Twenge and Campbell, The Narcissism Epidemic, 2009). The current polarization of the political system and the role of special interest groups in perpetuating certain social problems are examples.

Perhaps you know a person who insists it is the world that is wrong and that only correct viewpoint is their viewpoint. Despite their evident suffering, they are being extremely prideful in not being able or willing to acknowledge they could be part of the problem. When we look instead at problems as between people rather than within people, humility is possible. You don’t have to be wrong so I can be right.

Dr. Hanson encourages taking a “panoramic, big-picture view of situations” to understand our own role and contribution in the bigger network of human interaction, politics, and economics. When we can accept the opinions, viewpoints, and needs of others as equally important as our own, then we can begin to approach the beauty of humility.

Week 23: Be Patient

It has been several weeks since my last post; my apologies to any regular readers. It is so easy to get distracted from one's practice of anything (healthy eating, exercise, yoga, meditation, journaling, blogging) by any large or small change in one's routine. For me it was the arrival of summer, a garden in need of weeding, travel opportunities, and juggling work demands to allow for longer weekends.

This week Dr. Hanson reminds us to be patient: timely advice in July when vacation travel peaks. Air travel, traffic jams, and summer festival crowds gives us plenty of opportunity to practice patience. High temperatures and high humidity can raise our baseline physiological arousal levels to the breaking point, making it harder to wait our turn, be kind to others, and to refrain from angry outbursts.

Patience is a virtue in all the world's major religions and philosophies. In psychology, it usually refers to a decision-making strategy to delay short-term gratification for longer-term gains. It applies equally well to a variety of situations and endeavors, and it is a skill that can be cultivated. It is related to frustration-tolerance and self-regulation, and predicts successful outcomes. Early studies included the so-called marshmallow experiments with school age children.

Ah, but we live in an on-demand world now and expect things to work quickly and our every need immediately gratified. Email and texting seem to demand an instant response. Communication that used to take hours or days or even weeks, now circles the globe in minutes. A popular commercial for a phone company asks young children what is better: faster or slower, bigger or smaller, shared or not shared. Guess what: kids who may have saved their marshmallows rather than eating them a generation ago are now asking for faster, bigger, easier to share!

In Buddhist thought, patience also includes not doing harm. Doing it softly rather than abruptly, kindly rather than meanly, tenderly rather than with harshly. Sometimes we may need to take action and assert our needs, but if we do it with patience we may have better long term results: preserved or even enhanced relationships, positive feedback in terms of our effectiveness, and a sense of calm and serenity.

I was not thinking of this practice in particular on a recent flight back from California. My intent was to reach my destination four hours ahead of my daughter's return from Europe.

A computer malfunction delayed then cancelled our flight. All passengers were off-loaded and instructed to retrieve baggage and rebook. Sitting far to the rear of the plane, the line at ticketing was already backed up to ground transportation by the time I got there. I dashed to baggage claim, called the customer service number, calmly explained the need to meet a minor by a certain time, waited patiently for the inventory check, and ended up with a seat in first class and 20 minutes to spare at the destination. Needless to say my thanks were profuse.

It was scary to think that my daughter would be the only child without a parent to greet her, but I had faith in her ability to cope, her teacher's careful supervision, and the airline coming through. The tension between fear and faith is a fine line to walk sometimes. Letting go of fear, which is often an old fear rather than an immediate fear of imminent danger, can help you feel more patient. There is indeed enough to go around and you will get what you need in due time.

Hope you have safe and happy vacation travels.

Week 22: Be Mindful

Mindfulness is a core skill that has multiple benefits: increased ability to pay attention, more self-awareness and empathy for others, fewer negative emotions, a stronger immune system, less pain and improved recovery from surgery. Becoming more mindful of your inner and outer world involves being aware without being attached. This means that you notice more and react less. A good resource for learning how to be more mindful is Steven Hayes book, Get Out of Your Mind & Into Your Life.

In the Chapter on Letting Go, Dr. Hayes makes the point that a barrier to mindfulness is an unwillingness to sit with uncomfortable thoughts and emotions. Willingness is reflected in the ability to tolerate the silence, the pause, the inactivity, the stillness. It means not squirming and fussing or jumping up at the next available opportunity. It means greeting, even welcoming, uncomfortable thoughts and feelings rather than trying to avoid them. Trying to avoid painful feelings inevitably leads to more pain and ultimately to a sense of victimhood and suffering.

In my own meditation practice recently, I recalled the scary "what now?" apprehension between each breathe as I sat at the bedside of my father and then my mother-in-law who died in quick succession. With each of them, their final breathing was labored and often paused for "long" intervals (20 seconds perhaps). The silence between breaths was terrifying. "What now? Is this the end? Is s/he in pain? How will I react?" The thoughts came up without effort. It would have been so easy to attach to one of those thoughts and gotten carried away on the "mind train" of worry: "I won't be able to stand it. It will be horrible. I can't stay here a moment longer. I'm a terrible person to think of leaving at a time like this." How did their dying become about me?

Sogyal Rinpoche in The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying wrote: "Just as the ocean has waves, or the sun has rays, so the mind's own radiance is its thoughts and emotions. The ocean has waves, yet the ocean is not particularly disturbed by them. The waves are the very nature of the ocean." My first meditation teacher would gently remind us that thoughts and feelings would inevitably come up because it is "the nature of mind."

It is not our thoughts and feelings themselves but our reaction and attachment to those thoughts and feelings that creates suffering. In becoming more mindful, we learn to bob on the waves of thought and feeling, and simply observe. As we observe mindfully, we can more readily calibrate the necessary response and then catch the wave when the time is right.

Part Three-Build Strengths: Week 21 Find Strength

We are transitioning now into Part Three and will focus on Building Strengths. Strength in Dr. Hanson's view is determination, grit, endurance, forbearance, and restraint. He develops the image of a deeply rooted tree withstanding a storm of "the winds of life."

Do you know what your strengths are? What is your starting point? What do you want to build? Where do you want to go? Are you fueling your strengths with healthful physical practices?

Start with a self-inventory: make a list of your personal resources. It may look something like this--

• good with animals
• enjoy the arts
• honest and responsible
• hardworking

If your list is short, ask someone you trust to help you further your inventory. Every person you know will appreciate something different. You may have strengths to which you are blind. It might look something like this--

• generous
• kind to others
• good listener

Did you realize that others appreciate these things about you? Have you allowed yourself to feel their appreciation? Do you get accurate reflections of who you are from the people in your life? Do you surround yourself with people who are loving and supportive? Are you nurtured and strengthened by the love of others? Lao Tzu said "Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength; loving someone deeply gives you courage." Choose your friends wisely and develop a family of people who love and accept you.

Ask yourself how you use your strengths. How do you feel when using your strengths? How were you discouraged from using your strengths in the past? How do you hide your strengths as a result?

In Buddhist philosophy, using your strengths for Right Living on The Noble Eightfold Path ultimately yields good results, namely Enlightenment or Freedom from Suffering. Being strong may mean resisting temptation or making better choices or delaying instant gratification or going with the flow or being flexible and tolerant.

However, choosing to continue to suffer is not a sign of strength. Suffering is not a virtue and you are not obliged to suffer. Check out this video from Brad Yates for more on this topic.

Week 20: Get Excited

Dr. Hanson observes that our natural ability to feel excitement can get extinguished by "wet blankets"--the sourpusses in life that tell us to settle down and put a lid on it. How tedious! Excitement is a natural state for children and reclaiming our enthusiasm and positive energy is a worthwhile goal.

For me, I find excitement in travelling and going new places. I love the planning, the preparation, and the packing. I even like going through security--I pass through the gate with reverence and anticipation. And then we are off! I have had good arrivals and some not so good, but I have always worked out the difficulties and felt all the more satisfied for the adventure of it all.

One thing I have noticed is that travelling alone is especially satisfying because I don't have to deal with the limitations created by being with others with less enthusiasm, interest and curiosity. There is no apologizing for wanting to see one more thing or worrying about creating inconvenience for others.

Many people forego travel, however, because they feel awkward or afraid to go alone. They live with dull routines rather than take a risk. While we all differ in our capacity for risk-taking, sometimes we do need to push outside our comfort zones to recapture zest for living.

Maybe it is beyond your means to travel internationally, but you can try something new locally or regionally. Sign up for a class or a field trip or an excursion. The strangers you meet are just friends you haven't met yet.

My mother has said for years that she wanted to go to Italy and she never has. Unfortunately she may have missed her chance as ill health changes her options. Don't wait--find a little excitement everyday and don't let anyone rain on your parade.

Week 19: Smile

Dr. Hanson reminds us to smile this week. Indeed, even half-a-smile is better than no smile at all. A half smile happens when you relax your face, especially the jaw and the area between the eyebrows, and let your lips turn up slightly. If you couple this with breathing or music and you have a “Serenity Now” moment that will invite others closer and help you feel better.

One day just for fun, my daughter and I compiled a list of happy songs. These songs are guaranteed to brighten your mood (and maybe get you dancing):

Dancing in the Moonlight  (King Harvest)

I Wanna Rock’n’Roll All Night (Kiss)

Don’t Worry Be Happy (Bob Marley)

Hooked on a Feeling (B.J. Thomas)

What a Wonderful World (Louis Armstrong)

Shiny Happy People (REM)

Colour My World (Petula Clark)

Zip a Dee Doo Dah (Jiminy Cricket's song from Pinochio)

Move On Up (Curtis Mayfield)

Daydream Believer (The Monkees)

I’m into Something Good (Herman’s Hermits)

Cheek to Cheek (Fred Astaire)

Downtown (Petula Clark)

These Words (Natasha Bedingfield)

Spanish Flea (Herb Alpert)

Crocodile Rock (Elton John)

Sound of Sunshine (Michael Franti & Spearhead)

Rock Star (Pink)—especially the Chipmunk version

Perfect (Pink)

Dude Looks Like a Lady (Arrowsmith)

One Thing (One Direction)

Rhythm of Love (Plain White T’s)

Hakuna Matata (Lion King)

Do be do (Trashcan song) (Tarzan)

Hockety Pockety (Sword in the Stone)

Under the Sea (Little Mermaid)

On What a Beautiful Morning (Oklahoma)

I can go the distance (Hercules)

Fireworks (Katy Perry)

Favorite Things (Julie Andrews)

Sing a Song (Karen Carpenter)

Colors of the Wind (Pocahontas)

Help (The Beatles)

Yellow Submarine (The Beatles)

Here Comes the Sun (The Beatles)

High Hopes—The Rubber Tree Plant Song (Frank Sinatra)

Just a Spoonful of Sugar (Julie Andrews)

You Ain’t Nothing But a Hound Dog (Elvis Presley)

Obladi Oblada (The Beatles)

Dancing Queen (Abba)

Mama Mia (Abba)

Off to See the Wizard (Judy Garland)

Eye of the Tiger (Survivor)

Saturday Night (Elton John)

I’m Yours (Jason Mraz)

Forget You (Ceelo Green)

I Feel Pretty (West Side Story)

Our time now (Plain White T’s)

Begin the Beguine (Artie Shaw)

Party Rock Anthem (LMFAO)

Party in the USA (Miley Cyrus)

Scallywag (Gaelic Storm)

All You Need is Love (The Beatles)

Walking on Sunshine (Katrina and the Waves)

59^th Street Bridge Song (Simon and Garfunkel)

Pocket full of sunshine (Natasha Bedingfield)

Who says (Selena Gomez)

You’ve Got a Friend in Me (Toy Story, Randy Newman)

I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas (Bing Crosby)

Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds (The Beatles)

All Star (Smash Mouth)

I’m a Believer (The Monkees)

Afrika (Chaka Khan)