part0035

Using the mastery skills in this section will help you achieve Wise Mind. If you practice Wise Mind when the seas of life are calm, it will be easier to bring to mind those skills during times of turbulence.

Doing something that makes you feel a little better every day helps relieve stress and inspire confidence. Attaining confidence helps reduce stress in stressful situations as well as in everyday situations.

Taking care of yourself helps you stay grounded so that when difficulties arise, and they will, you can keep your cool and maintain a consistent level of emotions.

Building positive experiences is necessary for emotion regulation in that we need a well of positives to draw from when we’re running on empty. Many experiences are wonderful at the time, and then we later may not be friends with the people we had the experience with. Do not let that mar the memory. Remember who they were when you had the experience together. There are two important categories in which to build positive experiences: the short term and the long term.

Short-term memories include talking to a good friend, taking a walk, noticing a beautiful area, going to the dog park, reading a good book, watching a show or movie you love, dining out, having a picnic, and laughing on a break with a coworker. Most of us already do something to create short-term positive experiences daily without thinking about it.

This exercise asks you to create more short-term positive experiences and do it deliberately. Call up an old friend. Stay off social media after work for a few days. Make a concerted effort to tell ridiculous, silly stories with your kids. Send your nieces and nephews presents from the clearance aisle. Do something that will create positive experiences deliberately.

When you deliberately practice making and noticing positive experiences, you’ll begin to make and notice more as part of your daily life. When positivity is a part of your daily life, you feel better emotionally and physically.

Do at least one of these things, or choose something else that makes you happy, every day for a week. Go out of your way to do it for a week. After that, try to make it IN your way. Do something you’ve never tried before. There are probably a few things you’ve never thought of trying:

writing a good story

going out for drinks midweek

going to a movie midweek

going out just for dessert

going to a poetry jam

going to a karaoke bar

joining pub trivia with friends

learning to make sushi or another exotic dish

trying a new exotic dish

watching a children’s movie in the theater and focusing on the laughter

stopping on the dog’s walking route to smell the flowers

doing something nice for a stranger

doing something nice for a friend

playing a carnival game

getting the expensive, full inside and out car wash

completing your to-do list

writing a ridiculously easy to-do list so you can complete it

taking pictures with a real camera

going down a waterslide

playing board games with friends

playing interactive games, like “How to Host a Murder”

going to a movie or concert in the park

going to a new hobby class like painting or writing or learning to skate

organizing your bookshelf or closet

buying a new article of clothing, jewelry or book for yourself

visiting a nursing home to sing or play bingo with the residents

letting your kids teach you how to play their favorite video game

going to the chiropractor

going to a play or the opera

going to a high school play

going to a college football game

driving to a different city for dinner with a friend

joining Toastmasters

volunteering at a homeless shelter during the months they really need it: January-October

carrying “homeless packs” in your cars: gallon Ziploc bags with personal hygiene materials, feminine hygiene products, smokes, granola bars, bottles of water, socks, candy bars, stuffed animals, cash, gift cards to McDonald’s, etc. Put them with blankets, coats, and clothes you would’ve given away. Drive around the areas where there are homeless people and give these out.

getting your hair done

talking in a different accent for an evening

dedicating a song on the radio to someone

writing in your journal

spending some time alone without the television, radio, or internet; just you and a cup of the beverage of your choice

going out to lunch with a friend

playing hide and seek with your coworkers (and trying not to go home when their eyes are closed)

driving to the mountains

roasting marshmallows

sitting in a hot tub

sitting in a cold tub

making a fort in the elevator at work with a sign that says, ‘No bosses allowed!’

silently challenging the driver in the car next to you at a stoplight to a dance-off in your cars

keeping a box of fruit snacks in your desk for anyone having a bad day

having a song fight with your spouse

convincing a stranger you think you’re a vampire

calling a radio station and telling them a funny story

doing a jigsaw puzzle

going to a museum or aquarium

going to a psychic, just for giggles

getting a Reiki session done

taking a stuffed animal for a walk, pretending to cry when anyone points out it’s not real

calling a radio station and pretending to be psychic. Google the DJ while you’re talking and tell them all about themselves so they’ll believe you.

Long-term positive experiences are more goal-oriented, creating a life worth living. What are some goals that you would like to achieve? Write down a few specific goals. Break them down into subcategories.

Many people have goals that are money-oriented. Write down how much you’d like to save each month or put towards your debt. If you put it in a place you’ll forget or an IRA (Individual Retirement Account) you can’t touch, you’re less likely to spend it.

Learn how to budget. Keep track of how much you spend versus how much you make. Keep track of all your expenses. See where you can cut back. Itemize your spending as you go – keep it on your phone until you put it into a spreadsheet. When tax time comes, you will already know how much you have spent on medical supplies or work-related expenses. Use your debit card instead of your credit card. Then you’re only spending what you have, and if you don’t keep your receipts, everything is on your bank statement anyway.

Get out of debt as much as possible. You may always have debt for education, health, and home, but you can pay off your credit cards and chip away at the others.

Save as much as possible. Save by packing your own lunch instead of eating out. Put that in a jar. Use those coins when your kid needs shoelaces or something. After a while of paying with change, you forget you ever had any dignity; it’s cool.

If your job offers a 401(k), take it. Immediately. The 401(k) follows the person, not the job. If your job offers overtime, do it. Pick up shifts. Show up in your uniform and ask who wants to go home. When a couple complains that they don’t know where their waitress is, promise to take care of them yourself because she clearly doesn’t value her customers. Then pocket that $20 tip. Find little tricks to make your job, and your screw-ups work FOR you.

If you have a relationship in your life that you feel must be repaired in order for you to move on with your life, you may have to take the initiative. You may have to make the first move, offer the first apology. Not a fake “I’m sorry you feel that way” apology, but a sincere “I’m sorry I treated you that way” apology. Not even a half-sincere apology – “I’m sorry I treated you that way, but you deserved it and here’s why…” Let that second half come about if they accept your apology and you can open a discussion.

Not all relationships can be saved, and not all should be. If you have offered a sincere apology and have been rebuffed, it may be time to cut your losses and move on. It may be sad for both of you, but some relationships over time become toxic for one or both parties. If this is the case, you might try one last-ditch effort, and then you should actually ditch it. If they come back, you can see how you feel at that time, and whether it’s something you want to renew. Some relationships are better off dead. Reviving those is the true zombie apocalypse.

The older we get, the harder it is to create new relationships. We have to actually go out of our comfort zone to meet new people. Talk to people at your bowling league. Start a bowling league. Talk to new people at functions you attend regularly, like church or kayaking or suing people. Or even family reunions.

Go to weekly things. Join Toastmasters. You’ll migrate towards the same people each week, but how much do you really talk to them? Get to know someone, more than at just surface level. Ask probing questions like, “If you invented a superpower, what would it be?” None of this already-invented superpower business. That’s boring. “You can travel to the past, before a huge disaster, with the ability to warn people, but you might get stoned or burned as a witch, or you can travel twenty seconds into the future every day. Which do you choose?”

Work on maintaining the relationships you have. Develop deeper bonds with people. Do you really know their hopes and fears, wishes, and dreams?

Go out of your way to stay in touch. Most friendships are built on convenience – when it’s convenient for both or all parties to talk or hang out. Texting is a great way to let them know you’re thinking about them, and they’ll respond when they can. It’s also a great way to miscommunicate, but that can be done in any medium.

Practicing mindfulness while you’re doing something you enjoy helps to savor the moment. Stay focused on the positive experience and refocus your mind as often as necessary. This will get you in the habit of mindfulness and focusing on the positive aspects of the day or the moment. The more we focus on something, the more we notice it. That’s just how our brains work. That’s not to say it is actually more prevalent, but it is certainly more prevalent in our minds, which is where we have to live, so we may as well learn to enjoy the company.

Distract yourself from thinking you don’t deserve this happiness, or wondering when the positive experience will end or thinking about what chores need to be done elsewhere. Distract yourself from thinking about what awaits you at the end of the positive experience, or worrying about how much money you’re spending on it. If you’re at the circus, for example, instead of thinking, ‘I don’t deserve to be enjoying this,’ focus on your surroundings – children laughing, cotton candy, the rides, the clowns, unless you have a deep fear of clowns. You might not want to focus on them then. Damn you, Stephen King!

There is a lot of material in this section, and no one expects you to conquer it overnight. You shouldn’t either. Like any habit, it needs to be practiced before it becomes an actual habit. And then it still needs to be practiced.

Get in the habit of noticing your emotions and recognizing whether they’re negative or positive. When they’re negative, get in the habit of not dwelling on them. When they’re positive, get in the habit of being mindful of the actual emotion. “I’m happy right now. It feels warm. It feels calm.” Describe how the emotion feels, instead of getting caught up in why you’re happy or peaceful, or what have you.

What actions do you do with negative emotions? They’re probably the go-to actions, preprogrammed by your psyche. It takes time, but you can reprogram your psyche by using the opposite actions you normally use. When you’re afraid, your brain kicks in to fight, flight, or freeze mode. In some instances, this is still a vital response mechanism developed for our own safety. In other instances, the response mode has been passed down from our hunter/gatherer ancestors and serves no real purpose today. For example, test anxiety. It’s real.

A test doesn’t present the need for a fight/flight/freeze response that imminent death, beating, rape, a car accident, or a full-grown saber-toothed tiger would pose. However, the reaction is still the same, and we don’t get to choose our subconscious reactions. But we do choose our conscious actions. In the test anxiety example, try giving yourself many practice tests to lose your anxiety.

Perhaps your fear is roller coasters. Go more often, with someone you feel safe with to desensitize you. Try to desensitize yourself to the fear. If your fear is clowns, go to McDonald’s more. No need to hang around real clowns. Those freaks will eat you in your sleep.

If your reaction to anger is to yell and throw things, step away from the situation that makes you angry and work on breathing exercises. Unless you’re driving. Then just work on breathing exercises.

If a particular person or politician makes you angry, try to find the small amount of truth they may have said to gain sympathy or empathy, or at the very least, not hatred. Scratch that. Turn off the television. Work on that with a real person in your life rather than a politician.

If your go-to reaction to sadness is self-isolation, take the opposite approach. Get out in the community and volunteer. Go out with your friends. Go to an ice cream store by yourself, just to get out of the house. And have some ice cream.

If you’re feeling shameful, the first question to ask yourself is, “Why am I feeling like this?” Is it because you did something you’re ashamed of? Admit it to yourself and your haters, then move on. The longer you deny it, the longer it draws out the feeling and adds further negative emotions to it, like anger. If you’ve done nothing wrong, but are being dragged through the mud for pointing out something someone else did, welcome to the patriarchy. Even males can be oppressed by it. Just hold your head high and live your life. People will soon see who you really are. And those who don’t see it often filter out. Let them.

Guilt works in many ways, as does shame. If you need to offer a sincere apology, do so. Your refusal to do so, whether it’s accepted or not, whether they’ve offered one or not, whether they actually deserved whatever action you need to apologize for or not – that’s all irrelevant. Your refusal to do so only drives the wedge in further.

The opposite reaction works best when the emotion does not fit the scenario. If you should be angry at something, it’s still best to breathe deeply and assess the situation calmly. However, the other person is allowed to know you’re angry. If your anger motivates you toward positive change, so much the better.