My Favorites November 2015: Great Stuff I’ve Found Recently

Posted on by DieterL

My monthly “My Favorites” routine includes posting links to great content I ran across, to encourage you to check them out if they sound interesting for helping you to live a meaningful life. Enjoy!

HOW TO CREATE YOUR OWN LUCK

LUCK-IN BUSINESS AND IN LIFE-ISN’T ALWAYS SOMETHING THAT HAPPENS TO YOU, IT’S ALSO SOMETHING YOU CAN FIND AND HELP CREATE. Read it here

Letting Go of Wishing Things Were Different

One of the hardest things to let go of is the way we want things to be. We have fantasies of how our lives could be like, what we could be like as people, what other people should be like, what the world should be like. These are fantasies, but we rarely recognize them as such. And so it’s hard to let them go, because we want them so.

(Leo Babauta) Read it here

6 Little Money Mindset Shifts That Pay Off Huge
Just in time before the festive season: Marie Forleo

A Zen Master Explains Death and the Life-Force to a Child and Outlines the Three Essential Principles of Zen Mind Brainpickings

Smile, breathe, and go slowly!

Dieter

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The Universe of a Single Task

Posted on by DieterL

In the neverending rush of our day, what does one little task matter?

It is everything.

We speed through each task as if it’s nothing, looking already to the next task, until we collapse at the end of the day, exhausted. Having spent a day cranking through nothings.

That’s one approach, and I’ve done it many times. But here’s another: make each task its own universe, its own specialness. Then every moment of your day is ridiculously important and wonderful and powerful.

Here’s a process for one single task, whatever you have in front of you right now:

Pause and consider. Why are you doing the task? Because it’s on your list, because someone sent it to you? Or because it will make a difference in the world, help make someone’s life better? Is it a compassionate act? Is it part of a project that matters? Know why you’re doing something, and then imbue the task with that intention.
Notice your fear. Sometimes, we resist a task, procrastinate on it. I mean, not you, of course. Most other people procrastinate. This procrastination is rooted in fear, and so the trick is to see the fear, to feel it in your body, to accept it as part of you and not “wrong”. Then to give it compassion, and act anyway, in the moment. Don’t let your mind run away from the task.
Make the task your universe. Have you ever been reading an article (like this one) and had the urge to switch to something else? This urge pushes itself on us, all day, because of the nagging feeling that there’ssomething else we should be doing, something else more important, more fun, that we might be missing out on. Instead, forget about those something elses. Make this one task your everything, and give it the space to fill up your entire mind. Put yourself fully in this one space, and pretend there’s nothing else.
Stay with the task. Even with this task becoming your universe, there will be the urge to run away. This is fear again. Don’t let it rule you. Stick with the task, even just for a couple more minutes. Be curious about it: notice its qualities, wonder how it will go if you stay with it, don’t think you know everything about it. Pay attention, and see what it’s like.
Bow when you’re done. Don’t rush off to the next task, but instead pause. Create a tiny bit of space before you move on to the next thing.Wash your bowl. Check the task off your list. Breathe, and see how your body is feeling. Now consider what task you should do next, not just because it’s in your inbox or task list, but because it matters. (Thank you, Leo Babauta)

With kind regards,

Dieter Langenecker

My Favorites October 2015: Great Stuff I’ve Found Recently

Posted on by DieterL

Activating the Life Purpose That’s Right Under Your Nose

“Our obligation is to give meaning to life, and in doing so to overcome the passive, indifferent life.” ~Elie Wiesel To the life purpose under your nose…. Read it here

Surrender, Mindfulness & Entrepreneurship

Running a business often is about sales, revenue, marketing, and the bottom line. But it can have soul too. In my new Habits of Entrepreneurs video interview series, I’ve recently published two fantastic interviews with entrepreneurs who do things differently.

And they’re incredibly successful at doing things this way. (Leo Babauta) Read it here

A Six-Year-Old’s Advice on Life and Overcoming Fear, Turned into a Heartwarming Movie
Why thinking about pizza can be a potent form of cognitive-behavioral therapy for self-doubt. Read this brain picking here

Know Yourself. Wait, what does that even mean?

Know yourself means four things. Charles H Green

Smile, breathe, and go slowly!

Dieter

ReThink

Posted on by DieterL

At the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis outside Vienna, Austria, many years ago, a senior officer from the United Nations closed his presentation by saying, “I’ve dealt with many different problems around the world, and I’ve concluded that there is only one real problem: over the past hundred years, the power that technology has given us has grown beyond anyone’s wildest imagination, but our wisdom has not. If the gap between our power and our wisdom is not redressed soon, I don’t have much hope for our prospects.”

With kind regards,

Dieter Langenecker

A Simple, Powerful Self-Compassion Method

Posted on by DieterL

When we’re frustrated with others, or feeling bad about ourselves … we often turn toward habits that comfort us:

distractions
food
shopping
smoking
drugs/alcohol

These don’t often work, because they tend to make us feel worse in the long run. We become unhappier, more stressed, and then need to seek comfort in these things again … and the cycle continues.

These are sometimes the only ways we know of comforting ourselves! I know this because for a long time I always turned to all of the above for comfort when I was feeling stressed or bad about myself. It made me very unhealthy and it took a long time to change my patterns.

Today I’d like to suggest a method of self-compassion that I’ve been learning, that has worked wonders.

The Self-Compassion Method

Try this now if you’re feeling stressed, frustrated, in pain, disappointed, angry, anxious, worried, or depressed:

Notice. Take a moment to turn inward and notice your pain in this moment. Now notice where it is in your body, and how it feels. Describe the pain to yourself in physical terms, in terms of quality, in terms of color or shape or motion.
Accept. Now tell yourself that it’s OK to have this pain. It’s perfectly OK to feel bad about yourself, to feel bad about your body, to feel frustrated with someone else. Let yourself feel the pain.
Comfort. Now treat this pain with compassion, like you would with a friend who is suffering, or your child who is in pain. Be gentle with it, kind to it, like a suffering child. Comfort it. How would you comfort your friend whose parent just died?
Smile. Finally, try wishing your pain well, wish it happiness. Give it love. Smile at your pain in compassion.

This method takes a lot of practice, for sure. I’m still learning it myself, and I don’t claim to be an expert at self-compassion. But I’ve found it to be truly amazing, because we very rarely do this for ourselves. We’re good at being kind to others when they’re having a difficult time, perhaps, but not always with ourselves.

And it can be transformative. If you practice compassion with your pain, it becomes less of a burden. You realize that it’s temporary, you feel less bad about being frustrated. And you feel loved – by yourself. (Thank you, Leo Babauta)

My Favorites September 2015: Great Stuff I’ve Found Recently

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Why So Many of Us Experience a Midlife Crisis

People often come to see me when they are in their 30s or 40s and say, I have done what was expected of me and had a career doing the right thing, now I want to do something else. Something that makes me feel whole/complete. Something that brings me joy and fulfilment and helps me fulfil a personal quest. But, I’m not sure what my purpose is.

Interesting HBR article. Read it here

5 WAYS TO INCREASE YOUR ENERGY

Beautiful article by Kate James, read it here

Sadhguru: Is Suffering Inevitable?

4 Things Good Listeners Do
One of the most sincere forms of respect is actually listening to what another has to say. Read this practical article here

How Do You Know You Exist?

A Mind-Bending Animated Homage to Descartes Exploring the Conundrum of Reality. Brainpickings

Smile, breathe, and go slowly!

Dieter

One unusual and beautiful way to slow down

Posted on by DieterL

We live in a noisy world. Our cities and towns fizz with an almost permanent tinnitus of machine-generated sound. And even if, by some fluke, all that noise is temporarily absent, most of us are left with the din of our own mental machinery churning inside.

To disengage from all that noise requires a drastic amputation from our usual environment: a trip to some distant wilderness perhaps, or an afternoon in a floating tank. Sometimes we try to approximate the absence of noise by sitting in a garden or a park with the hum of the traffic or roaring jet planes swept into the distance for a brief hour or two. Or we listen to ‘relaxation’ tapes of rhythmic sea-surf, dawn choruses and celtic harp music laced with saccharine.

Clychau Dibon by Catrin Finch & Seckou Keita isn’t one of those tapes. Believe me.