A 1-Step Plan for the Unhappy Life (And How to Subvert It)

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sad_upsetOur culture is obsessed with happiness.  From a purely individual perspective, happiness seems to be the obvious and ultimate goal.  Quite often, the second highest goal is avoiding pain or sadness.  Pursue happiness, avoid pain: seems like common sense, right?  Too bad its a really poor prescription for actual living.

In fact, if you asked me to describe the shortest path to a truly unhappy life, I would tell you simply to avoid pain or discomfort at all costs. That’s it.  Thats your one-step, one sentence plan for the unhappy life.

There is a psychological term for this one step plan Read More →

SMARTER Goals for the New Year

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new-year-2015New Year’s resolutions are common, but even more ubiquitous are jokes about the failure of those resolutions.   Nevertheless, we all know that some changes are important, so how can you defy the stereotype and make a successful resolution this year? Help is here in the form of some common wisdom (SMART goals), uncommon research (from John Norcross) and some personal additions on the process of setting goals.

To set the stage, here are some insights from research on New Year’s resolutions by John Norcross and colleagues (found here).

First:  Setting goals (or making resolutions) is important.  This study found that 46% of those who made a resolution were successful with that change six months later, compared to only 4% of those who did not resolve.
Second: The first few weeks are critical.  More than half of those who reported being unsuccessful at six months reported they were already unsuccessful in the first two weeks.  Over 70% of those who made it to four weeks also made it to six months successfully.

So what can we offer you to help you make good resolutions and get started successfully?

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Rejoice, Rejoice: Being Grateful This Christmas Season

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“Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.”

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Theology of gratitude. Yesterday, on the last day of the “O Antiphons,” the beautiful and ancient recitations made the week before Christmas during Evening Prayer, we implored the Lord, “O Emmanuel, king and lawgiver, desire of the nations, Savior of all people: Come and set us free, Lord our God.” Well, our prayer has been heard. The Christ has come. The chorus of the popular Advent hymn enjoins us to rejoice because Emmanuel, the Savior of all people, has come and set us free. Our joy and exultation arises from this pure gratia (grace)—this undeserved gift. Derived from this notion of gratia is the word gratitude. We rejoice because we are grateful for the gift of Emmanuel, God with us—born to save us. Gratitude is the recognition of grace; it is the acknowledgment of those free and undeserving gifts that we have not earned or merited, but enjoy in our lives. Without this recognition we cannot be grateful this Christmas season, and without gratitude we cannot rejoice.  Read More →

To Heal, Activate the Relationship!

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family prayerIn our culture, we sometimes think of physical healing as near magic.  Take this potion, that magic pill, wave the x-ray wand, blast it with invisible radiation.  Voila!  You’re better.  Our medical treatments are certainly advanced, but such a degree of technical progress can reduce our sense of agency in the process.  Participating in treatment can feel analogous to taking the car into the shop for an adjustment.

We would often like personal, mental and spiritual healing to work that way.  But, as John Donne said, “no man is an island”; we are intimately connected to others and healing is a relational endeavor.  “Ok, that sounds great”, you say, “but what does it really mean?”  What do we know about mental development that can help us understand healing?

For a moment, let’s put on our neuroscience lenses (realizing that this information is a generalization; the raw science – well there are whole other books for that!).  The way that our brains develop, the very way in which our genes express themselves, is dependent on the type of interactions that we have with others. Read More →

How Mindfulness Can Enrich Advent

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mindfulness-imageAdvent is here.

Traditionally this is a season of waiting and preparation.  Waiting with Mary as the infant grows in her womb.  Preparing for the wonderful birth of the Christ child.

Yet sometimes all our many preparations preclude any real waiting.

There is so much to do.  My family’s schedule is full of Christmas gatherings.  Meals must be planned and made, babysitters contacted or the children prepared for travel.  Gifts are being imagined, and sales are pursued (quite vigorously at times).  Even planning for the way we intend to live Advent with the kids becomes an item on the to-do list.  Waiting can seem wasteful when there are so many preparations to be made.

It is easy to be so caught in the future, getting ready, that we miss the present. Read More →