Rick Hanson and Resilience 10-28-19
by Stanley Merrill
Rick Hanson
- “Resilient: How to Grow an Unshakable Core of Calm, Strength, and Happiness”
- November’s book club.
Positive Psychology
- Negativity bias
- Velcro for bad experiences – don’t want to get eaten by a tiger.
- Teflon for good experiences
- The way our mind needed to work to survive.
- Example – Go to sleep – bad mood – 3 great things happened to me and 1 minor bad thing and that is what I was thinking when I went to bed.
- My mind is like a bad neighborhood. I try not to go there alone. Anne Lamont
- Improvements in Psychological approaches
- Treating illnesses
- When someone is ill or depressed.
- Cognitive Behavior Therapy
- Questioning your thoughts. Are they true? Are they helpful?
- Questioning how you react. Are they helpful or self-destructive?
- Break destructive behavior patterns.
- Positive Psychology – Preventing illness
- Before one is ill or depressed create a more healthy resilient mind.
- Treating illnesses
Meditation / Mindfulness
- Calming impact – Sense of wellbeing as a felt sense
- Problems are less likely to trigger you.
- Objective observer can catch negativity before it turns into rumination.
- When you are triggered you are more likely to respond constructively
- Your mind can be your best friend or your worst enemy
Resourcing Approaches
- Cultivate clear thinking so that you don’t get depressed.
- Not wishful thinking
- Just not feeding your mind negativity that is not helpful.
Using your mind to alter your brain.
- There are physiological changes caused by the resourcing practices
- Neuroplasticity
- Decreased activity in parts of the brain are signs of happiness
- Neurons that fire together wire together.
- Rumination is the major cause of recurring depression.
Resourcing Skills
- Chapter 1 – Compassion
- Self-compassion
- If I am not for myself who will be. If I am only for myself what am I . If not now when… Hillel
- Chapter 2 – Mindfulness
- Wisdom as the attitude of mindfulness – letting go
- Let be, let go, let in
- Felt sense, bodily experience
- Meditation as a way of cultivating the Mindfulness muscles
- Chapter 3 – Learning
HEAL – The process
- Have an experience
- Installation
- Enrich it: Stay with it, feeling it fully.
- Absorb it – Receive it into yourself.
- Link it (optional):
- Chapter 4 – Grit
- Toughness is in the soul and spirit, not in muscles. —Alex Karras
- Agency – opposite of helplessness
- Active – Pro-active.
- Chapter 5 – Gratitude
- Counter-balance our negativity bias.
- Before you go to sleep at night – think of all the good things that happened that day
- Gratitude journal
- Writing thank you notes.
- Gratitude Practice
- Mantra – “Thank you, Thank you, Thank
- Micro Practice
- Resourcing
- Chapter 6 – Confidence
- Too many people overvalue what they are not and undervalue what they are. —Malcolm Forbes
- To simplify a large body of research, when parents and other caregivers are usually attuned, responsive, loving, and skillful—reliably delivering a “good enough” stream of social supplies—children are likely to become securely attached. They have a feeling of being loved and worthy, as well as strong capacities to soothe and regulate themselves.
- Chapter 7 – Calm
- Meditation – Focusing on the breath – centering
- Movement – Tai Chi, Yoga
- Imagery
- Appreciating your resources
- Chapter 8 – Motivation
- Healthy Passion – Constructive growth
- Chapter 9 – Intimacy
- Autonomy – feel comfortable expressing your feelings
- Grow empathy and compassion within yourself
- Chapter 10 – Courage
- One is wise who is peaceable, friendly, and fearless. —The Dhammapada
- Safety first
- Speak up – Nonviolent communications
- Requests not demands
- Chapter 11 – Aspiration
- Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? —Mary Oliver
- Love AND work AND play
- What is the essence of your dream?
- Without attachment
- Consider what you are doings and offerings
- Chapter 12 – Generosity
- Forgiveness
Quotes
- I am an old man and I have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened. …Mark Twain