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Arete Warriors – spirit, mind, body strong
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Our Secret Book Club
Today I want to share with you book notes from my journal. I don’t always or only read self-help type books, but when one strikes me, I take notes.
Sometimes I put it in my own words but usually I just write it down word for word as said by the author. For this reason, this email is just between you and me, because I would hate to be accused of plagiarism.
Where I’m able to, I’ve listed what book it came from (and the author). If it resonates, you may consider reading the book. Surely my notes would not be the same as yours and there is more to each book than what I chose to write down!
You might notice some of the themes and even direct quotes from previous emails.
Enjoy! I hope at least some of this is as profound for you as it was for me.
If you know how to worry, you know how to meditate.
The brain is programmed to think. Let it. Notice it. Then give the opposite some airtime too.
HYPERFocus by Chris Bailey
- “The brain receives 11 million bits of info every second.” Timothy Wilson
- Our minds can only process 40 of them.
- HYPERfocus is important but intentional scattered focus is great for creativity and new insights. Deliberately enter both multiple times a day.
- Be intentional with your time. Especially for me. Be deliberate or I’ll end up on IG for hours.
The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry – by author and Pastor John Mark Comer
Hurry… excessive haste or state of urgency. A state of frantic effort one falls into in response to inadequacy, fear and guilt. The simple essence of hurry is too much to do. The good of being delivered from hurry is not simply pleasure, but the ability to do calmly and effectively, with strength and joy, that which really matters. We should take it as our aim to live entirely without hurry.
Love, joy and peace are incompatible with hurry.
The average iPhone user touches his or her phone 2617/day. What would life be like if I thought about God that often?
Atlas Of The Heart by Brené Brown
If you want to see what triggers shame for you just fill this in. “It’s very important to me to not be perceived as _________.”
Resentment is not in the anger family. It’s in the envy family. 😳
Anger is often an emotion that’s covering some other emotion.
10% Happier by Dan Harris.
Ask yourself, “Is it useful?” when stuck thinking/spinning.
Make the present moment your friend rather than your enemy. Because many people live habitually as if the present moment were an obstacle that they need to overcome in order to get to the next moment. And imagine living your whole life like that, where always this moment is never quite right, not good enough because you need to get to the next one. That is continuous stress.
The One Thing – by authors and real estate entrepreneurs Gary W. Keller and Jay Papasan.
- Everything does not matter equally.
- Multi-tasking is a lie. Figure out what matters most in the moment and do that one thing with undivided attention.
- Discipline is a myth. Create the right habits. Successful people do the most important things and consistently.
- Will power has a limited battery life.
- There’s no such thing as a balanced life. If you attend to all things, everything gets short changed.
- Think big. “What’s the one thing I can do, such that by doing it, everything else will be easier or unnecessary?”
The Power of NeuroPlasticity by Shad Helmstetter
Because of the way your brain will unconsciously duplicate neural activity of the person you’re with, anyone you spend your time with can imprint your brain with their programs.
Of all of the ways we get programmed it is our self talk, that plays the single most important role in the programming of the brain.
It’s not who you’ve been, it’s who you decide to become, that changes the story you’re about to live.
Your brain grows and changes based on feedback. What you tell it, changes it. And while it’s rewriting itself, your brain then feeds those new programs, those new pictures of yourself, back to you. It’s a feedback loop. What you put in, you get back out, and a continuous neural activity feedback loop.
The beauty of neural plasticity is that when you make changes to what you remember and how you remember it, what you do, and how you do it, your brain overrides the old neural networks with new ones.
How To Do The Work by Dr Nicole LePera
- Become aware of our thoughts, emotions, lies we choose to believe, physical responses to stressors etc.
- Take deep, belly filling breaths then repeat a helpful mantra. “I am all I need.” “There’s no one I’d rather be.” “God wants me to love me too.” Or _________.
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Daily journal prompts
- I am practicing _____________________.
- I am grateful for ____________________.
- Today I am ________________________.
- Change in this area allows me to ______.
- Today I am practicing when __________.
Our practiced thoughts become our truth.
Slowing Down To The Speed Of Life by Richard Carlson and Joseph Bailey
We have 2 modes of thinking. Processing/Analytical mode and Free-Flowing.
The primary purpose of the Free Thinking mode is to enjoy life, operate at peak performance and efficient levels, and solve problems where one or more variables are unknown.
Our ego does not like not knowing and would rather go over and over what we already think and believe rather than trust in a subtle, unknown process like creative intelligence.
Trust your Free Thinking and accept not knowing. Trust that not knowing is often the best possible means for coming up with the answer.
Trying to rack your brain for the answer is like trying to find something you’ve dropped in the bottom of a pond. Let the silt in the water settle so the water clears and you can find your lost item. If you try to find it, you will just keep stirring up the water and clouding your vision.
Stress isn’t something we catch from the environment or other people. It is something that we quite innocently create by not recognizing the thinking that is creating it.
Something that feels highly stressful to one can feel exhilarating to another. The only difference is the thinking.
The moment we define stress as coming from anywhere outside ourselves, we set ourselves up to experience it.
The fact that you are all caught up in your thinking is more relevant to the way you feel than are the specifics of what you are all caught up about.
Stress is merely your perception of a situation, not the situation itself.
There is nothing in the future to rush off to that can offer me anything more than this present moment.
Make the quality of each moment more important than getting things done.
Thought is the power that creates human experience. What we think becomes our emotions, perceptions, sensations, decisions and behavior. It’s impossible to experience any negative feeling without first creating a negative corresponding thought.
If we believe that our feelings are determined by outside forces, we will seek something equally external in response. When we realize the actual source of our experience is always our thinking, we can begin to restore the power in our lives.
Consciousness is like television – whatever you are tuned in to does not originate in the television itself. The television is only transmitting what’s on the screen. There are many different channels to choose from, not just the one we are currently experiencing.
When we come to understand our thoughts are not caused by other people or outside events, we can no longer indulge in self-pity. Our new vertical shift will not allow us to continue our old habits. Raise your level of understanding (like raising the water under a log jam) instead of trying to change one thought at a time (pulling out one log at a time).
- Know that inner peace is possible.
- Admit that getting what I want isn’t the ultimate answer.
- Put things on the back burner. Trust free thinking. Struggling with our problems rarely solves them. In fact, the mental struggle itself creates our stressful feelings and gets in the way of accessing our wisdom. Dealing head on with our problems usually speeds up our thinking and validates our belief that stress is coming from outside ourselves.
- Understand that stress comes from my thinking. Don’t get caught up. Let thoughts pass on by. A single thought can’t hurt me. Stress is the result of taking thoughts to heart – taking them too seriously.
Slowing down to the moment means we can experience the presence of another person without the contamination of our analytical mind – without agendas, expectations, preoccupations, resentments, guilt, jealousy or other negative emotions.
The root reason we aren’t satisfied is because our attention is rarely in the moment … we miss what we already have – right in front of us – and look for something else.
What brings joy to any experience isn’t the experience itself but the quality of the thinking that we bring to it.
The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz
- Be impeccable with your word.
- Do not assume.
- Don’t take things personally.
- Always do your best.
The Coddling of the American Mind by Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff
Argue as if you’re right, but listen as if you’re wrong.
Make the most respectful interpretation of the other person’s perspective.
Prepare the child for the road, not the road for the child.
Wind extinguishes a candle but energized a fire. Be the fire and wish for the wind.
Choose not to be harmed and you won’t feel harmed. Don’t feel harmed and you haven’t been.
Good Inside by Becky Kennedy
Many parents see behavior as a measure of who our kids are, rather than using behavior as a clue to what our kids might need.
As is true with every other self-help book – our thoughts lead to our feelings and actions or inactions.
Understanding, not convincing, is what makes people feel secure in a relationship.
Everyone has a profound need to feel seen for who they are, and at any given moment, who we are is related to what we are feeling inside.
Imagine your child has an emotional bank account and the currency is connection. Their behavior at any moment reflects the balance of their account. When we really connect to a child, see their experience, allow for their feelings, and make an effort to understand what’s going on for them, we build our capital.
When we see the behavior as the main event, instead of as a window into an unmet need, we may “successfully” shut down the behavior, but the underlying need remains and it will pop up again, whack-a-mole style.
The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch and Jeffrey Zaslow
Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted. And experience is often the most valuable thing you have to offer.
We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand.
The key question to keep asking is, “Are you spending your time on the right things?” Because time is all you have.
No matter how bad things are, you can always make things worse.
Time is all you have and you may find one day that you have less than you think.
The Emotional Lives of Teenagers by Lisa Damour
First and foremost, we want our teenagers to regard their feelings in this important way: as data.
Research shows that teens with empathetic parents actually have lower levels of systemic inflammation—a biological marker of emotional stress—but we tend to breeze right past offering empathy and instead serve up reassurance.
Imagine that your mind is a pond full of fish. The fish are your feelings. I am to be the pond.
