I gave a talk today about Positive Psychology and suggested a couple of areas where there could be helpful synergies with psychedelics. Here is the full downloadable talk and below are a few of the slides ... initially just below are the first three:
"As you breathe in, cherish yourself. As you breathe out, cherish all beings." Dalai Lama
"When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive, to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love." Marcus Aurelius
The Journal of Positive Psychology regularly publishes very interesting, helpful articles. One that recently caught my eye is titled "The marital version of three good things: A mixed methods study". OK, maybe not the most catchy title, but the reference to 'three good things' hooked my interest as this is a 'solo exercise' that can be so helpful in nourishing our sense of gratitude, appreciation & wellbeing. For more on the 'solo exercise', see this post on "How to live well ...
“Courage is not simply one of the virtues but the form of every virtue at the testing point.” C. S. Lewis
“Fear is the mind-killer … I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.” Bene Gesserit ‘Litany against Fear’ from Dune by Frank Herbert
[Sadly this potential skydiving adventure was cancelled ... for the second time ... because of poor weather conditions. I'll book again ... hopefully third time lucky. I'll then aim to complete this blog post!]
The first of the two blog posts in this sequence can be reached by clicking on "Using a wisdom diary - background". In this second post I give the nuts & bolts recording form:
This wisdom diary exercise is adapted from the work of the Canadian researcher Igor Grossmann.
"Wisdom, compassion, and courage are the three universally recognized moral qualities of men.” Confucius
“Every man is a damn fool for at least five minutes every day; wisdom consists in not exceeding the limit.” Elbert Hubbard
“No man was ever wise by chance.” Seneca
The language is a bit archaic, but the underlying message of these quotations is still very relevant today. And, if you like quotations about wisdom, here are over 20 more that I like, downloadable both as a PDF and as a Word doc.
"Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, grapple them unto thy soul with hoops of steel."
"This above all: to thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man." Both quotations by Polonius in Shakespeare's "Hamlet"
"Wisdom, compassion, and courage are the three universally recognised moral qualities of men" (and women) Confucius
"Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgement that something else is more important than one's fear" James Hollingworth