Rick Hanson Quotes

activating a positive experience and installing it in your brain.

It’s easy to be kind when others treat you well. The challenge is to preserve your loving-kindness when they treat you badly — to preserve goodwill in the face of ill will.

positive experiences fill us up, while negative ones wear us down.

Try to see the big picture. Whatever has happened is probably a short chapter in the long book of your life.

you can decide to get eggs from the refrigerator without craving them — and without getting upset if there are none left.

I make myself rich by making my wants few. — Henry David Thoreau

We need safety,

Use imagery, which stimulates the right hemisphere of your brain. For example, if I’m with someone who’s getting intense, I might imagine myself as a deeply rooted tree, with the other person’s attitudes and emotions blowing through my leaves and shaking them — but winds always come to an end, and my tree remains standing. Or I’ll imagine that there is a picket fence between us — or, if need be, a glass wall that’s a foot thick. In addition to the benefits that come from the particular images themselves, activating the right hemisphere encourages a sense of the whole that is larger than any part — including that part of your experience which might feel uncomfortable with closeness. Be Mindful of Your Inner World

As you go through your day, deliberately flag opportunities for pleasure.

As you become a happier person, the left frontal region of your brain becomes more active (Davidson 2004). What flows through your mind sculpts your brain. Thus, you can use your mind to change your brain for the better — which will benefit your whole being, and every other person whose life you touch.

Neurons that fire together, wire together.

most of the shaping of your mind remains forever unconscious. This is called implicit memory, and it includes your expectations, models of relationships, emotional tendencies, and general outlook. Implicit memory establishes the interior landscape of your mind — what it feels like to be you — based on the slowly accumulating residues of lived experience.

Linking is a powerful method. The brain learns through association, and when two things are held in awareness at the same time, they affect each other. The key is to make sure that what’s beneficial stays more prominent than what’s painful or harmful. Then the positive will purify the negative, rather than the negative contaminating the positive.

the importance of developing grit in the first place for the challenges you know about and the ones waiting around the corner to surprise you.

Notice when others could be building up your fears, perhaps for their own advantage. Also, deliberately consider your beliefs about dangers in the world and weaknesses in yourself, and look for the evidence that these are not true.