Rick Hanson Quotes

You are the sky. Everything else — it’s just the weather.

activating a positive experience and installing it in your brain.

And even when they do see a jewel, they rarely feel anything about it. Jewel after jewel left behind, lost forever. But it doesn’t have to be this way. With a little intention and skill, you can take some seconds here and there each day to weave a handful of these jewels into the fabric of your brain, your being, and your life. Little moments of ease, pleasure, calm, determination, joy, insight, and caring becoming neural structure.

you can take action to make the future different. But even then, remember that most of the factors that shape the future are out of your hands. You can do everything right, and still the glass will break, the project will go nowhere, you’ll catch the flu, or a friend will remain upset.

To do Linking, a person must be able to hold two things in awareness, keep the positive material more prominent, and not get hijacked by the negative. Practicing mindfulness will increase your capacity to do these things. If you get pulled into the negative, drop it and focus only on the positive. Later on, you can allow the negative to come back alongside the positive in awareness. Most experiences of Linking are fairly brief, under half a minute, but you can take longer if you like.

people are not unhappy because they don’t have a car or a promotion. They’re unhappy because they don’t feel comfortable, safe, successful, and satisfied.

the ANS — which is part of the larger nervous system — is intertwined with and helps regulate every other system. And mental activity has greater direct influence over the ANS than any other bodily system. When you stimulate the parasympathetic wing of the ANS, calming, soothing, healing ripples spread through your body, brain, and mind.

You can accept them for what they are while at the same time not being identified with them.

Breathe in such a way that your inhalation and exhalation are the same duration; for example, count one, two, three, four in your mind while inhaling, and one, two, three, four while exhaling. At the same time, imagine or sense that you’re breathing in and out through the area of your heart. As you breathe evenly through your heart, call to mind a pleasant, heartfelt emotion such as gratitude, kindness, or love — perhaps by thinking about a happy time, being with your children, appreciation for the good things in your life, or a pet. You can also imagine this feeling moving through your heart as part of the breath. Try this for a minute or longer — you’ll probably be quite struck by the results.

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

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

The wolf of love sees a vast horizon, with all beings included in the circle of “us.” That circle shrinks down for the wolf of hate, so that only the nation, or tribe, or friends and family — or, in the extreme, only the individual self — is held as “us,” surrounded by threatening masses of “them.

For all their effects on the body, second darts usually have their greatest impact on psychological well-being.

Sense it sinking into you.

Through activating the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS), you prevent the stress-response system from reacting to its own reactions. This is one reason why the training for equanimity in contemplative settings involves considerable relaxation and tranquility.