How to Stay Sane (The School of Life)

When you are next doing chores around the house – cooking, cleaning, washing, etc. – focus with complete awareness on what you are doing, mentally recording each feeling, thought, sensation or memory as it enters your head.

1, I take from the world 2, I make it my own 3, I give back to the world 4, I come back to myself

No one likes to feel vulnerable16 but unless we learn to tolerate some emotional vulnerability we will be endangering our growth, and if we do not grow we shrink – and if we do that we jeopardize our sanity.

Sensory-awareness thoughts: e.g. sounds, sights smells sensations – 4 Planning thoughts: to-do lists of wants or needs – 3 Anxiety-provoking thoughts: worries or self-deprecating thoughts – 2 Playing back of memories – 0 Fantasies about non-existent situations, relationships or events – 0 Envious, angry, rebellious, critical thoughts: wanting to st

We can be unaware of the tales we regularly tell ourselves and even unaware of their effect on us. We act on fantasies as though they are realities.

If you do not know how to draw positive meaning from what happens in life, the neural pathways you need to appreciate good news will never fire up.

2. The Thirty-Minute Exercise26 Commit to doing this exercise and allotting the full thirty minutes to it. Get yourself a notebook and something to write with. Turn off the phone, computer, radio and television. Resolve not to pick up a book or a newspaper, and choose a time when you will not be disturbed. Get yourself a clock or stopwatch and set it

Therefore we need to be self-aware. What stories are we telling ourselves about other people? What dynamic do our stories suck us into, and how do they determine the meanings we put on things and how we define them?

Self-observation helps us to avoid too much self-justification and getting stuck in patterns of behaviour that no longer work for us.