RAIN: How to Recognize, Allow, Investigate, and Nurture Emotions

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Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom. Viktor Frankl, Austrian psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor  RAIN is a common practice in secular meditation and it is an acronym for:  Recognize the emotions  Allow the emotions  Investigate the emotions  either Non-Identification with emotions   or Nurture the emotions, depending on the version.  I heard of RAIN from Tara Brach, and there are a few RAIN meditations with her available for free. This practice …

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Learning New Words Can Help Recognize Our Emotions

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“Your brain’s most important job is not thinking or feeling or even seeing, but keeping your body alive and well so that you survive and thrive … How is your brain able to do this? Like a sophisticated fortune-teller, your brain constantly predicts. Its predictions ultimately become the emotions you experience and the expressions you perceive in other people.”  Lisa Feldman Barrett  Our brain is nothing short of a prediction machine. It is perpetually analyzing and adjusting the information coming across our senses.  Outside …

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Mindful Work – Capturing, Prioritizing and Working on Tasks Effectively

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Part 1: Mindless Work Part 2: Mindful Work There are two main types of networks that the brain has, a highly attentive state network and a more relaxed resting-state network. In her book A mind for numbers, Barbara Oakley names the thinking processes related to the two main types of networks the focused mode and the diffuse mode.  The focused mode is associated with the concentrating abilities of the brain. Diffuse-mode thinking happens when we relax our concentration and let our minds wander: taking breaks, doing something that …

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Mindless Work – The High Price of Continuous Multitasking

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Part 1: Mindless Work Part 2: Mindful Work I must not always multitask.  Constant context switching is the mind-killer.  Craving distractions is the little-death that brings total obliteration.  I will face my interruptions.  I will permit them to pass over me and through me.  And when they have gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see their path.  Where the shallow tasks have gone, there will be nothing. Only my attention will remain. Litany of multitasking adapted from Dune  In computing, multitasking is the …

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Letters to my Daughter: Myths and Tips to Strategically Distinguish Between Careers and Passions

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My dear daughter, you are still so incredibly young. But no sooner than I catch my breath for one moment and puff, you will be quickly wondering: what should I do with my life? What job should I pursue? Should I follow my passion? After all, isn’t what they say “choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life”?  No, my dear daughter, following your passion is terrible career advice. Focus instead on building rare and valuable …

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Metaphorical Thinking – the Web Metaphors

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Metaphorical Thinking – Introduction Metaphorical Thinking – the Guest Metaphor Metaphorical Thinking – the Cloud Metaphors Metaphorical Thinking – the Web Metaphors If you asked people in 1989 what they needed to make their life better, it was unlikely that they would have said a decentralized network of information nodes that are linked using hypertext. Farmer & Farmer   The Internet is derived from the words “interconnection of networks”, thus a global network of networks. The Web or the World Wide Web is information accessed …

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Metaphorical Thinking – Introduction

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Metaphorical Thinking – Introduction Metaphorical Thinking – the Cloud Metaphors Metaphorical Thinking – the Guest Metaphor Metaphorical Thinking – the Web Metaphors The Greek word of μεταπερειν translates in English as metapherein, the root word for metaphor. Metapherein is composed of meta (over, across, higher, beyond) and pherein (to bear or carry). A metaphor carries meaning from one word, expression, or image to another, connecting the two concepts. Hence, the word metaphor is itself a metaphor.  The metaphorical language consists of metaphors, similes, analogies, …

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When Buddhism’s Nonattachment Overlaps Stoicism’s Dichotomy of Control

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As Ryan Holiday remarks in his Daily Stoic book, we have a mental image of the Zen philosopher as the calm, serene monk. In contrast, the Stoic is the man in the marketplace, the senator in the Forum, etc. Nevertheless, both people are equally at peace.   Although for every philosophy, there are different goals, eudaimonia or a life worth living for Stoics and enlightenment for Buddhists, there are strikingly similar concepts from Buddhism and Stoicism. An example is the Buddhist nonattachment concept and the Stoic dichotomy of …

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