The Emotion Machine

Every little detail in our environment can have an influence over our choices and behavior. Often we aren’t even aware of these details and how they influence us – it happens below the surface of our conscious minds.

Just as you can only see the tip of an iceberg floating in the ocean, we only see a snippet of what is actually going on inside our minds when we make a decision.

Becoming more aware of these unconscious influences can give us a deeper understanding of our own minds and some of the situational factors that can change the way we think and act.

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Don’t wait for that one big “enlightening” moment, just recognize the small insights of each and every day.

Inner peace means you don’t always need to smile to be happy.

Meditation is simply a practice of developing inner awareness toward our experiences. It can be easy in theory, but difficult in practice.

Many people try meditating once or twice, but never develop a steady routine. A big part of this is beginners often get discouraged by common problems that they experience when first starting out.

There are 3 specific problems that I see people struggle with all of the time in meditation. This article is going to describe each one of these, then offer advice and guidelines on how to help you overcome these issues.

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At times it’s nice to just let your thoughts wander and watch where they go. Your mind may take you places that you have been avoiding.

Writing is one of my favorite tools for organizing my thoughts and feelings. It’s like free therapy.

Face your fears and you often find they aren’t nearly as scary as your mind makes them out to be.

Pay particular attention to the stuff in life that offends you. Often those emotional overreactions can be a result of an underlying fear or lack of understanding.

One thing for certain in life is that it has both its ups and downs.

A common myth however is that happiness is based on the quantity of these ups and downs. Most believe that the more good moments they have rather than bad moments, then the more happy they will be overall.

But this isn’t necessarily so. Life isn’t about the exact quantity of ups and downs, but rather how smoothly we ride between these inevitable ups and downs.

Good things and bad things happen to everyone, but the individuals who are most happy are the ones who manage both with ease and equanimity.

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