Mindfulness
fromPsychology Today
14 hours agoYou Are Not a Project to Be Improved
Self-improvement can lead to anxiety and disconnection from genuine human connection.
Being methodical usually involves creating a process that you trust will eventually lead to an acceptable result, and then committing to executing it over and over. This reduces a lot of mental load, and helps when you don't know exactly how long something will take or how many attempts you'll need to make.
Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars. I was born with spina bifida and faced multiple surgeries, leading to uncertainty about my ability to walk again. Despite the fear and pain, I refused to accept paralysis as my fate.
Beauty, it turns out, is capable of launching not just an armada of ships, but a cascade of the same feel-good chemicals you get from being in love, eating chocolate, exercising, and having orgasms- dopamine, endorphins, serotonin, oxytocin. It also lowers stress, blood pressure, and heart rate.
When the Academy Award Nominations were announced late last month, you could be forgiven for thinking they were lifetime achievement awards. In the Best Supporting Actor category, 74-year-old Stellan Skarsgård is competing against 73-year-old Delroy Lindo. (Sean Penn, at 65, and Benicio Del Toro, at 58, also in the category, are mere babes.) Amy Madigan, 75, is up for Best Supporting Actress. One of the Best Adapted Screenplay nominees is in their sixties, and one of the Best Original Screenplay nominees is in his seventies.