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Our reptilian brain doesn’t speak the language of logic. It’s a lower life form that exists solely to foster survival. The amygdala knows nothing of perspective and reason, it just detects threats. And so, when we find ourselves tumbling down a fantastic realm of fear, that claustrophobic, hurried state where worry agitates the peace right out of us, the best thing we can do is call that fear by…

We live in a culture of more. And so, we convince ourselves that we need a lot of things. Our mantra is, well, there is always more out there, so why not acquire it? When the reality is, we don’t actually need that much. Pretty much everything beyond food, shelter, water, clothing and relationships isn’t really a need, it’s a want. And that’s perfectly fine. Wanting things is good….

Are you free enough to risk being seen by other people? Most of us are not. At least, not when we’re young. It takes years of working on ourselves and working with others before we reach that level of comfort with self. This explains why wearing a nametag was so awkward for the first few years. It’s not that people were suddenly noticing me, it’s that people were actually…

Writer’s block has been a widely documented problem throughout history. Everyone from authors to cartoonists to songwriters to magicians have shared their struggles with the temporary loss or ability to continue producing work. Many of whom were driven to madness. This problem goes back many centuries, but the official condition was first described in the late forties. Bergler’s psychiatry book studied writers who suffered from it. Bergler spent years…

Buber said before there is a self, there is an other. A person cannot approach the divine by reaching beyond the human, and to become human is what the individual has been created for. And so, he believed that the path to divinity was through human contact. This approach to interpersonal connection is deeply spiritual, and probably too mushy for most. But his theory is also highly biological. Pinsky,…

Culture isn’t who we are, it’s who we were taught to be. It’s a story. One that we have all accepted and agreed to tell, whether we realize it or not. This phenomenon makes culture the most enormous force of persuasion that exists in the world. And that’s not necessarily a good thing. Because if you look back to the past fifty years, our culture has completely indoctrinated people…

Those lovely biological events like anxiety, panic, mania, depression and trauma come for us all eventually. And if we don’t anticipate that suffering ahead of time when we’re in a calm, cool state, then it will be impossible for us to execute a recovery plan when the pressure is on. And we will feel like the world is slowly closing in on us like a trash compactor. Psychiatric doctors…

One of the great parts about being an adult is, we have the power to leave without explanation. Whether it’s a dinner party, some event we’re stuck at, that club we joined a long time ago, even the job we worked at for years, we don’t have to explain or justify our feelings to anyone. We can simply walk away and remove ourselves. And that may evoke feelings of…

The academic community has greeted grit with a degree of breathless enthusiasm. People have been applauding grit as the trait among traits that helps people persevere. But too much perseverance can be costly. One study demonstrated how grittier individuals might incur some costs by persisting when they could move on. Lucas, the primary researcher, explored grit through the lens of test taking. She found that certain students might not…

Wearing a nametag all the time helps me understand myself more, but it also provides me with an instant psychological analysis of others. It’s a small, repeatable, portable filter that helps me make sense of those who interact with me. It’s not scientific, it’s not one hundred percent accurate, it’s more of a novelty personality test. And yet, it never ceases to amaze me what kinds of insights people…