PsycHacks

Because the universe lives closed, we are all going to experience far more rejection than acceptance across our lifespans. So the sooner we can disabuse ourselves of certain illusions concerning rejection, the better. In this episode, I discuss these illusions, which I call the three Ps, namely: rejection is painful, personal, and permanent. The goal is to eventually see rejection as a form of fee...

It can happen that, in the course of our relationship, we find ourselves the object of another person's disrespect or negativity. The question that passes through most reasonable people's minds is: "how much is enough?" I have a simple rule of thumb to answer this question. I call it the "stranger on a bus" rule. Basically, anyone in my life has to treat me at least as well as they would treat a s...

"Love-food" is a term I coined to represent the experience of being held emotionally by another. It's important to the emotional well-being of all people, and essential to the development of children. Every family is like a little ecosystem, and within each family is a limited supply of love-food. Through unconscious reinforcement contingencies, parents influence children to occupy different niche...

Back when I was in a dance-theatre company, we had a rule of thumb when it came to our shows. Anything that we created had to be "too short to suck." Those who liked our work would want more, and those who didn't would feel relieved we hadn't wasted more of their time. This is an excellent guideline to follow when creating content. You don't have to prove yourself by giving more than is necessary....

My definition of "confidence" is the consistent, felt experience of success. And this definition contains the blueprint to achieving authentic confidence. The first step is being able to do the thing. The second step is being able to do the thing consistently. And the third step is allowing that consistent success to impact you emotionally. I discuss more in this episode. #confidence #success #com...

Letting go is an emotional survival technique that everyone should learn. The paradox of heartbreak is that the negative emotions cause you to emotionally clench around the memory of the lost object. And you cannot let go of something that you are simultaneously clinging to. So the trick to letting go depends on cultivating gentle, positive emotions relative to the lost object, which allow you to...

In the course of life, we often find ourselves in the place of the learner. This could be because we're starting a new course of study, or because we're entering into a new level of mastery. In these moments, ignorance feels close to us, and we're more aware than usual of the extent of our knowledge. Unfortunately, some of us have a tendency to overextend this ignorance into judgments about our in...

By the time we're full adults, many of us have been hurt by relationships. To protect against future hurts, many of these folks build protective armor around their hearts to prevent others from accessing certain aspects of self. Unfortunately, this behavior is counterproductive. We can only love to the depth of our understanding. By preventing opportunities to be known, such people functionally ma...

In a previous episode, I defined a game as anything with rules and a goal. A goal with no rules tends toward destructive chaos, and rules with no goal tend toward restrictive control. One without the other is death; both together is life. Therefore, one of the purposes of any game is to create and maintain the conditions that allow play to continue. This furthers life and is "good." Anything that...

In many respects, life on this planet is inherently unsatisfying. However, this realm is under the auspices of dualism. So where there is darkness, there must be light. The trick to enjoying your life more is to utilize your focus with greater discipline, so that you increasingly attend to those aspects of life that are positive and good. In this episode, I'll explain what that might look like wit...

And this one's for the guys! In this episode, I'm going to discuss a useful mate selection strategy for straight men. Rather than give your attention to the smokeshows (who can be very challenging to relate to), a better approach is to find your ugly duckling: a late-bloomer who passed through a period of self-development and character building. These women typically have more to offer and are sig...

This one's for the ladies! In this episode, I'm going to discuss a useful mate selection strategy for straight women. Research indicates that the vast majority of you are competing for the relatively small percentage of men at the top of the hierarchy. While this seems like a good strategy, as these guys have already demonstrated that they possess the traits you might be looking for, it means that...

Love, sex, and commitment are independent concepts. The presence of one does not imply the existence of the others. This means that there are eight different, potential combinations of these components. In this episode, I briefly discuss each of these types of relationships in turn, offering an example from film to illustrate each one. #love #sex #commitment

My episode, "The gift of your absence," recently passed 100,000 views on YouTube. So I thought I'd take this opportunity to release an update responding to some of your feedback and criticism. Most importantly, I want to clarify that the primary goal in giving someone the gift of your absence is not to manipulate someone to chase after you. This can happen, but it shouldn't be your primary motivat...

This is a very simple mind hack that I've developed to guard against frustration and disappointment. Look: you should take what people say with a grain of salt. When they say that they're going to do something (or that they're not going to do something), just say to yourself: "we'll see." Withhold your judgment until you see behavioral confirmation of their commitment one way or another. Trust and...

Despite passing through a great deal of suffering in his origin story, Harry Potter doesn't spend the rest of his life hung up on the past. How was he able to do this? The first book provides a clue. We possess the inner resources to overcome our circumstances -- though sometimes we're subject to forgetting who we are and what we're here to do. Reconnecting with purpose and being is often the path...

Rolling up your sleeves and hunkering down only works when you have a finite amount of work to do. However, if you're even moderately successful, the time will come when the influx of new work will outpace your ability to discharge it. Once you cross that point, this strategy becomes a recipe for burnout. In this episode, I'll discuss an attitude toward work that helps me maintain healthy work-lif...

The vast majority of conflict on this planet throughout history has been caused by ideological differences. Ideas divide people. On the other hand, emotions unite people. This is because no two people are so different from one another that they don't share some facets of the human experience. And these facets are generally emotionally, since they arise from our shared evolutionary past. So if you...

Many of us put off doing the things we know we should, and this hesitation can cause some folks a lot of trouble. A client of mine recently shared a story with me about his sales training. Apparently, he was instructed to "eat the frog" as quickly as possible to overcome his hesitancy in making cold calls. In this episode, I'll talk about what this means and why it's a good idea to move into actio...

This one is pretty straight forward. When working with clients to master their self-talk, I always begin by asking them to consider making a commitment not to talk to themselves in a way they wouldn't speak to a close friend. There's no need to fluff yourself up or practice affirmations in the mirror or discover your mantra. Just start here. The relationship with yourself is the most important rel...

When people are at the crossroads of life, they can often agonize over making "the right decision." However, implicit in the idea of "the right decision" is the existence of many, many "wrong" decisions, and this significantly increases the felt experience of pressure on the decider. This is not how I see the world. Instead of "right" and "wrong," I see paths that go one way and paths that go anot...

Whatever you do over and over again, you will get better at. It's not possible to do something repeatedly and get worse. This is just an attribute of the way we are constructed. However, this also means that we can get better at the wrong thing. So it's really important to be careful about what you do repeatedly. Strong, lasting habits are built out of small "worthless" or "harmless" behaviors. #h...

Many of the beliefs in our heads aren't our own. They come from our parents, teachers, friends, and culture. And many of our own beliefs were derived many years ago from relatively small data sets. It's essential that you critically evaluate whether these beliefs are still valid and appropriate to your current life, from time to time. This is what I call "updating your browser." By extrapolating b...

It's important to show your partner respect when your partner does something respectable. This is because respect is highly reinforcing and will increase the likelihood that your partner will behave similarly in the future. And if you want to understand how to do this, you need to watch ESPN. ESPN has respect down cold. In this episode, I'll discuss what I mean by this with concrete examples.   #r...

Anyone who has had a panic attack knows how terrifying and upsetting the experience can be. Fortunately, there are ways of preventing panic attacks without the use of psychiatric medication. These methods have worked for me, personally, and dozens of my clients. In this video (the second of two), I'll discuss strategies for intervention: what you can do at each step of the way to disrupt the proce...