Here are four incredibly bad ideas (that are still commonly believed):
1) That people should be judged for, blamed for, or feel shame about the behavior of their ancestors.
Of course, if your ancestors did bad things, you should condemn those acts. And if you directly benefit from something bad your family member did, you should consider if you can make amends.
But, logically, people cannot be morally responsible for events that they were unable to affect.
This bad idea (th...
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self-compassion
The ten most important components of self-compassion
Self-compassion is an essential skill - it helps us overcome personal hardship, recognize what we want, and learn how to better support others who are struggling. Inspired by Dr. Kristen Neff’s work on this subject, we’ve put together a list of ten components that we think make up a truly self-compassionate mindset. Regardless of whether or not you try to practice self-compassion in your daily life, this list may be valuable next time you’re finding it difficult to be kind towards you...
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Intersecting advice from highly successful people
It's popular to read interviews and books with advice from highly successful people. But is their advice good advice? Perhaps it works for their situation, but that doesn't necessarily mean it generalizes to other circumstances. Maybe they are just overfitting to their personal life experience. Perhaps they are attributing too much of their success to the actions they happened to take rather than to factors outside of their control. And what should we make of the fact that advice often contradi...
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On How to Process Your Emotions
We’ve all heard that you should take time to “process your emotions” and not “repress them.” But after a bad event occurs, what exactly does it MEAN to process your emotions? I think that, ideally, it involves a mix of these components:
(1) Noticing: paying close attention to your negative thoughts instead of pushing them away or trying to ignore the bad feelings. What are the EXACT words running through your mind? How does it feel right now to be you? What do your body and mind feel li...
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