Do not choose the path of denial or compartmentalization for your emotions, because neglecting them will inevitably lead to those emotions owning you.
Learn to deconstruct your own emotions by breaking down complex emotional experiences into their more basic components, allowing for different interpretations.
Actively build the skill of flexibly making meaning from your sensations, providing your brain with more options to choose from, which enhances resilience and automaticity.
To gain more control over your brain’s emotional narratives, practice reframing and deconstruction consistently when not in stressful moments, allowing the skill to become automatic and less metabolically costly.
When experiencing increased arousal or jittery feelings, practice reframing these sensations as determination instead of anxiety to improve performance and change your life’s trajectory.
Practice mindfulness meditation to experience sensations in their most basic form (affect), rather than immediately grasping at perceptions and constructing full-blown emotions, which helps in not being yanked around by sensations.
If you wake up feeling bad, reframe it as your “body budget running a deficit” due to factors like sleep or dehydration, instead of immediately attributing it to psychological issues, and then address the physical needs.
Dedicate five minutes each day to practice feeling awe, which helps you feel like a “speck” and consequently reduces the perceived size of your problems, lowering the burden on your body budget.
Actively seek out moments of awe in your daily life, even in seemingly mundane or frustrating situations like a weed in a sidewalk crack or internet glitches, to shift your perspective and appreciate the miraculous.
When experiencing anger or fury, use it as an opportunity to practice deconstruction by attempting to genuinely cultivate curiosity about the situation or your sensations instead.
When encountering frustrating or negative actions from others, consciously consider alternative, more compassionate explanations for their behavior, which can provide you with options to feel differently.
When you feel determined to change things but are limited in what you can do, engage in small acts of kindness, as even one small act can make the world a little bit better.
Do not solely experience psychological difficulties as physical symptoms (somatization) without acknowledging their deeper affective significance, as this is unhealthy and doesn’t help solve the underlying problem.
Deliberately practice challenging skills in a controlled environment, like driving on icy roads, to remind your brain how to perform them automatically when necessary.
Consciously cultivate your past experiences, as your brain uses this accumulated knowledge to predict and shape who you will be in the future.
Engage with hope as a skill by utilizing bespoke meditations, which can help you navigate difficult moments without setting yourself up for massive disappointment.