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Imaginative and Emotive Activity
Read time 3 minutes. Explore the vicious cycles that arise as a result of our imaginative/emotive activity. This stand alone article is part of our letting go series. In our last lesson, we saw how emotions are born from a disconnect between intellect and instinct. Today, we look closer at how that disconnect gets amplified—and why our emotional…
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Emotions: Instinctive Body and Intellectual Mind At Play
Read time 3 minutes. Explore how emotions arise from the tension between instinct and intellect. This stand alone article is part of our letting go series. Our broader discussion around letting go moves another step forward as we examine the next layer of our emotional activity. We’ve already seen that a kind of low-grade, existential distress leads…
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Emotional State: Mood Versus Emotion
Read time 3 minutes. Emotional state reflects ego dynamics. Shifting your seat of awareness can transform emotional experience. This stand alone article is part of our letting go series. We continue our investigation into letting go by peeling back another layer of the emotional onion—this time, mood. For our purposes, mood refers to a general emotional state—a kind of…
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Undetectable Distress: The Void Beneath All We Know
Read time 2 minutes. Undetectable distress is the existential void that gives rise to emotional weight. This stand alone article is part of our letting go series. To truly understand the art of letting go, we need to step back—way back—and ask: why do we even feel the need to let go in the first…
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Emotional Freedom: Zen and the Art of Letting Go
Read time 3 minutes. Emotional Freedom is the first stand alone article in our continuing series regarding letting go. What would it feel like to experience true emotional freedom?What steps would we take to begin? For many of us, even on good days, there’s a weight—an untraceable tension that hangs beneath our other experiences. A…
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Observing and Accepting Meditation Technique In Review
Read time 2 minutes. Observing and accepting meditation sits with the ego, not against it. This is the final article in our self-control series. Hopefully, by now, you’ve had a chance to experiment with this practice. Just a simple itch. A flicker of discomfort. A moment of stillness. What did it show you? At face…
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Observing and Accepting Meditation Technique: Sitting With an Itch
Read time 2 minutes. A quirky and effective observing and accepting meditation technique for using physical sensation to examine resistance, ego, and true acceptance. This stand alone article is part of our series regarding self-control. Today’s lesson is one of the most direct, experiential practices I can offer. So far, we’ve been circling around some…
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Acceptance and Resignation: It’s Okay vs. I Don’t Care
Read time 2 minutes. Why Real Acceptance Feels Different. This stand alone article is part of our continuing series regarding self-control. Before we get into the next few practical and transformative lessons, we need to take a breath and regroup. If you’ve been following along, you’ve probably noticed something already: the teachings lean heavily on negation—not-doing,…
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The Ineffectiveness of Willpower: Fighting Against Ourselves
Read time 2 minutes. Why the inner tyranny of willpower won’t lead to real transformation. This stand alone article is part of our continuing series on self-control. In our last lesson, we looked at self-control—not as a virtue, but as a clever way of splitting ourselves in two. When we try to force change through…