The Threads of the Ego Experience Pulled Free

"Due to its nature as a construction, rather than as a metaphysical entity, the sense of being an ego can be radically deconstructed. Accomplishing this deconstruction requires noticing and tracking the sensory phenomena that together make up the construction of the self, and then patiently untangling them from the whole. One by one, as the threads of the ego experience are pulled free, perception shifts to encompass all of creation."

~ Michael Taft, highlighting key themes from his talk "Deconstructing The Perception Of The Ego/self" at the Science and Nonduality Conference, October 26, 2013

See also: The Atomic Components of Narrative Elements

A Different Relationship to Sadness

"We had some very important evidence here that suggested that the ability to work with sadness in people who had recover from depression may determine whether they're able to go on and sustain the benefits of treatment or whether they're going to relapse. But how do you work with a trigger of relapse like sadness when sadness is also a feature of our universal human experience? We weren't interested in trying to eliminate sadness. We weren't interested in trying to get people not to feel sad. What we really needed to do was help people develop a different relationship to their sadness. And what does that mean in terms of trying to teach people certain skills. This is really the point at which mindfulness comes into the picture."

~ Dr. Zindel V. Segal, from "The Mindful Way through Depression," TEDx Talks, April 2014

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See also:

Williams, J. M. G., Teasdale, J. D., Segal, Z. V., Kabat-Zinn, J., & Sounds True (Firm). (2007). The mindful way through depression: [freeing yourself from chronic unhappiness]. Boulder, CO: Sounds True. [Sounds True, library]

Mindfulness Research Guide

Fake It till You Become It

"Don't fake it till you make it. Fake it till you become it. You know? Do it enough until you actually become it and internalize...Tiny tweaks can lead to big changes. 

So this is two minutes. Two minutes, two minutes, two minutes. Before you go into the next stressful evaluative situation, for two minutes, try doing this, in the elevator, in a bathroom stall, at your desk behind closed doors. That's what you want to do.

Configure your brain to cope the best in that situation. Get your testosterone up. Get your cortisol down. Don't leave that situation feeling like, oh, I didn't show them who I am. Leave that situation feeling like, oh, I really feel like I got to say who I am and show who I am."

~ Amy Cuddy, from "Your Body Language Shapes Who You Are," TEDGlobal 2012

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See also:

Carney, D. R., Cuddy, A. J., & Yap, A. J. (January 01, 2010). Power posing: brief nonverbal displays affect neuroendocrine levels and risk tolerance. Psychological Science, 21(10), 1363-8. http://bit.ly/1kQNCwe 

So Much More than You Really Know

Jennifer Michael Hecht in conversation with Krista Tippett, "Hope for Our Future Selves," On Being, March 27, 2014:

It’s an extreme reaction, but lots of people die after a suicide. They come in groups...

But don’t ever forget the flipside, which is your staying alive means so much more than you really know or that anyone is aware of at this moment. We’re in it together in this profound way, and you can take some strength from that. For me, that’s been very important...My two arguments that you owe it to other people and that you owe it to your future self, are both about looking at what the individual means. 

Because when you look at a person within a group, and all the trends we follow: the clothes, the car, the not-car —all these trends that we follow, you realize the extent to which we’re enmeshed. And when you look at yourself and realize that you have fallen in and out of love with the same person, you have fought with friends, thinking you’ll never speak to them again, and you love them again...

We have different moods that profoundly change our outlook, and it’s not right to let your worst one murder all the others.

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See also: Hecht, J. M. (2013). Stay: A history of suicide and the philosophies against it. New Haven: Yale University Press

Pain and Response to Pain Teaches Understanding

Sherwin Nuland from "The Biology of the Spirit," On Being, September 29, 2005:

Sherwin Nuland (Dec. 8, 1930 – Mar. 3, 2014)Do you know what I learned from writing [How We Die], if I learned nothing else? The more personal you are willing to be and the more intimate you are willing to be about the details of your own life, the more universal you are.

When you recognize that pain and response to pain is a universal thing, it helps explain so many things about others, just as it explains so much about yourself. It teaches you forbearance. It teaches you a moderation in your responses to other people's behavior. It teaches you a sort of understanding. It essentially tells you what everybody needs. You know what everybody needs? You want to put it in a single word? Everybody needs to be understood. And out of that comes every form of love.

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See also: 

• "Brain, Mind, and Spirit: The Wisdom of the Human Body," Sherwin Nuland's lecture given at the Chautauqua Institution (Aug. 22, 2005)
• "Fresh Air Remembers Surgeon And 'How We Die' Author Sherwin Nuland" (March 7, 2014)
• "How Electroshock Changed Me," TED Talk (Feb. 2001)
• "The Extraordinary Power of Ordinary People," TED Talk (Feb. 2003)
• Nuland, S. B. (1994). How we die: Reflections on life's final chapter. New York: A.A. Knopf. [library] 
• Nuland, S. B. (1997). How we live. New York: Vintage Books. [library]