In Bits & Pieces, I share some brief insights, sparks of creativity and interesting lessons that may or may not constitute further, more elaborate work. Below you can read the most recent ones!
Unhooking from, and taming your emotions
How can I unhook from and tame my emotions? This guide provides steps to manage and understand your emotions for long-term well-being.
Painful feelings tell us that we care. They arise when the reality we have does not match with the reality we would like. This chapter will focus on the sensation-component of our emotions. Before learning to unhook from them, we need some preparation.
Preparation task 1: get clear on your motivation
Your motivation to unhook from painful sensations should not arise from a desire to experience pleasant sensations or get rid of unpleasant ones. Your goal should be to engage in toward moves to improve your life over the long-term.
Look at the answers you gave to the questions from chapter 10. Do they motivate you enough that you are willing to face the uncomfortable? If not, further reflect on them until they do.
Preparation task 2: choose your degree of difficulty
You can apply unhooking skills to any emotion, urge, or sensation, no matter how small. Do not begin with ones that overwhelm you, then gradually, work up to bigger ones later.
Preparation task 3: expect your mind to interfere
Your mind will not help you in what you are about to attempt. It will throw distractions, judgement, or rationalisations that prompt you not to do that for which you set out. Be ready for this. Do not try to push these thoughts away, but (thankfully) observe them instead.
Preparation task 4: be ready to drop anchor
Make sure you have decided on your anchor and to have it ready. Although we should not need it (since we start small), you should have it in case you get overwhelmed nonetheless.
Preparation task 5: contact a difficult feeling
Try to evoke a difficult feeling. You can do this by…
- vividly recalling a (not too) painful memory,
- recalling an unpleasant upcoming event, or
- dwell, for a minute or so, on a major problem you are currently facing.
Tame your emotions
Once you are ready with a difficult feeling, you can close your eyes and start to practice ‘taming your emotions.’ Taming your emotions or urges always follows the same, 4-step process.
- Take note. Notice what (1) you are doing: how you are sitting, breathing, what you are touching… notice how (2) you feel throughout your body, and (3) where you feel the emotion or urge most clearly. Then, take a moment to name what you are feeling.
- Allow. Give your feeling permission to be there.
- Make room. Breathe into the feeling: imagine your breath flowing into and around what you feel. Then open up around the feeling, make space for it (rather than squeezing in on it). As you continue to observe this feeling, also open up to any feeling underneath it. Conceive the feeling as an object inside of you what is its shape, colour, form, or substance?
- Expand awareness. Now expand your awareness beyond the emotion. How does your body feel? What can you notice around you?
It is up to you to decide which of the above suggestions you find most helpful in each step, as well as the order by which you like to go through them. The book has a host of extra questions and pointers you can use in each step.
Throughout each day, practice making room with a range of different feelings—both strong and mild, pleasant, and unpleasant. Each time you TAME an emotion; it is a step toward the life you want.
Learning from your emotions
Once you have gone through the steps, you can take a minute to tap into the ‘wisdom’ of your emotion. To do so, ask yourself two simple questions:
- What does this emotion tell me I care about?
- What does it suggest I need to attend to?
There will not always be an answer or a wisdom to share, so do not try to force out an answer.
The emotional struggle switch
How can I stop struggling with my emotions? Learn to turn off your ‘struggle switch’ to let emotions flow freely and avoid unnecessary suffering.
When we struggle against our emotions, we end up in a vicious cycle only making things worse. For example, when we have anxiety, and thing about ow much we do not want it to be there, we get anxious about our anxiety! When the anxiety gets worse, we may turn sad or angry, further spiralling down the cycle of despair.
When our ‘struggle switch’ is off, we acknowledge it and allow it to be there. The struggle switch is an emotion amplifier, prompting us to pull out all our struggle strategies. Turn it off, and…
- our emotions can freely flow through us;
- we do not waste time and energy, meaning we can invest it in more meaningful and productive actions; and
- we avoid additional suffering.
Leave it on and…
- our emotions get stuck and hang around for longer;
- we waste a lot of time and energy struggling with them; and
- we amplify them and create unnecessary pain.
Cultivating self-kindness
How can I cultivate self-kindness? Learn to acknowledge your pain and respond with kindness through kind self-talk and actions.
You can summarise self-compassion as “acknowledge your pain; respond with kindness.” We acknowledge the pain as of a friend who was suffering. This is what we have been practicing in the past few chapters.
We can extend the naming convention we have developed by introducing notions of temporality. When we say, “here and now, I’m noticing anxiety,” it helps us remember that our thoughts and feelings change over time.
Kind self-talk
Kind self-talk means speaking to ourselves in kind, encouraging, and supportive ways. Remember, the brain changes through addition, not subtraction. We are not trying to suppress or ignore harsh self-talk. We are laying down new ones on top of them to bring in self-kindness.
Throughout the day, whenever difficult thoughts and feelings arise:
- acknowledge they are present,
- acknowledge it is painful or difficult to have them, and
- remind yourself to respond with kindness and caring.
To help with this, it is useful to have a simple catchphrase you can say to yourself. It should be short and memorable, for example: “this hurts, be kind.”
Kind actions
Self-compassion is also about what we do for ourselves. It is also about actions of kindness, caring, and support. These could include reading this book, stretching, savouring a coffee, eating healthy, exercising, practicing your unhooking skills, etc.
Exercise: kind actions
Take a few minutes to write down what acts of self-kindness you can do (1) in the next few hours, and (2) in the upcoming days. Over the next few hours and days, actually do these things. Notice what it is like to do so. Also notice how your mind tries to talk you out of it: what reasons does it give you not to? What rules does it impose on you?
Leaving your comfort zone
How can I leave my comfort zone? Discover strategies to expand your unhooking skills and connect with values and goals for a more meaningful life.
As soon as we start to do something new, our mind will send us warnings. These consist of negative thoughts, disturbing images, bad memories, and uncomfortable emotions, urges, and sensations. This keeps us from doing what matters and we keep doing the exact same thing as we did before. We stay in our ‘comfort zone,’ or better our ‘stagnation space.’
There are two strategies for leaving this space:
- continually expand the range of your unhooking skills, and
- connect with something that makes it worthwhile leaving.
The second strategy is what this chapter is about.
Values and goals
Values are your heart’s deepest desires for how you want to treat yourself and others and the world around you. They are personal qualities you want to bring into existence in the things you say and do. Values can be our inspiration, motivation, and guidance. They help us do things that make our lives more meaningful and rewarding.
Goals are things you are aiming for in the future: things you want to get, have, achieve, or do. Most of them are either…
- emotional goals (describing how we want to feel),
- behavioural goals (describing how we want to behave), and
- outcome goals (describing what we want to get or have).
The empowerment capacity of values
Outcome goals are future oriented. As long as we have not achieved them, we can become frustrated, dissatisfied, disappointed, sad, or even hopeless. However, we can live our values right here and now, even when our goals are out of reach. That is why living your values is empowering; you can always ‘achieve’ it.
Exercise: finding your values
Pick an area of life you want to improve (e.g., work, health, leisure, relationships). Then consider which values best complete this sentence: In this area of my life, I want to be…
You can find comprehensive lists of values online that will help you in this process.
Exercise: finding your goals
Suppose all your difficult thoughts and feelings disappear…
- What projects, activities, or tasks would you start, resume, or continue?
- What or who would you stop avoiding?
- What would you start doing or do more of?
- How would you treat yourself differently?
- How would you treat others differently, in your most important relationships?
Thinking about these questions probably brought up negative thoughts, painful memories, and uncomfortable emotions. Again, this is completely normal. If anything, it is a good opportunity to practice your unhooking skills!
Stage show of life
How can I cultivate mindfulness through meditation? This page explains how to focus on the breath and other techniques to enhance mindfulness.
Our internal experience has two components: the thinking self and the noticing self. The thinking self (in this book referred to as the mind) produces thoughts, images, and memories. The noticing self observes those thoughts, images, and memories, but also sounds, smells, sights and feelings. The more we focus on the products of the mind, the less we are engaged with the world around us.
Our mind is like a radio in the background. And like such a radio, you can ‘forget’ to hear it by focusing all your attention on something else. This is what we should do when our mind is broadcasting things that are not useful to us.
We can cultivate this skill through mediation. For example, by focusing completely on the physical sensations of the breath. When thoughts or images arise, acknowledge them, and then come back to the breath.
When you meditate regularly, you gain three important skills. Namely, you will learn. how to…
- let your thoughts freely come and go,
- focus on a task or activity and notice when your attention has wandered away, and
- unhook from the thoughts and refocus your attention on what you are doing.
When you do not like to focus on your breath, you can alternatively:
- walk with full attention,
- ‘scan’ through your body and notice all the sensations you encounter, or
- focussing on your muscles extending while doing stretching exercises.
Unhooking from memories and images
How can I unhook from painful memories and images? Learn techniques to manage and reduce the impact of distressing thoughts and memories.
We all get hooked by frightening images of the future or painful memories of the past. Your mind creates these cognitions to keep you safe.
When hooked by images or memories, we…
- give them all our attention,
- react to them as if they are happening right now, and
- treat them as things we need to avoid or get rid of.
This happens especially because these images can trigger unpleasant emotions, urges and sensations.
When we manage not to get hooked, we…
- recognise their true nature: pictures in our mind,
- give them full attention when they are useful, and
- realising that they are not threats to get rid of.
Unhooking from memories and images is like that of words, so that previous methods (such as naming) can be applied here as well. However, because of the strong physical response, ‘dropping anchor’ first will often be necessary.
Some techniques specific to memories and images are the following. First, imagine a difficult image or memory and notice how it is affecting you. Then…
- Imagine it on a small television across a room. Turn the tv around, fast-forward, play back, turn to black-and-white and back to colour… The goal is to see the image for what it is: a harmless picture.
- Add subtitles. For example, “the story of…” when it is a memory or image that often reoccurs.
- Add a fitting (or intentionally un-fitting) soundtrack.
- Imagine the image on different ‘screens:’ the T-shirt of a jogger, a poster in a bedroom, a flyer on the street.
Repeat this exercise as often as you can manage. Through practice, images and memories will slowly fade to the background, like an actual TV.
All prior techniques are essentially a form of exposure therapy. They trigger the old neural pathways for you to lay new ones (new responses) on top of them. Just like with actual exposure therapy, practice is essential.
The de-evolution of man
In his book ‘The Happiness Trap,’ Russ Harris makes a strong case for the importance of learning to observe your thoughts and feelings. These feelings will always be there. Learning to recognise them for what they are (signs from our unconscious), is the only sustainable ‘path to happiness.’
Whenever there is some dispute regarding physical or mental health, I often find it useful to look at early human behaviour. After all, most of our being has evolved for us to survive and thrive in these times. Our bodies are not adapted for 99% of the things in our environment.
So, what can we learn from Harris’s story when we go this far back, what would be different?
The most important difference is the absence of this 99%. Way back, there were no televisions, video games, alcohol, caffeine, porn, comfort food and grocery stores, no easy commuting, central heating… the list goes on and on.
If you felt cold, hungry, sad, lonely, angry, distracted, tired, or whatever ‘negative’ feeling you can recall, you had to be with that feeling. It was all you had. Going through all these experiences, you had to learn how to live with them, learn to see them for what they are. Life would have been unbearable if you didn’t.
Fast forward to the 21st century.
Feel cold? Turn up the radiator. Feel sad? There are endless movies to distract you from it. Feel tired? Just grab a coffee. Feel angry? Shoot some people in call of duty and you’re good to go. Lonely? Take a train across the country or just have a real-time call with a friend.
Escapes from our negative feelings have become so accessible that this is what we do in response to them, rather than listening to what they have to say.
Negative feelings are our subconscious’s way of communicating that our needs are not being met. But instead of finding structural solutions, we crave a quick relief.
No wonder we are experiencing a depression and anxiety epidemic. We are all too busy distracting ourselves rather than fighting the cause. We are undoing the greatest step in human evolution; the emergence of the conscious mind.
How to make people learn and grow
When we think about ‘growing,’ we often think about learning something. When we think about making other people grow; kids in school, employees, students… we mostly think about teaching something.
Speaking from my own experience, I think the best way to get people to grow is to make them want to. Do not try to teach them something. Rather, try to make them want to learn what you want to teach them.
Once you goal and their goal align, that is when the real learning takes place. Let them figure out what the best way is for them to learn and then let them do it. All you must do is make them want it. That is why challenge-based learning is so effective, and why Montessori kids are better at a whole host of things.
So here comes the million-dollar question: how do you make people want to learn what you want to teach them?
Well, if only we knew. I think the best, and maybe only way, is to help people find out what they want—what they really want in life. And then hope that those things align with what you want to teach them. If they do not want it, intrinsically, then sooner or later, you will both be disappointed.
Help people become who they aspire to be, don’t tell them what you think they should know.
Thought-unhooking techniques
How can I unhook from unhelpful thoughts? Learn techniques to distance yourself from negative thoughts and improve your mental well-being.
Thoughts can be helpful. The previous chapter introduced several strategies to help you observe your thoughts. The next step is to identify whether they are useful. When you have a thought, you can ask yourself:
- “Is it an old thought and do I gain anything from listening to it again?”
- “If this thought guides my actions, will those actions improve my life?”
Ask yourself, “if I use this thought for guidance, will it help me to…”
- “be the person I want to be?”
- “do the things I really want to do?”
- “build a better life in the long-term?”
If the answer is “yes,” the thought is helpful. When it is “no,” it is not.
Exercise: unhooking by thanking your mind
Perhaps the simplest way to unhook is to ‘thank our mind.’ Whenever a thought pops up—helpful or not—we can respond with a sense of humour and playfulness. For example, you could think “Thank you, mind! How very informative!” or “Thanks for sharing!” or “Is that right? How fascinating!”
Do not do this in a sarcastic or aggressive way. That can pull you into conflict with your thoughts. We want to do this playfully, with warmth, lightness, and humour.
Exercise: unhooking by playing with text
Bring a thought to mind and let yourself get hooked by it. Then, either visually in your mind, or on an editor on your computer, play around with it. Change the format, space between letters, colours… This too can help distance you from your thoughts; they are merely words composed of letters.
Exercise: unhooking with silly voices
Find a self-critical thought and buy into it as much as you can for about ten seconds. Now, replay that self-judgment but in the voice of someone else. A cartoon character, politician, movie character, singer… Play around with a few different ones as you go. Again, you will find that you are no longer hooked by the thought to the same extent as before.
The techniques described until now can help you learn to unhook from your thoughts. Down the line, you will be able to unhook without the need for such contrived methods. For now, though, play around with the techniques and find one that works particularly well for you. When you do, keep these five things in mind:
- The aim is not to get rid of unpleasant thoughts. The goal is to see them for what they are—words—and drop the struggle with them.
- You will feel better when you unhook from a troublesome thought. But this is a beneficial by-product, not the main goal. Do not expect or desire it.
- You will forget to use the unhooking techniques—many times. And that is okay. Whenever you realise you are hooked, even when this happens much later, you can at that moment still apply the techniques.
- Unhooking will not always work. When it does not, drop anchor: acknowledge your thoughts and feelings, connect with your body, and engage in what you are doing.
- This is not some “quick fix” approach. You will experience profound change as long as you keep practicing consistently. It will, however, require patience and persistence.
Optimal plant soil composition calculator
How can I determine the best soil composition for my plants? This page introduces an Excel tool to calculate optimal soil mixes for various plants.
Different plants from different environments thrive best in different soils. But how can you determine the most suitable soil composition based on those that you own? Blow, I introduce an excel spreadsheet that will help you do exactly that!
Interface
Below, you can see the interface on the first sheet of the workbook. In order for it to work, you will need to trust the file and enable macro’s (this is required for the button’s click-functionality).
You can select either a plant type or, when you are not sure about the plant type, the environment in which it typically grows. Click the checkbox for which option you would like the calculator for work, and use the drop-down under ‘type’ to select your choice.
For example, below, I selected ‘climate/habitat’ for the selection category, and then ‘desert’ for type.
Once you’ve done that, you will see that a graph has appeared in the box on the right. This graph shows your ideal soil composition, considering six criteria:
- the ratio organic/inorganic material,
- the soil aeration (how easily oxygen can make it to the roots),
- water retention capacity (how much water can the soil absorb),
- drainage (how easily water can pass through),
- nutrient content, and
- pH-level.
Except for the organic/inorganic share, where the ratio is a value between 0 and 1, each criterion ranges from low (1) to high (5).
Now, on the left, you see a number of soil components. Using the up and down buttons beside the input cells, you can add or remove ‘one part’ (i.e. one cup, one shovel) of that particular type of soil.
When you do that, you will see another (dashed) line appear in the graph. This line resembles the characteristics of your current soil composition.
By adding and removing parts of soil that you have access to, you can try to get as close to the ‘ideal’ line with your own unique composition.
Taking our ‘desert-type’ example, I see that I can get pretty close to the ideal soil composition by adding equal parts of sand, perlite, and potting soil.
Of course, you may not have perlite available, or you simply find it too expensive. No problem! We see that by replacing one part perlite with another part sand, we get similar results.
You can ‘up’ or ‘down’ the ‘acceptable deviation’ percentage at the bottom of the sheet to increase or decrease the blue area in the graph. This is an handy indicator to determine whether your current soil composition is ‘good enough.’
One important side-note: all the data used in the spreadsheet was provided to me by ChatGPT. While I did not check the data, I haven’t seen any strange suggestions in the results. Nevertheless; use the sheet with caution!
And one last thing: I protected the first worksheet to make sure you do not break it. If you want to change things, you can easily lift the restrictions (I did not use a password to protect it).
That’s it! You can download the calculator via the link below. Have fun planting!
