Here is a tip from the r/Meditation subreddit. To block out your internal monologue practice expanding your peripheral vision. User taemoo further explained this tactic: “The trick is to keep your vision as “open” as possible, not to focus on anything unless it’s necessary for a specific task ….” and shared a YouTube video titled: Meditation - Returning Your Eyes to the Natural State, where Meditation teacher Loch Kelly walks you through this exercise. When I practice this an instant calmness washes over me. I feel like I just discovered a new superpower. — CD

Researchers at UC San Diego created a 7-question survey that can determine your level of wisdom called the Jeste-Thomas Wisdom Index. You can take the 5-minute test here. The questions relate to 7 components of wisdom: Acceptance of Divergent Perspectives, Decisiveness, Emotional Regulation, Pro-Social Behaviors, Self-Reflection, Social Advising and Spirituality. Wisdom scores range from 1-5 with a score of 3 being considered neutral. My highest score was a 5 in Spirituality and my lowest score was 3.75 in Social Advising, which is kind of ironic because this is a recommendation. I posted my scores here. — CD

Here is a case for talking to yourself more often. Ethan Kross, experimental psychologist and neuroscientist, suggests that a key strategy for controlling negative thought loops and ruminating is “distanced self-talk” — talking to youself as if you were another person. This involves calling yourself by name and using non-first pronouns like “you”. This interview on Nauti.lus goes further into the technique. I like to talk to myself out loud while I’m driving alone. It’s a sacred time when I get to ask myself questions, spew out my fragmented thinking and work problems out. I feel confident and safe doing this in the car, because no one can hear me and if anyone sees me they’ll just assume I’m on the phone. — CD

The Cognitive Bias Codex is a radial diagram of 188 cognitive biases listed on Wikipedia. They are grouped into categories and each bias links to it’s own Wikipedia page where you can learn more. I discovered this through one of my favorite newsletters Sloww Sunday— which is always insightful. — CD

I’ve been using this Divergent Association Task to measure my verbal creativity. It takes less than 2 minutes and involves thinking of 10 words that are as different from each other as possible. The test was designed by a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard, and according to the study — which involved 9,000 participants all over the world — people who are more creative generate words that have greater distances between them. You can choose to participate in the study anonymously or not. I’ve been taking the test everyday to try to beat my own score. — CD

Here is some great advice on how to find the right therapist. One of the first steps is to figure out what kind of therapeutic framework you need. When I first started therapy I had anxiety that sometimes resulted in panic attacks. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy taught me how to redirect a thought so that it doesn’t create overwhelming feelings that would affect my behavior. Now, 8 years later, I have a person-centered therapist that I talk to about all aspects of my life. Each session feels like I’m catching up with my very insightful and intelligent friend who I can vent to and ask for advice. I always tell my friends that you are allowed to break up with your therapist if the fit isn’t right. I saw three therapists before I found my most recent one, who I’ve been seeing for three years now. Finding the “right therapist” feels like you’ve acquired a super power. — CD

I love this concept of the 2-way-door rule in Inc.com’s article “Why Emotionally Intelligent People Embrace the 2-Way-Door Rule to Make Better and Faster Decisions” (possibly behind a paywall). We avoid making decisions because we tend to think most are one-way door decisions, meaning irreversible because the door swings only one way, like quitting your job. In reality, most decisions are two-way door decisions where the door swings both ways, so if you step through and don’t like what you see, you can always turn around and go back through. Once you recognize this difference, you’ll find you actually seek out opportunities to make more decisions! — CD

Grief Deck is a free visual resource for grief support. All the cards were made by artists or caregivers or someone who has lost someone. Anyone can contribute if you have something to say about processing loss. You scroll seemingly endlessly for an image card that resonates with you, when you click on it, it flips to deliver a prompt or meditation to focus on and let your feelings arise. Grief has never been something I expect to go away, but it is something I learned to coexist with. The best advice I ever received regarding grief was to schedule it — daily if you need to. For a month, I would hold in my tears until I was alone and then I would cry until I was exhausted. After a month, it became less and less, but I never stop making space for it. Here is the card I contributed to Grief Deck, inspired by my father-in-law who we lost last year. — CD

The After Life Experience is an interactive website that will walk you through the process of figuring out which memory from your life to date you would choose to spend eternity reliving. The “Facilitation” process will ask you a series of questions like, “When was a moment you felt your most authentic self?” or “on a brilliant adventure?” or “in awe of something so much bigger than you?” or “knew you were in love?” and on and on until you’ve decided on your forever memory. You can then choose to record it and share it on the website. I spent thirty minutes listening to a stream of stranger’s share the moments in which they chose to spend eternity. I cried a lot. There was a woman who lost her son seconds after giving birth and spent the night holding him in a hospital bed. She said it was her event horizon and in that moment there was no past or future. This was the moment she realized that the question of “Where do we go to when we die?” is actually the same question as “Where were we before we came into being?” — CD

This is the best thing I’ve read on the best ways to help a friend who is depressed (or yourself). It’s slightly counterintuitive, and a quick read. Thanks, Noah Smith, for this evergreen memo: A Few Thoughts on Depression. — KK

Here is a positive visual that shows you ways to stop worrying about what other people think. My favorite tactic is to “Remember that people aren’t that interested in you.” If I ever hesitate sharing something I wrote or created, I just tell myself “No one cares.” It’s so freeing! — CD

If you would like to do something considerate for your partner pay attention to what they put off doing, according to this r/LifeProTips post, “LPT: Do the thing your partner procrastinates doing…” My husband and I are in the habit of asking each other “Is there anything I can do for you today?” But we both usually reply with “No” or “Nothing.” This week he surprised me by retouching the paint in my home office and it inspired me to do something in return. I noticed he hadn’t gotten around to ordering his mother flowers for Sunday, so I went ahead and checked it off his list! — CD

I found a new personality test to be more useful than others I have taken. PrinciplesYou is produced by two popular life-coaches, Ray Dalio and Adam Grant. The free online test is long; it took me 20 minutes to complete. (Be sure to register first in order to save your results.) It then supplies you with a group of archetypes, and judging by the results of all my family and friends who took it, it’s pretty accurate. But the real joy is in sharing your results with others. The site will offer advice to both sides of how they might improve their communication, collaboration, and relationships given the two archetypes. This is actually useful. And fun. We’ve had many long boisterous dinner discussions about the results. — KK

Here is a cutely animated video that shows you the difference between empathy and sympathy and is narrated by Brené Brown. The four qualities of empathy are: 1) Perspective taking. 2) Staying out of judgement. 3). Recognizing emotion in another person. 4) And then communicating that you recognize their emotion. She says, rarely does an empathic response begin with the word “At least.” — CD

In this Extraordinary Routine interview, Designer/Adventurer Frankie Ratford talks a little bit about how she came to design her life by imagining her future daily routine and realizing that a desk had no part of it. This got me thinking about how I do the same thing subconsciously by daydreaming and how often daydreams I’ve had seem to manifest in to my real life. And since there is power in intention, I think this would be a great practice to adopt. Think of it as a mental Pinterest board and pin up all the qualities you want your future life to have. — CD

Here’s a great list of 100+ hacks for boosting your “happiness chemicals” like dopamine, oxytocin, endorphins and serotonin. The ones I’m most drawn to trying out are: Practicing a power-pose to boost physical and mental confidence. Taking a cold shower to boost adrenaline. And sitting in the sun to boost mental health during the winter. My chocolate lab Pablo sits in the sun everyday, so he must be on to something. Pablo also does the best job of keeping my oxytocin levels high. — CD

I just discovered this interactive (and empathic) tool that will walk you through how to apologize. It also helps you understand the difference between intent and impact and the different ways you can make amends — direct, indirect or by example. It’s not designed to make you feel better about yourself, but instead is a useful practice in accountability. — CD

Illustrator Kim Lam shared a phrase worth knowing in Dense Discovery that deserves to be reshared. “Question your tea spoons” is an expression coined by french writer Georges Perec that challenges you to question the habitual and to give “tongues” to the ordinary things. — CD

This free tool/test from Clearer Thinking helps you learn what beliefs and principles are most valuable to you. These “intrinsic values” are things you would still value even if you got nothing back from it. I learned my values align more with Libertarian philosophy, and compared to the United States, my values are somewhat more like those of people in Sweden. — CD

Practicing self-care doesn’t just involve meditation or pampering yourself or journaling. This is a great visual that breaks down the different types of self-care for each aspect of your life (physical, emotional, social, financial, etc.). — CD