I liked learning about the 9 types of intelligence based on a theory by Psychologist Howard Gardner. They are: Visual-spatial, Linguistic-verbal, Logical-mathematical, Body-kinesthetic, Musical, Interpersonal, Intrapersonal, Naturalistic, and recently added Existential. Here’s an info-graphic and another chart I found helpful. I know what comes easily to me, but this makes me want to develop the intelligences I struggle with: spatial, logical-mathematical and bodily-kinesthetic. My plan in 2024 is to draw more, build puzzles, and maybe try sculpting. — CD

Morgan Housel compiled a list of ideas “that help explain how the world works.” Here are some examples:

• Compassion Fade — People have more compassion for small groups of victims than larger groups because the smaller the group, the easier it is to identify individual victims.

• Ringelmann Effect — Members of a group become lazier as the size of their group increases. Based on the assumption that “someone else is probably taking care of that.”

• Cobra Effect — Attempting to solve a problem makes that problem worse. Comes from an Indian story about a city infested with snakes offering a bounty for every dead cobra, which caused entrepreneurs to start breeding cobras for slaughter.

—MF

Jane Friedman of Electric Speed recently asked her readers to share their favorite meditation apps and reasons why, and here is the complete list. Calm, Insight Timer and Headspace seem to be most popular. — CD 

Non-Sleep Deep Rest (NSDR), also known as yoga nidra, induces a state of deep relaxation while maintaining consciousness. If you're unable to take a 15-minute nap when you're tired, I find that one of these free 9-minute NSDR tracks has a similar effect. The guided breathing techniques help to slow down my heart rate, and the body scans redirect my focus from external visual information to a sensation of pure rest. — CD

Mind Window is an app developed by researchers at the University of Arizona that gives you insight and data on your thought patterns. Every day I get six prompts at random times to reflect on what I just thinking about. The app generates a word cloud of my thoughts and tracks my mood and what I most commonly focus my attention on. By using the app you consent to participate in their research study. Personal information is stored anonymously and securely, and participants may edit or remove their personal information at any time. I’ve only been using it for 5 days but some things I learned about myself is that my thoughts are split 50/50 between Future focus and Present focus (not Past), and right now my word cloud is made up of: Thinking, Love, Future, Weather, Feeling, Waking, Moment and Energy. — CD

This article is a compilation of advice found in hundreds of self-help bestsellers and boiled to 11 simple rules, which are: 1. Take one small step. 2. Change your mental maps. 3. Struggle is good. Scary is good. 4. Instant judgment is bad. 5. Remember the end of your life. 6. Be playful. 7. Be useful to others. 8. Perfectionism = procrastination. 9. Sleep, exercise, eat, chill out. Repeat. 10. Write it all down. 11. You can't get it all from reading. — Which is just a reminder that everyone needs someone to call them out on their B.S. like a therapist, an accountability buddy or a best friend. — CD

I love walking labyrinths for meditation. I considered buying a portable labyrinth mat but I can’t justify the $600+ price tag. For now, I’m happy with these Finger Labyrinth Travel Cards as a mindfulness “on-the-go” tool. I set an intention to leave my “worry” in the middle, and trace the maze-like path toward the center and back out again. It’s very relaxing. — CD

Girls’ Night In is a newsletter I’ve read for years and they recently solicited advice and learnings from therapy and shared it here: The Best Things We Learned in Therapy (scroll down). In anxious or volatile moments, I like the reminder that "I can't stop the waves, but I can learn how to surf." Or asking yourself, "What are you doing to contribute to your own unhappiness?" — my mind automatically flips the question to, “What can I do in this moment to contribute to my own happiness?” I hope this is a reoccurring feature. — CD

I was a few years into my loosely-disciplined meditation practice when I felt the urge to make hand gestures while sitting. I knew nothing about Mudras or where to even start. Googling it just overwhelmed me. Thankfully, I found my way to this deck of cards called Mudras of Yoga: 72 Hand Gestures for Healing and Spiritual Growth. The instructions and photographs are clear and each card has a description of the technique, application and benefits. It's definitely deepened my experience and I feel more embodied while meditating. — CD 

Mental Supply is a collection of mental health tips specifically for startup founders, but I’m finding them very useful. Here’s one attributed to Gary Keller who wrote The ONE Thing: “Multitasking is often misunderstood as doing multiple tasks at the same time, but it actually refers to task switching. This incurs a time penalty, particularly with complex tasks. To be more efficient, focus on one task at a time.” There’s a lot of helpful advice available here for when you are feeling angry, burnt out, insecure or overwhelmed. — CD

A 20-minute video that looks at 21 kinds of thinking errors. Here’s an example of the Gambler’s Fallacy: “A University of Chicago review found asylum judges were 19% less likely to approve an asylum seeker if they had just approved the previous two. The same person applying for a loan was more likely to get approved for a loan if the previous two applicants were rejected and was more likely to be rejected if the previous two applications were approved.” — MF

This article has some unexpected tips on how to work on improving your memory, like assigning vivid images to things you want to remember and spending 5 minutes before bed reflecting on what happened throughout the day. The one I swear to do more of is to take more pictures on my phone and actually go back and look at them. — CD

Cory Muscara meditated 15 hours a day for 6 months and wrote a list of 36 things he learned. Here’s a few of the insights that stood out to me or made me smile. — CD

• There are 3 layers to a moment: Your experience, your awareness of the experience, and your story about the experience. Be mindful of the story.

• The moment before letting go is often when we grip the hardest.

• There is no set of conditions that leads to lasting happiness. Lasting happiness doesn’t come from conditions; it comes from learning to flow with conditions.

• The more comfortable you become in your own skin, the less you need to manufacture the world around you for comfort.

• Your mind doesn’t wander. It moves toward what it finds most interesting. If you want to focus better, become more curious about what's in front of you.

• You cannot practice non-attachment. You can only show your mind the suffering that attachment creates. When it sees this clearly, it will let go.

• Monks love to fart while they meditate. The wisdom of letting go expresses itself in many forms.

“Any habit needs all its parts in order to function. If some parts are missing, the habit is disassembled.” — Carlos Castaneda

This short insight on the structure of a habit has helped me see my patterns differently. If there is something I want to stop doing, I just remove a “part” or step from the process. Lately, it’s been deleting apps and keeping my phone as far away from me as possible so that using it becomes an inconvenience. — CD

Here’s a visualization to help unblock the creative process by Julian Shapiro. He calls it the “Creativity Faucet”:

Visualize your creativity as a backed-up pipe of water. The first mile is packed with wastewater. This wastewater must be emptied before the clear water arrives. … Let’s apply this to creativity: At the beginning of a writing session, write out every bad idea that unavoidably comes to mind. … Once the bad ideas are emptied, strong ideas begin to arrive.

Here’s his more thorough explanation of why this works. — CD

This visual on “Where Emotions Are Felt in the Body” reminds me to tune in to my own physicality. I recently did a guided meditation on “grief” for the purpose of inducing tears and was surprised to find that I had a painful pressure in my head more-so than my heart that needed to be unblocked. The visual is part of a longer article on ways to release “trapped” emotions, which is worth the read. — CD

Greg Isenberg says he asked 1 billionaire, 1 PHD math professor and 1 99-year-old man what self-reflection questions they asked themselves and then he shared them in a Twitter thread, as a list of questions to make you feel more fulfilled in life, love & career. The ones I’m pondering are:

• What is it that I can think of, read, watch, listen and talk about for hours on end without tiring of it?

• What would this look like if it was fun?

• How do I want my life to be different in one year?

Here’s a great jumping off point to learn about different types and approaches to psychotherapy. I have been hearing from friends about Family Systems Therapy and looked it up here. I also really appreciate this article on The Elements of Good Therapy, which should be empowering, non-pathologizing and collaborative. — CD

I like this visual reminder I came across on Reddit of “What I can control and what I can’t.” It reminds me to celebrate the wins — I no longer reactively say, “You make me feel this.” I used to have to correct myself to say, “When you do this, it makes me feel this.” But after years of practicing, it’s now become second nature to take responsibility for how I feel. — CD

The best advice I ever got on how to trust my gut and intuition was given to me by a psychotherapist years ago. She suggested whenever I have a gut instinct — good or bad — I should first rate the intensity of my emotions from 1 to 10. If they are on the lower end of the spectrum, I’m more inclined to trust my gut. Emotions — like anger, fear or insecurity — are different from Feelings, because they are usually in reaction to something external and feel like a laser that you want to point at people or things. Feelings — like profound sadness and love — are more of a state of being, and Intuition is an inner knowing. So whenever I have to distinguish one from the other, I first start by rating my emotions. — CD