PsycHacks

Episode 177: The force of revenge

Revenge can be a very powerful force, if utilized in the service of growth and self-development. Most high-achieving individuals (at least initially) manage to yoke their wills to the force of revenge in order to accelerate their progress. That said, while revenge is a useful first-stage fuel, it becomes increasingly problematic the longer it burns. Consequently, it's essential that you find a more positive force to link with after achieving escape velocity.

#revenge #achievement #motivation

Episode 176: The truth about rejection

Because the universe lives closed, we are all going to experience far more rejection than acceptance across our lifespans. So the sooner we can disabuse ourselves of certain illusions concerning rejection, the better. In this episode, I discuss these illusions, which I call the three Ps, namely: rejection is painful, personal, and permanent. The goal is to eventually see rejection as a form of feedback that may contain information on how to move closer to our objectives.

#rejection #confidence #acceptance

 

Episode 175: The gift of your absence: The threshold of tolerance

It can happen that, in the course of our relationship, we find ourselves the object of another person's disrespect or negativity. The question that passes through most reasonable people's minds is: "how much is enough?" I have a simple rule of thumb to answer this question. I call it the "stranger on a bus" rule. Basically, anyone in my life has to treat me at least as well as they would treat a stranger on a bus. Otherwise, they're subject to losing the privilege of my company.

#tolerance #relationships #selfrespect

Episode 174: The concept of love-food

"Love-food" is a term I coined to represent the experience of being held emotionally by another. It's important to the emotional well-being of all people, and essential to the development of children. Every family is like a little ecosystem, and within each family is a limited supply of love-food. Through unconscious reinforcement contingencies, parents influence children to occupy different niches within the family ecosystem that maximize their respective access to love-food. I explain more in this episode.

 

#family #siblings #lovefood

Episode 173: Too short to suck

Back when I was in a dance-theatre company, we had a rule of thumb when it came to our shows. Anything that we created had to be "too short to suck." Those who liked our work would want more, and those who didn't would feel relieved we hadn't wasted more of their time. This is an excellent guideline to follow when creating content. You don't have to prove yourself by giving more than is necessary.

#creator #brevity #nofail

Episode 172: Three steps to becoming more confident

My definition of "confidence" is the consistent, felt experience of success. And this definition contains the blueprint to achieving authentic confidence. The first step is being able to do the thing. The second step is being able to do the thing consistently. And the third step is allowing that consistent success to impact you emotionally. I discuss more in this episode.

#confidence #success #competence

Episode 171: How to let go of someone

Letting go is an emotional survival technique that everyone should learn. The paradox of heartbreak is that the negative emotions cause you to emotionally clench around the memory of the lost object. And you cannot let go of something that you are simultaneously clinging to. So the trick to letting go depends on cultivating gentle, positive emotions relative to the lost object, which allow you to relax and release. I'll explain more in this episode.

#lettinggo #heartbreak #release

Episode 170: Ignorance and intelligence

In the course of life, we often find ourselves in the place of the learner. This could be because we're starting a new course of study, or because we're entering into a new level of mastery. In these moments, ignorance feels close to us, and we're more aware than usual of the extent of our knowledge. Unfortunately, some of us have a tendency to overextend this ignorance into judgments about our intelligence. In this episode, I'll discuss why this doesn't make sense.

 

#learning #knowledge #intelligence

Episode 169: To be loved you must allow yourself to be known

By the time we're full adults, many of us have been hurt by relationships. To protect against future hurts, many of these folks build protective armor around their hearts to prevent others from accessing certain aspects of self. Unfortunately, this behavior is counterproductive. We can only love to the depth of our understanding. By preventing opportunities to be known, such people functionally make it impossible for them to be loved. I'll discuss more in this episode.

 

#love #relationships #knowledge

Episode 168: The nature of evil in games

In a previous episode, I defined a game as anything with rules and a goal. A goal with no rules tends toward destructive chaos, and rules with no goal tend toward restrictive control. One without the other is death; both together is life. Therefore, one of the purposes of any game is to create and maintain the conditions that allow play to continue. This furthers life and is "good." Anything that seeks to end the game is opposed to life and is "evil." In this episode, I'll reveal the seed of human evil, and how to counteract its influence.

 

#good #game #life