5 Steps to Stop Thinking About the Past (in a Healthy Way)

5 Steps to Stop Thinking About the Past (in a Healthy Way)

Our mind is a wonderful thing—except when it’s out of control, replaying painful, embarrassing, or shameful events from our past. Rumination isn’t just unpleasant, though. It retraumatizes us and reinforces negative beliefs (even though our mind is actually trying to help!).

Here’s a five-step approach to healing and growing where necessary, so you can stop dwelling on the past and start charting a new path forward.

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How to Deal with Crisis and Difficult Times

How to Deal with Crisis and Difficult Times

Crises come in all different magnitudes, but they’re all anxiety-provoking, and that usually causes people to avoid them or tune out the pain and difficulty they bring.

But when you do that, you’re turning a blind eye to a beautiful and miraculous process. Difficult times are a prerequisite for growth, and crises are the signs of a life fully lived.

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How to Stop Procrastination the Creative Way

How to Stop Procrastination the Creative Way

Procrastination is often deemed a problem with focus, willpower, or self-doubt, but that’s not the whole story. Also, simply making more effort isn’t necessarily the best approach for dealing with it.

Recent research identifies a connection between procrastination and your imagination, and points to a fresh way of getting unstuck and feeling inspired to take action right now. Here I walk you through the steps for doing just that, which have proven helpful for me and my clients.

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Three Things You Can Do to Stop Being Haunted by Regret

Three Things You Can Do to Stop Being Haunted by Regret

Regret is your mind's way of keeping you from repeating mistakes, but when it hangs around it can do more harm than good. Here I cover how your mind lays the groundwork for regret and how you can nip it in the bud. 

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"Everything Happens for a Reason": The Fact and Fiction Behind the Cliché

"Everything Happens for a Reason": The Fact and Fiction Behind the Cliché

For some people, it’s a matter of faith that every cloud has a silver lining. However, making meaning from difficulties is a very human, personal process that often requires effort, and not just blind faith.

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Finding Meaning in Everyday Life . . . Where You Least Expect It

Finding Meaning in Everyday Life . . . Where You Least Expect It

I gave a lecture series aboard a cruise ship, helping people find meaning and purpose in their daily lives. Before the trip was over, I’d have found a source of meaning just for me, lying on a remote beach, waiting for me to discover it.

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Five Ways to Navigate Life Transitions Successfully

Five Ways to Navigate Life Transitions Successfully

Change is headed your way, whether you like it—and whether you see it coming—or not. Here are five ways to handle life transitions like a pro, and come out the other side stronger and happier.

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How to Make Room For the Sublime in Your Life

How to Make Room For the Sublime in Your Life

If you've ever been awestruck by something you witnessed, and saw the world in a new way afterward, then you've experienced the aesthetically sublime. Turns out, the conditions you need for those experiences happen to be similar to those for a sublime life. 

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Enjoying Uncertainty: How to Convert Your Fear to Suspense, Part Two

Enjoying Uncertainty: How to Convert Your Fear to Suspense, Part Two

In Part One we covered that suspense is a gratifying variation on fear. Now, we dive into four critical differences between the two, and how to start enjoying more of the uncertainty that life brings your way. 

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Enjoying Uncertainty: How to Convert Your Fear to Suspense, Part One

Enjoying Uncertainty: How to Convert Your Fear to Suspense, Part One

Facing the unknown in your life can be scary. But fear, mixed with delight and hope, produces enjoyable suspense. Here's how to start converting one to the other, so you can enjoy your cliffhanger moments.

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