How Do You Become a Frog in Hot Water?

I once heard that if you put a frog in a pan of water, put the pan on the stove, and gradually turn up the heat under the pan, the frog would acclimate to the warm water, continue to get used to it as the water becomes increasingly hot, and would remain in the pan

9 Feb, 2015
Posted by Steve Fogel
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Pause Your Machinery: Organizing and Guiding Principles

Stop and take a moment to “pause your machinery.” The concepts and techniques I present throughout my latest book, Your Mind Is What Your Brain Does for a Living, require mindfulness to learn and master, and this brief written exercise will give you the opportunity to rest, step outside the pattern of passive reading, and

5 Feb, 2015
Posted by Steve Fogel
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Some Final Guiding Principles

We can put our bad feelings into others just as they can put theirs into us. This Guiding Principle reminds me that people often dump their problems onto one another. It reminds me to not allow other people to put their bad feelings into me so that I’m stuck with them. I first learned this

2 Feb, 2015
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Guiding Principle: Don’t Live with Familiar Pain out of Fear of Awkward Pain

Don’t live with familiar pain out of fear of awkward pain. This Guiding Principle reminds me that it’s self-defeating to stay in a bad situation, repeating old painful behavior patterns just because I’m afraid of what might happen if I leave it and start anew. It reminds me not to stay in my personal prison

29 Jan, 2015
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Still More Guiding Principles

Every time something new happens, I go back to my old ways. This Guiding Principle reminds me that when I experience a situation in the present that my mind interprets as similar to a past situation, my amygdala will generally kidnap my common sense and cue me with my old default programming. Remembering that every

26 Jan, 2015
Posted by Steve Fogel
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