Here are the most recent Wisdom Pages I prepared for myself as an example to help you create your own exoskeleton to support your practice of mindful awareness.

My Wisdom Pages

• We are reaction machines. We cannot not react; it is how we are designed. The choice we have is how we relate to what is happen­ing, whether we will react on automatic pilot or respond mindfully.
• When you’re on automatic pilot, the brain will do what is famil­iar even when it is useless or destructive.
• The first step toward enlightenment is recognizing that the voice in your head is not you.
• Trauma affects the brain by embedding the belief that there is no world outside its traumatized universe.
• My core issues are abandonment and attachment issues.
• My childhood trauma frightened me into keeping away from my painful feelings.
• When I’m on automatic pilot, my default programming uses thinking to push feelings away and it covers them with anxiety.
• Being anxious or numb is a signal that I’m being run by my default programming. If I feel anxious, I must remind myself to simply breathe.
• Put the past in the past. Create a future to live into or else I will just relive the past!
• Life is filled with possibility.
• The positive future you are living into gives you a positive feel­ing in the present.
• Conversations about possibility are Kryptonite for the default programming.
• Possibility has no shelf life. Act mindfully to create possibility today!
• Honor myself by being fully self-expressed.
• It’s all about choosing. Choosing means mindfully figuring out what you want and then choosing it with 100 percent of your­self. When you choose, you live passionately!
• Feelings take priority. Don’t use thoughts to push away feelings.
• Defenses serve just one purpose: to block feelings. The defense of denial is my worst enemy. Ruminating on an issue is also a defense; it inhibits growth by keeping you in the loop of your default programming.
• I need to parent myself better. I’ve been punishing myself with guilt that turns into anxiety and creates isolation for having feelings of rage toward Mom and Dad. Instead, I should see the anxiety for what it is: a product of this guilt. Remember, these murderous feelings are not a crime. They are my legiti­mate response to how I was treated! And now it is the present, and if I am mindfully aware, I can feel my anger about the past and resolve it and parent myself mindfully in the present.
• Experience joy by allowing yourself to actually feel Let it fill you up; bring it to every cell of your body.
• Focus on gratitude. Do the gratitude exercise every day.
• Comfort comes from facing feelings directly. Putting intellect ahead of emotional experience prevents calming and soothing yourself. Look within to your deepest and very important feelings.
• Pain and suffering are better than being in a state of anesthetization.
• Embrace my own sadness instead of pushing it away.
• Whenever I’m fearless, I’m at my best, and fearless means that I acknowledge my fears and then act anyway!
• When I’m desperate, I’ve lost all my power.
• Be like a strong tree in the forest that doesn’t need anyone. If you don’t need people, the people who are in your life are people you choose to be there.
• Love is simply acceptance—accepting the way someone is and the way someone is not.
• My mother’s eyes toward me as a child were ignoring, neglectful, and dismissive, and I’ve unconsciously done the same to myself and others. It’s essential that I start noticing this unconscious, self-destructive attitude toward myself and other people. Stop simply going through the motions in my important relationships and truly care about myself and others.
• I have difficulty having compassion for others if they are angry with me or want something from me. Practice expanding my capacity for real heartfelt compassion.
• When I’m not mindful, I’m not authentic in my relationships because everything I do is to keep the relationships safe, alive, so as not to have people mad at me. My answer to creating bet­ter relationships is to recognize that relationships simply are and that I don’t have to suppress my feelings and self-expression for them. Just be and let everyone else be.
• Get clear about what I want; choose, take a stand, commit, and don’t sell out to my machinery.
• Give myself permission to feel angry when anger is the appro­priate response to how someone is acting toward me.
• My default programming equates disappointing someone with harming them. This is false. If I act on this false belief I’m not honoring myself because I don’t feel I have the right to do what I want or to receive what I want.
• You don’t need to “deserve” or be “entitled to” to want what you want.
• It’s all right to say “no.” Three statements will always allow me to mindfully respond to requests I want to say “no” to:
  • I don’t want to.
  • I don’t feel like it.
  • It’s my life.
• You cannot solve internal issues by external means. You can’t look to material things or other people to raise your self-esteem.
• I can only change myself. I can’t fix or change others. It’s not my responsibility or my ability.
• I go back and forth from adult to child. Stop this by being in the moment, with fresh eyes, and no automatics.
• I get caught up in my own stuff when I’m on automatic pilot, which frustrates others who feel I don’t care about them and causes them to turn off on me—and I don’t have a clue that they have done it or why.
• Don’t avoid conflict; that leads to going dead/numb. Relation­ships thrive because people take risks and face important feel­ings. Strive for full self-expression as the door to authenticity, integrity, and fulfillment.
• Feelings aren’t facts. Listen mindfully, feel your feelings, and speak mindfully, without judgment, without shaming and blaming.
• You can’t argue with another person’s perceptions.
• You get what you want by enrolling the other person in your point of view by sharing yourself and the possibilities you see in a way that inspires!
• Play everything in life with the love of the game!
• As Eleanor Roosevelt said, “Do one thing every day that scares you.” Do random acts of kindness and regular acts of courage.
• All the insights and life lessons in the world have no value unless you act on what you’ve learned and start using mindfulness to change your behavior.

An excerpt from my recent book, Your Mind Is What Your Brain Does for a Living, now available at Amazon.