Viktor Frankl’s book Man’s Search for Meaning is one of the most unique self-help books ever written. It’s not your typical “Ten Steps to Success” guide, and it’s not filled with quick fixes or easy answers. Instead, it’s a guide to living a meaningful life, born out of Frankl’s harrowing experiences as a Holocaust survivor. The book weaves together his personal story and the psychological principles he developed—offering not just inspiration, but a framework for finding purpose in life.
Category: Meditation
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A Year of Living Mindfully
Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t look around once in a while, you could miss it.
—Ferris Bueller
There’s so much going on. My kids are growing up so fast, and I’m desperately trying to keep up with the whirlwind of changes in the world, especially with AI. Like many people, I feel this constant temptation to do more, more, more—thinking that if I can just be a little more productive, I can get ahead of all of this change and find happiness.
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Befriending My Inner Venom
I recently watched the movie Venom and couldn’t help but notice the fascinating psychological dynamic at play—Venom embodies Eddie’s selfish inner self—in Freud’s words, his id. On the surface, it’s a story about a guy being consumed by an alien symbiote. But beneath the humor and the high-octane action lies a deeper exploration of human nature. Venom isn’t just an alien parasite; he’s a metaphor for the inner selfishness inside us—the raw, untamed instincts that often feel unwelcome but are undeniably part of who we are.
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The Case Against Empathy
Paul Bloom’s book, Against Empathy, challenged a core belief of mine: that empathy is inherently good. He writes about how empathy, which feels so natural and kind, sometimes sends us down the wrong path.
Recently, meditation has brought me closer to the world around me. In moments of stillness, I feel in tune with the natural flow, sensing life unfolding nearby. I’ll notice a squirrel darting up a tree or feel a butterfly gently landing on my shoulder. These encounters reveal a hidden beauty in the world that I hadn’t noticed before.
One day, during a particularly quiet moment in the garden, I found myself watching an insect slowly chewing through a leaf, leaving behind a pattern almost like lace. It reminded me of the dying autumn leaves, those vibrant bursts of orange and red signaling the close of summer. I began empathizing with the insect, appreciating not just its role in nature but also the beautiful art it created. I even started to feel guilty about all of the murderous humans destroying them with pesticides.
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A Meditation on Skiing
We just got back from a skiing vacation. Skiing is a bit of a non-intuitive vacation. Why would a person want to spend their hard-earned money and vacation time in a cold, physically punishing environment? For the challenge. The challenge in skiing is commonly thought to be pushing your body to its limits in harsh conditions, but the real challenge is to ignore all of the distractions and mindfully focus on the mountain.
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Making Space for Stimulus and Response
In The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey introduces a concept that has the potential to transform lives. There’s a moment that exists between stimulus and response, offering us the freedom to choose how we react. He makes it seem so easy. But in reality, it’s a split second between what happens to us and how we respond, and catching it feels like trying to grasp the wind. As simple and powerful as Covey makes it sound, tapping into this power is no small feat.
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When a Cigar Is Just a Cigar
This story was inspired by the first episode of Invisibia and written in collaboration with ChatGPT (here’s the link for ChatGPT+ users). It’s about how to take the power out of the negative thoughts in our head.
I’m on a bit of a self-improvement kick these days. Today’s post is about getting rid of those annoying thoughts that pop up and derail you during the day.
Once upon a time, there lived two brothers, John and Steve. John was a television reporter for ABC’s 20/20. Steve was on the faculty of Harvard Medical school. They both had horrible back pain.
They’d searched far and wide for a magical solution to cure their back pain. They tried every contraption and theory supplied by doctors. Unfortunately, nothing helped.
One day John met a shaman (doctor) named John Sarno. John Sarno had a magical cure for back pain. If you just said the magic words and believed them, your back pain would be cured. You had to say:
- There is nothing wrong with my back.
- The pain is all being generated by my head. It’s my brain trying to distract me from the emotional rage that’s I’m feeling based on repressed Freudian memories.
When John woke up the next morning his back pain was cured.
“Steve!” said John, “I have the most amazing news! I found the miracle cure. You just have to say the magic words.”
“John, you know I can’t do that,” said Steve. I’m a doctor and don’t believe in magic. Besides, Freud’s theories on repressed emotions were discredited long ago.”
So John lived happily ever after while Steve stayed in back pain.
(End of fairy tale)
This story is a close adaptation of reporter John Stossel’s segment about John Sarno on 20/20 from 1999. His brother Steve was teaching at Harvard Medical School at the time.
When I first heard the story, I remember thinking that Steve was right. John Sarno was obviously blowing smoke. In the years since then, I’ve realized that it’s not quite so simple.
The basic problem here was that what Sarno said seemed to work even though his theory was tragically flawed. Sarno theory involved Freudian repressed rage — a theory that was discredited a century ago. He was clearly grasping at straws.
But the part that made sense was that the pain wasn’t anatomical. It was coming from your head. This article from Vox does a good job summarizing Sarno. In the article, Cathryn Jakobson Ramin, author of the book Crooked: Outwitting the Back Pain Industry and Getting on the Road to Recovery says, “What he recommended as treatment was essentially cognitive behavioral therapy — elimination of fear avoidant behavior and catastrophizing — before anyone had ever heard of it and it’s exactly what is being used now to treat patients with central sensitization.”
My experience with chronic pain started around 2000. I had horrible wrist pain that wouldn’t go away. Luckily all my doctors told me that I didn’t need surgery. Though they didn’t give me any options of what I should do. Luckily I found Lisa Sattler who is one of the world’s best physical therapists for carpal tunnel. After a year of physical therapy with her, the pain went away.
Though the pain came back, as back pain, a few years later. I found the book Back RX to be very helpful. But as the back pain persisted, I got an X-Ray that showed a bone spur in my hip, “Aha!” I thought, “I’ll have surgery and pain will go away.”
“Not so fast,” said the surgeon. “Why don’t we inject some strong painkiller right into your hip. If the pain goes away we’ll do the surgery. If it doesn’t go away, the surgery won’t help.”
So I went into the doctor’s office and lo and behold, the pain didn’t go away with the painkiller. That got me thinking about Doctor Sarno again. I started to realize that the more stressed I became, the more my back hurt. Also, the pain would move around a lot which doesn’t make a lot of sense from an anatomical perspective. At this point in my life, I still don’t think Sarno’s theory makes sense; however, if I sit down and meditate, I can make most of my soft tissue pains go away.
Note 1 (August 2023): There’s an interesting parallel mechanism for quitting smoking in Allen Carr’s Easy Way to Stop Smoking. It’s a similar placebo pseudoscience that works. There’s a good discussion of this in This American Life’s I Can’t Quit You Baby.
Note 2 (September 2023): David Pogue’s Unsung Science has a very interesting episode on placebos which is spot on for this. The scientists talk about how chronic pain is related to messed up nerve pathways and that placebos can help cure these issues.
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