No matter what time of year it is, stress will likely be a part of it. A little stress is good, it fuels motivation, but there’s a tipping point where it starts to have diminishing returns. When that higher level of stress hits, if it’s left unchecked it can lead to anxiety, depression, chronic pain, addictive behaviors, you name it. Today I want to give you something that you can BET on anywhere, anytime to help turn the volume down on the chaotic mind and bring you back into balance.

I’m a big fan of things that are short and sweet. Something I can remember that can help me in a pinch.

Here’s a short acronym that you can BET on throughout the day:

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Thomas Merton was a Trappist (Catholic) monk who spoke these words a couple hours before his final breath:

“Compassion is based on a keen awareness of the interdependence of all these living beings, which are all part of one another, and all involved in one another.”

I’ve made it a practice to be interested in what people say toward the end of life. I think at that point, people often come to a space of presence and clarity that I’ve called The Now Effect. This isn’t a special moment of wisdom that is reserved for our deathbeds, it’s something we all glean at some point or another and yet at the same time it is a skill that can be cultivated.

Merton’s quote strikes at the fundamental delusion that underscores much of our dis-ease.

We walk around life with this belief that we are somehow separate from one another and this growing feeling of disconnection leads to a state of imbalance. When we’re mentally imbalanced it’s a lot easier for our buttons to get pushed sending us into states of stress, anxiety, depression and addictive behaviors.

What would be different if we flipped it around and we walked around day to day with a fundamental belief that we are all connected, that there’s an interdependence of all being and that my actions reverberate in an interconnected web that cause ripple effects?

Maybe we wouldn’t be so quick to judge others. Or maybe we’d be more likely to help out other people or beings in this world. What would your life be like if there was more of that sentiment in it? What would the world be like if more people believed that?

Here is a truly worthwhile endeavor to practice today:

Almost 15 years ago Saundra Adam’s grandson, Chancellor Lee Adams came into her life in the most heart-wrenching way. One night in 1999 after the past NFL player Rae Carruth and Cherica Adams went to a movie they got into separate cars to drive back to Cherica’s house. As Cherica parked another car drove beside her revealing a gun and fired a number of rounds into Cherica. At the time Cherica was in her third trimester with Chancellor and had enough energy to dial 911 and implicate Rae in the shooting. The paramedics got to Cherica in time to save her son’s life and performed an emergency c-section. Because of Cherica’s death, Chancellor had been oxygen-deprived and would spend the rest of his life with severe disabilities unable to feed and change himself.

But Saundra, his grandmother who inherited him tells this a different way.

How we start the morning often sets the stage for how the rest of the day unfolds. Of course life throws us curve balls in the middle of the day, maybe you get a stressful email or someone rear ends you with their car or you lost that deal that you were looking forward to. Anything can happen in the present moment, but how we start our day can often affect how we greet those challenges.

Here are four tips to start your day that will help you with the inevitable ups and downs that you get handed.

Whether this is your first time you’re coming here or you’ve been around for the almost four years I’ve been writing The Mindfulness and Psychotherapy column, I want to share a personal moment of gratitude and say “Thank You” for being a part of this community. This was a big year for this column,  it will become 4 years old and is also the year that The Now Effect and Mindfulness Meditations for the Anxious Traveler hit bookshelves. Now it’s my turn to give you some gifts of my favorite Top 10 posts of the year. In these posts you’ll read about the power of mindfulness, the importance of self-compassion in healing, the upside to embracing dark emotions, how to be alone, why multitasking is ineffective, many short practices and much more.

May they bring you a sense of insight, ease, peace and freedom. Enjoy!

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I was recently at a funeral of a family member and I was struck once again at the truth behind how life simply boils down to the goodness of a person. People at funerals don’t talk as much about the level of wealth, power or fame someone achieved, but more about who they loved and how they loved, and the rest of it just seems to fall by the wayside. This particular funeral was for a woman named Margie Lipman who also wrote an “Ethical Will” to convey what she learned in her 98 years to the rest of us. She shared this gift with me and because of its inherent wisdom I’d like to share it with you.

Here it is…

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I received the following Daily Now Moment in my inbox today:

“It is not enough to be compassionate. You must act.” ~ Dalai Lama

Take some action with compassion today and remember, we are more connected than we know so a small gesture can have ripple effects across a multitude of people.

The recent post “The Science Behind Why Everything We Do Matters” received widespread attention and there’s a reason for this.

On the deepest level, we all want to believe that what we do matters and in fact it does. There’s actual science that shows how our acts have ripple effects across many people.

When people are experiencing compassion, the act of putting ourselves in another’s shoes with the inclination to help in some way, it’s associated with feeling good. There’s a shift in activity to the left prefrontal cortex which is also associated with a host of other positive emotions.

Cultivating the skill of compassion is beneficial to us individually, but as the Dalai Lama says, that’s not enough, “You must act.”

Here’s how you can start acting on your compassion: 

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If there are two things we can count on in life besides death and taxes, it’s stress and pain. Stress and pain often manifest as difficult emotions such as sadness, anger, fear, shame, and guilt, among others. When these emotions come up the brain says, “Yikes, how do we fix this” and looks to the past to anticipate the future. Jerry Duvinsky, Ph.D is a Psychologist who wrote a recent book called How To Lose Control And Gain Emotional Freedom: Embracing the “Dark” Emotions Through Integrative Mindful Exposure, based on how to work with these challenging feelings that visit us day in and day out.

In the book he says:

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Many of us grew up reading Dr. Seuss. If you have kids, you’ve likely relived your childhood reading over his books only to find, “Wow, there’s some real wisdom in these books.” One book that has grown on me over time as an adult is Oh, the Places You’ll Go! It brings you through all the experiences in life: the triumphs, the doubts, the confusions, the depressions, the fearful moments and the moments you stare your difficulties in the face and overcome them.

There are also several other notable books: Yertle the Turtle, Horton Hears a Who, The Lorax. The list is endless.

Here are 7 Life Lessons from Dr. Seuss:

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Today the Daily Now Moment I received was titled “Compausion”&  said:

“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.”

~ Dalai Lama

Compassion is being able to step into someone else’s shoes and inclining the mind toward wanting to help. Try bringing compassion to yourself or to another today, or revisit the week of compassion in earlier Daily Now Moments.

Bring this into your life and see what you notice.

“Compausion” is a play on words to describe the process of developing compassion. It involves first pausing and then inclining our hearts either toward ourselves or another. This is an essential approach to healing whether the struggle is with stress, anxiety, depression, relationships, trauma, addiction, parenting, grief, or simply to be a better human being.