Come to Center. |
|
Quick note: If you've struggled with feeling secure in your relationships, I hope you'll join me for a 5-week series starting this Saturday on Healing Insecure Attachment. (And you can save 20% when you register by Friday.) |
|
I’m old enough to remember a time when people usually answered “good” when you asked them the standard, “How are you?” (often said “harya?”). These days the answer is commonly “busy.”
I know what it feels like to get very busy and start to feel dispersed: juggling a dozen priorities at any moment, attention skittering from one thing to another, body revved up, feeling stretched thin and spread out like being squished between two sheets of glass.
You know the feeling? Besides being both unpleasant and a spigot of stress hormones, it’s weirdly contagious. Spreading from one person to another and fueled in part by the underlying economics of consumerism, we now have a Western and especially American culture of busyness. If you’re not busy, you must not be important. If you don’t have a lot on your mind, you must be under-performing. If your kids aren’t busy with homework and after-school activities, they won’t get ahead. If you don’t look busy, someone will ask you to work harder. Etc.
Enough already. Instead of being scattered to the four winds, collect and concentrate your mind and energy. Besides feeling a lot better, it’s more effective in the long run. For example, what does an Olympic gymnast do before launching a tumbling run or a rocket before heading into space? Come to center. |
So, how do you do it? |
Savor Pleasure
As the brain evolved, pleasure and its underlying endorphins and other natural opioids developed to pull our ancestors out of disturbed fight-flight-freeze bursts of stress and return them and keep them in a sustainable equilibrium of recover-replenish-repair. Let physical or mental pleasure really land; give yourself over to it fully rather than looking for the next thing.
Move
Dance, exercise, yoga, walks, lovemaking, play, and athletics reset the body-mind. For me personally, movement at either end of the intensity spectrum – very subtle or very vigorous – has the most impact.
Get Wild
We evolved in nature, and multiple studies are showing that natural settings – the beach, wilderness, sitting under a tree in your back yard – are restorative.
Enjoy Art
By this I mean making or experiencing anything aesthetic, such as doing crafts, listening to music, watching a play, trying a new recipe, playing your guitar, building a fence, or taking a pottery class.
Feel the Core
Most of the inputs into your brain originate within your own body, and most if not all of those signals are like night watchmen calling, “All is well. All is well. All is well . . .” Feeling into your breathing, sensing into your innards, and noticing that you are alright right now are endlessly renewing opportunities to settle into the physical center of your being.
Be Now
The center of time is always this moment. A primary difference between humans and other species (with the possible exception of cetaceans) is our capacity for “mental time travel.” But this blessing is also in some ways a curse in that the mind keeps dispersing itself into the past and the future; it proliferates worries, plans, rehashings, and fantasies like manic vines in a speeded-up jungle. Instead, right now be now. And again.
Get Disenchanted
This means waking up from the spell, from the enchantments woven by the wanting mind in concert with culture and commerce. We normally pursue hundreds of little goals each day – return this call, organize that event, produce these emails, get across those points – associated with presumed rewards produced by ancient brain centers to motivate our reptilian and mammalian ancestors. Let the truth land that these rewards are rarely as good as promised. Again and again, I’ve had to remind myself to quit chasing the brass ring. While staying engaged with life, return to the reliable rewards of feeling already full – the undoing of the craving, broadly defined, that creates suffering and harm. Try a little practice on first waking or at other times in which you take a few seconds or longer to feel already peaceful, already contented, and already loved. This is the home base of the body, brain, and mind.
Come home to center. |
| Read This Online |
|
Share on Facebook | Forward this Email |
|
|
|
|
|
|
MORE GOOD STUFF |
|
|
 |
Free Online Conference:
Young Guys Thrive
From an early age, boys absorb unspoken rules about emotion, strength, and belonging. Many learn that vulnerability is weakness and connection must be earned through performance or control. Over time, these patterns harden. What starts as emotional constriction often manifests later as anger, withdrawal, or despair.
Join this free online conference that equips parents, educators, and mentors with practical tools for young men to master relationship skills and navigate life with a clear sense of purpose.
Check it out here
|
|
|
SCIENCE NEWS: People Cooperate More than You Might Think
Most people around the world actually choose to cooperate, even when it pays less than acting selfishly, but they wrongly assume others are less cooperative than they really are.
(View the Science News Archive)
|
|
|
FOR PARENTS: Empathy: A Key Relationship Skill
Empathy is not agreement or approval. It is simply understanding, the intuitive sensing of another person’s underlying feelings, wants, and psychological dynamics – looking at the world from behind the other’s eyes - and is the expression of four basic skills.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
NEW BOOK AVAILABLE FOR PREORDER |
A Happy, Healthy Mom |
 |
|
We wrote this book for moms who feel exhausted, overwhelmed, or stretched too thin during the early years of raising a child. My wife Jan (a nutrition expert), friend Ricki Pollycove (a gynecologist-obstetrician), and I hope this will help moms reconnect to their own needs, restore their energy, reduce stress, and feel more supported — physically and emotionally. If you're a mom - or know one who could use some more support, I hope you'll check it out!
|
| Preorder Your Copy |
|
|
|
|
|
|
NEW ON THE PODCAST |
|
|
|
EPISODE 476:
Dr. Rick and Forrest discuss why conflict is so difficult, the models of conflict we inherit from childhood, what healthy conflict and repair look like, what emotional flooding does to the brain and body during a fight, and the research on what actually predicts relationship success. |
|
> Listen Now |
|
|
|
|
JUST ONE THING (JOT) suggests a simple practice each week for more joy, more fulfilling relationships, and more peace of mind. A small thing repeated routinely adds up over time to produce big results.
Just one thing that could change your life.
(© Rick Hanson, 2026) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
