Kim's blog

-A large body of research shows that when there is too great a fusion between one's identity and their pursuit, then anxiety, depression, and burnout frequently result.-If we want to survive and thrive during ongoing cycles of change and disorder, then we, too, can benefit from developing our own versions of complexity.

-The sport might make up a significant part of his identity, but is could not comprise its entirety.-Ironically, rather than curtailing his performance on the ice, these other activities thrust him forward."When the training wasn't going great, perhaps something else in life did and that cheered me up."-Perhaps the greatest advantage of van der Poel's fluid identity is that he became less fragil..

-First, it shifts patients' expectations around pain from something to be avoided and cured to something to manage. Second, it teaches patients to lessen their resistance.-The more you pull back and withdraw, which is its own form of resistance, the worse off you'll be. The crucial work is updating your expectations and confronting reality, even if doing so feels difficult and uncomfortable at f..

-Pain is a warning signal from your brain that you are afraid of injuring yourself.-The goal is not to eliminate pain and other symptoms but rather to help patients face their pain and discomfort more skillfully so they can live fulfilling lives, and in doing so, minimize their overall suffering.-This is not to say that pain isn't real and cannot be debilitating. It is simply to say that many pe..

-The more you resist your pain, the exponentially worse your suffering becomes.The ultimate goal of the program is not to eliminate patient's pain, but rather to eliminate the overwhelming desire of patients to eliminate their pain.This starts with helping patients taper off opioids and other medications and ends with them learning to update their expectations about pain and to accept that some ..

-Facing it is challenging, but the alternative- doing nothing, be it because of willful blindness or despair- is undoubtedly worse. If we are to have any chance at improving a broken world, we must not become broken people.-What makes wise hope and wise action so hard, then, is that they make us vulnerable to further loss and pain if things don't go our way. They force us to put our skin in the ..

-They found that the more resilient people fully acknowledged and felt the horror of what happened. They experienced the same levels of sadness, stress and grief as the less resilient people, but they were able to hold room for emotions like love and gratitude too.-Tragic optimism says that you can still enjoy a stroll through the woods on the same day something terrible happens in the world. It..

-He swiftly moved away from attempting to portray what he saw in front of him and toward painting what he saw within him, what he called relying on his "inner eye." This, he said, allowed him to convey "what is most important in life."-"In a way, my vision impairment gave me new direction. I wouldn't say it's a blessing. But it gave me a new venue. I think that my visual impairment led me back t..

-Remember that a bad prediction requires more energy to get back in sync with reality. The more out of sync our expectations are, the more problematic, since our brains and bodies are built to conserve energy.-The psychological equation that says "happiness equals reality minus expectations" essentially represents the accuracy of our biological -that is, our brains'- predictions.

-Your prefrontal cortex is constantly generating predictions for what might unfold. These predictions are sent to the brain stem, which then prepares your mind-body for whatever is anticipated. -The brain adopts this forward-looking stance for good reason: it is far more efficient than approaching every moment with no notion or bias for what might happen next.-We subjectively prefer when our exp..