💎 Friday Gems (LA Fire Aid, Better Decision Making, Understanding Your Values, and much more!)
We can choose not to fall for the predictable reactive stories and see people and situations through a generous and common humanity lens.
As the Palisades fire rages in Los Angeles and we see the heartbreaking images of the sheer destruction and the loss of lives, it’s inspiring to see how people have quickly responded to help those whose lives have been turned upside down.
If you’re in LA and looking for help or would like to volunteer, or you would like to donate funds to organizations on the ground helping those in need, Mutual Aid LA Network (MALAN) has a list of organizations you can reference.
There is also a MALAN Fire & Wind Storm Resources Google Doc.
Also, it’s never too late to make a plan to prepare for emergencies and disasters.
Looking to donate? World Central Kitchen, by Chef José Andrés, is on the ground in multiple locations in LA providing free prepared meals for those affected by the fires.
Stay safe!
In this edition:
Decision-Making: The one simple reason that decisions suck
Personal Growth: Using values to become your best self
Mindset: What taking the uncharitable read really says about you
Wisdom: Let it go!
Decision-Making
💎 The one simple reason that decisions suck
No matter how small or big the choice you need to make is, uncertainty is a big part of the decision-making process. Whether deciding what to wear for the day or moving cross country for a new job, uncertainty looms in each decision, making deciding on the right option ever so challenging.
As Dr. Mark Shrime points out in this article:
Decisions are hard because we hate uncertainty.
So it’s not the decision itself we dislike, it’s not knowing how things will turn out that makes the decision-making emotionally exhausting.
The more we can sit with it, understand it, and realize this quality of decision-making, the faster we can make decisions and not let them keep us from moving forward.
So, how can we reduce the uncertainty and the emotional exhaustion that may come with decision-making?
Mark suggests two approaches:
For big decisions, get help from friends, family, coaches, or anyone you trust to give you sound advice
Know that almost no decision is final
Understanding these two points can finally free us from the exhaustion we feel when making decisions.
✊🏽
Source: Mark Shrime, MD, PHD on Medium
Personal Growth
💎 Using values to become your best self
Research indicates that when our principles motivate our actions, we are more likely to experience a sense of well-being, greater life satisfaction, and reduced psychological distress.
A few years ago, when I started working with my coach, one of my first exercises was identifying my core values. Core values are the root beliefs that guide our lives. When we are living in accordance with our values we experience a sense of well-being and greater life satisfaction but when we are not living according to our values we feel stress and frustration.
In this post, Marilyn Fitzpatrick, PhD, a psychologist, researcher, and author, shares science-based ideas of how you can better understand and clarify your values through a 4-step process for increasing the possibility of acting in accordance with your own values.
The 4-step process is:
Clarify - Find out what values are most important for you.
Assess - How well are you living according to your values.
Plan - Create strategies to take action in areas where they are underused.
Address difficulties in motivation - Maintaining consistency in living according to your values.
The good news is that it’s never too late to reconnect with yourself to better understand who you are deep down to bring more life satisfaction and to create a life of meaning.
✊🏽
Source: Marilyn Fitzpatrick in Clearer Thinking.org
Mindset
💎 What taking the uncharitable read really says about you
“She said that specifically to hurt me.”
“They just want my money.”
“They voted this way because they’re stupid and selfish.”
You know what you’re doing when you assume, right? You’re making an ass out of u and me, especially when we make an uncharitable read, which is an assumption because we have no real evidence of the stories we are telling ourselves.
Why do we make up these stories to placate ourselves in the moment?
What I don’t see when I am in this unforgiving place is that I’m driven by fear of what might happen next. I don’t notice how unfair I’m being. My insecurity, worry, or need for control leads me to not-nice interpretations of others.
The Fundamental Attribution Error, a human psychological bias, is mainly at play here, which is
“a tendency to overestimate the degree to which somebody’s behavior is determined by their personal characteristics, attitudes, or beliefs.” And, “to minimize the influence of the surrounding situation and broader context on that behavior.”
A quick search on Google and this handy chart made it even easier to see how our bias shows up when we take an action and have positive or negative results and when the other person or group takes and action with positive or negative results.
Despite our inherent biases and assumptions, we do have a choice in how we respond. We can read the charitable book to remind ourselves that we are not seeing the whole picture, that people are human just like we are, and that we all make mistakes.
We can choose not to fall for the predictable stories and act with grace to see people and situations through a generous lens.
Generous thinking allows you to see people more deeply. It’s the x-ray specs for those invisibility cloaks that people use to hide their true needs; the ones they’re scared to put forth more transparently. Generous thinking allows you more room to put down your heavy armor, too.
Let’s choose to be kind, generous, and with grace towards each other.
💜
Source: Hold That Thought newsletter by Kim Witten, PhD
Wisdom
💎 Let it go!
Does anything in nature despair except man? An animal with a foot caught in a trap does not seem to despair. It is too busy trying to survive. It is all closed in, to a kind of still, intense waiting. Is this a key? Keep busy with survival. Imitate the trees. Learn to lose in order to recover, and remember that nothing stays the same for long, not even pain, psychic pain. Sit it out. Let it all pass. Let it go.
― May Sarton, Journal of a Solitude
That’s it for this week’s gems!
If you are enjoying this newsletter, please feel free to let me know. It’s always nice to know that people are out there. 💜
Curiosity will save us,
