Passion is the repeated experience of joy in doing something.
When one discovers passion, it is usually because an activity seems to produce joy each time it is performed.
Passion is a meta-emotion -- an emotion that is felt only after observing other emotions over time.
Passion is present when you observe that the same activity consistently brings you joy.
The key to passion is hidden in joy. Joy is a behavior within the body.
Commonly, it is described as the feeling of painless lightness within the body.
Joy is a quick and fleeting emotion that can fly past us and go unnoticed. It builds a quick climax, then just quickly fades away.
Passion is felt when you notice the joy that is felt frequently when you perform a particular task.
The skill of creating and prolonging joy has three parts:
Make yourself vulnerable to joy
Notice when you feel joy
Repeat the behaviors that create joy
To increase your experience of joy, it is helpful to mindfully notice when you are feeling joy.
Love, like passion, is also a meta-emotion.
Love is also felt only after noticing the ongoing experience of joy. While passion is about feeling joy in an activity, love is about noticing joy in the presence of another person.
When the experience of another person regularly stimulates joy within us, we begin to feel we love that person. Real joy comes from such things as enjoying another's company, connecting emotionally, and common core values.
When you begin to truly experience love, it is because you are mindful of the subtleties in your partner that bring you joy. A look, a smile, a laugh, a walk, a touch. These consistently bring you joy and pleasure. Not until you are mindful of your authentic experience of joy are you truly able to feel love.
Integrity, meaning integrate all parts of oneself, or more formally, the state of being undivided.
the absence of hiding parts of yourself, no longer splitting, and allowing all parts of yourself to be known is the principal journey of movement from shame to authenticity. The attainment of integrity represents a crowning achievement.
Being clear and straightforward about who we are, what we want from others, and our intentions is the cornerstone of integrity.
The learning and practice of
passion,
love,
and integrity
is what creates meaningful contentment in our lives. Once we have shed the shackles of shame, and seek to create a life worth living, these three can become the ultimate goals of our lives.
Make decisions based upon what the person you wish to become would do in the same situation.
Inner peace above all else - Ultimately, the only goal of life is inner peace. How does this choice contribute to your inner peace?
Never react while feeling an intense emotion - Delay making a decision or reacting while feeling an intense emotion. Distract yourself until the feeling subsides, then decide what decision or actions should be taken.
Contentment over approval - Populate your life with investments of time and emotion that increase your contentment rather than eliciting acceptance and approval from others.
Accept reality on reality's terms - Seek to see reality as it is rather than as you wish it to be.
One thing, one person, one conversation in the moment - Give your full attention and focus to that which is before you in this moment.
Take a non-judgmental stance whenever possible - Limit the urge to classify everything in life somewhere between good and bad.
Don't let your sexual tastes be the filter by which you allow people into your life - Approach and cultivate relationships with people who are authentic and validating rather than just those who are sexually interesting.
Be right, or be happy - Relinquish the urge to always be "right", and instead attend to the needs of your relationships.
Look first for the innocence in others - No matter how difficult another person may be, he/she is doing in that moment the best he/she can do.
In conflict, always assess your responsibility first - Resist the urge to blame another for a conflict, and instead first assess and own your responsibility.
Keep your inner circle sacred and safe - Carefully guard and assess those individuals you allow into your inner circle of intimacy. Their influence is monumental.
Speak to the offender first (instead of everyone else) - In a conflict, seek to speak to the offender before discussing the conflict with others.
Default to forgiveness rather than resentment - When disappointed or offended by others, allow the other person to hold a different point of view rather than closing your heart to him or her.
Embrace ambivalence - Seek out and embrace the omnipresent competing feelings about all things in life.
build a life based on passions and values rather than prove to yourself you are desirable and lovable
Resolution = tolerating the distress of the crisis long enough to resolve it rather than escape it.
Accept yourself as one who has the potential for both good and evil. Once you no longer push away various parts of yourself or hide your shortcomings among many lovers or within the sanctuary of his flawlessly designed home, you embrace it with hard-won acceptance. Here, toxic shame cannot exist.