<ul><li>Shame can be so ingrained in our lives from an early age that we don’t appreciate how powerfully it affects us in the present.</li><li>The “cheese” of shame is always there, slowly rotting, and smelling worse and worse over time.</li><li>Even after shame is addressed, the memory of its “smell” and the feelings it caused will remain.</li></ul>

How Shame Stays With Us

Shame lies at the heart of many of the issues that bring people to <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/therapy">therapy</a>. The dictionary definition of shame is “a painful feeling of <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/embarrassment">humiliation</a> or distress caused by the consciousness of wrong or foolish behavior.” Shame is something that can be so ingrained in our lives from an early age that we don’t appreciate how powerfully it affects us in the present. It can become an essential part of our <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/personality">personality</a>, completely hidden but guiding our lives, until we recognize it and start to talk about it.

The Root Cause Of Mental Issues: Shame

Shame is different than <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/guilt">guilt</a>. Guilt is the feeling we get when we do something bad, something we know is wrong. It’s something we can fix by doing better next time. We can give ourselves another chance. Shame is much more diabolical. Shame makes us feel not that we did something bad, but that we are something bad. Instead of feeling like we did something wrong, we feel like we are something wrong. Shame is like a little piece of cheese hidden deep down inside us in a crevice that is difficult to find and hard to reach.

Shame Vs Guilt

Shame starts early.Each experience of shame is like hiding little pieces of stinky cheese deep in the consciousness of our true selves. The cheese of shame is always there, slowly rotting, and smelling worse and worse over time. The irony is, even though this shame smell is so powerful, by the time we become adults we’re used to it. But unconsciously, we’re completely aware of it. Deep down we know we stink, and we act like we know we stink, and we expect other people in our lives to smell this stink and wrinkle their noses at us. To think we are bad. To think we stink. For shame!

Early Shame Experiences

People around us, friends, family, and loved ones don’t smell the cheese anymore. In fact, we might do such a good job searching for the cheese, examining the cheese, talking about the cheese, we might emotionally clean the cheese smell out completely. But the truth is, the smell will always linger in our memories. We have lived with that cheese for so long, building walls around it, hiding from it, feeling bad about it, so the smell will always exist in our minds.

Only We Know Our Cheesy Smell Of Shame

Times when we feel like we stink, and that other people can smell this, and that other people will know we stink and think less of us, that people in our lives that we love will think we are bad people because we smell. We explore the shameful feelings, and through that process we are able to find the metaphorical cheese and clean it up, to get rid of the stinky crumbs. We use lavender-scented cleaning products and a nice damp sponge and end up with a sparkling inner fridge.

Making Cosmetic Changes To Clean The Inner Shame

But just because we’ve found the stinky cheese and cleaned it doesn’t mean we’re free of it. That smell was with us a long time, and the feelings it caused will always be with us. The goal of therapy is to become aware of these feelings and learn to accept them but not let them dictate our lives. We can’t get rid of shame, but we can understand it, accept it, and not let it define us. We can remind ourselves that even though the cheese is gone, the smell stays with us.

The Memory Remains

Stashed ideas

The Stinky Cheese Smell of Shame

The endowment effect is when we value items more highly from the moment we own them. In a demonstration, students were given a choice between a coffee mug or a Swiss chocolate bar for participating in research. Half chose the coffee mug and the other half the chocolate. Then they were both given a chance to swop.  Most preferred the reward they started out with. This shows how quickly we form connections between our sense of self and the things we consider ours.

The endowment effect

In an experiment, psychologists used an illusion to convince young children they built a copying machine that could replicate anything, such as their favourite toy. Most of the children favoured their original toy and many were horrified with the idea of taking home a copy. This thinking about objects stays with us into adulthood. Many of us are reluctant to part with family heirlooms which help us feel connected to loved ones.

Attachment to family heirlooms

Hazda people of northern Tanzania are isolated from modern culture and don't show the endowment effect. That is possible because they live in an egalitarian society where they share almost everything.

Culture plays a part in feelings of ownership

Sometimes people have a hoarding disorder  - that is, an exaggerated sense of responsibility and protectiveness toward one's belongings. However, it remains to be seen how the nature of our relationship with our possessions will change with digital technologies.

Attachment to things can go too far

View full lesson: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/why-are-we-so-attached-to-our-things-christian-jarrett After witnessing the “violent rage” shown by babies whenever deprived of an item they considered their own, Jean Piaget – a founding father of child psychology – observed something profound about human nature: Our sense of ownership emerges incredibly early. But why do we become so attached to things? Christian Jarrett details the psychology of ownership. Lesson by Christian Jarrett, animation by Avi Ofer.

Why are we so attached to our things? - Christian Jarrett

Cats feature in ancient Egyptian art. It reflects the cat's unique status among people who lived along the Nile River. Cats were first seen as beneficial predators but later became symbols of divinity and protection. While ancient Egyptians did not worship animals, they did see them as representations of divine aspects of their gods.

Cats in ancient Egypt

Most of what we know about the function of cats comes from scenes depicted in paintings on the wall of tombs. <ul><li>In the scenes, cats are shown laying or sitting below chairs, playing or chasing after birds. </li><li>In some mortuary texts, they are also shown with a dagger, cutting through the snake deity Apopis, who threatens the sun god Ra.</li><li>In the Tomb of Nebamun, one painting shows a cat accompanying Nebamun while fishing and fowling.</li></ul>

The function of cats 

Ancient Egyptians held cats in high regard, not just because of the preferences of their gods, but also because the pharaohs kept giant cats. Egyptians considered cats smart, quick and powerful. The lioness goddess, Sekhmet, was a warrior and protector deity that kept away illness and sickness and also kept the enemies of the sun god Ra at bay. Cats were also viewed as possessing the power of fertility. They were shown sitting under women's chairs, implying a connection to women and perhaps fertility.

Characteristics of cats

The ancient Egyptians believed their gods could assume different forms. The gods could appear with the head of a cat and also inhabit the bodies of cats. For this reason, cats were mummified, creating a whole economy around breeding and mummifying cats.

Cat mummification

Felines served a useful purpose in ancient Egyptian households and eventually became divine symbols.

How Cats Became Divine Symbols in Ancient Egypt

The narrative of the individual has been central in our culture since the start of the Enlightenment. Each person is raised to become autonomous and high-achieving, resulting in achievements in science, technology, and education. But the individual narrative has also created a world of power and privilege, inequality and trauma—for example, the high divorce rate, political conflict, and instability within the family.

The individual narrative

The concept of self-help still dominates the mainstream. However, we cannot continue along our current path. We are at a place where either the system collapses or a new paradigm arises. It appears that we are moving towards a new paradigm where we embrace the whole instead of only the parts - where the relationship is at the front instead of the individual.

Moving toward relational intelligence

A paradigm is a mental model or a frame of reference. A paradigm is a set of assumptions, concepts, values, and practices that constitute the way of seeing reality. Paradigm shifts do not happen by themselves. They are driven by agents of change - scientific, cultural, and philosophical. Paradigms change when they can no longer hold the new experiences, perceptions, or discoveries.

A paradigm shift

A new paradigm shift from the age of the individual to the age of relationship is witnessed. We are born in relationships, live in relationships, suffer in relationships, and are changed in relationships.  This new view of relational well-being, where the welfare of one is dependent on the welfare of all, encourages collaboration, co-creation, and cooperation. It is equal and healing.

The relational narrative

Self Improvement

The Necessity of Moving From a Me to a We Culture

<ul>
<li>Occasional worrying is a natural mental activity, but some worry relentlessly and are emotionally overwhelmed, resulting in anxiety disorders.</li>
<li>Some believe that a moderate amount of realistic worry is useful and helps one prepare for upcoming problems.</li>
<li>To some degree, worry is beneficial, like during a pandemic, helping one take necessary safety precautions.</li>
<li>Chronic worrying has plenty of negative consequences, including manifesting into reality.</li>
</ul>

Worry Does No Good

.. is a disorder involving extreme levels of unstoppable worrying, for things that usually don’t come true. 
GAD leads to lost energy and wastage of time, and in some cases, it actually manifests a negative outcome. It depletes our ability to think well and to concentrate, delaying any productive work or decision making.

Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)

Catastrophizing is when people think that the worst outcome will come true and will have consequences that would be unmanageable or unsurvivable. We think worry helps us solve problems and cope up with negative outcomes, but the assumption is inaccurate.
Repeated worry has no benefits while incurring significant wear and tear of the body/mind, increasing psychological stress, and creating misery.

Catastrophizing: Worrying On Steroids

Worrying is an all-in-all bad deal, but it is difficult to stop ourselves using sheer willpower. 
Certain approaches can help:
<ol>
<li>Acceptance and commitment therapy(ACT) focuses on accepting the worry and not getting consumed by it.</li>
<li>Mindfulness builds a positive force inside our mind and keeps us emotionally strong.</li>
<li>Cognitive Behavioural Therapy(CBT) tries to change our worry and how it affects us using logic and evidence to counter its claims.</li>
<li>Steady breathing or progressive muscle relaxation helps in putting the body at ease and reduces the grip of worry on the mind.</li>
</ol>

How To Stop Worrying

Worry is emotionally distressing, messes with our thinking, and makes us miss out on the things that matter. Dump it fast

Worry is an unhelpful friend and a shoddy fortune-teller | Psyche Ideas

Ancient Greek philosophy consists of four schools, who each proclaim that they hold the secret to a happy and fulfilled life. These schools are Stoicism, Cynicism, Skepticism, and Epicureanism.
Stoicism forms the foundation of cognitive-behavioural therapy. Scepticism and Cynicism have become diluted. Epicureanism has a modern and easy to follow "Four-Part Remedy" to life.

Four schools of ancient Greek philosophy

Epicureans were materialists: They believed the world consisted only of atoms. There were no gods, spirits, or souls, no afterlife or immortality.
In the world of Epicureans, all there is to life is to get as much pleasure as possible and to avoid pain. The concern was with the higher pleasures of the mind. Pleasure does not come from pointless indulging but from decreasing desire to the bare minimum necessary to live.

Epicureans: The first atheists

Epicureans developed the "Four-Part Remedy" to help them find solace and escape existential and spiritual pain.
<ol>
<li>Don't fear God. Everything is just atoms. The afterlife will be nothingness.</li>
<li>Don't worry about death. With no body, there is no desire, no suffering, no discontent.</li>
<li>What is good is easy to get. Pleasure comes from basic biological desires required to keep us alive. Anything more complicated just creates pain.</li>
<li>What is hard is easy to endure. We're seldom hungry for long.</li>
</ol>

Epicureanism: The Four-Part Remedy

Epicureanism is about a psychological shift that life doesn't need to be as complicated as we make it. We're just animals with basic needs.
We have the tools to satisfy our desires and the resilience to endure hardships. When that fails and we're dead, we won't care.

Practical Epicureanism

The Epicureans were some of the world's first materialists and argued that there is no God. They believed that life was about finding pleasure and avoiding pain and that both were achieved by minimizing our desires for things. The Epicurean Four Step Remedy is advice on how we can face the world, achieve happiness, and not worry as much as we do.

Epicurus and the atheist's guide to happiness

The information never ends.
To use social media effectively, realise that you can never catch up with all of it. Instead, partake in the conversation, then leave.

Social media is a stream

The Internet can be a powerful tool for good or a terrible waste of time. The difference is if you are using it to create instead of consuming.
Watching endless videos on YouTube is consuming. Instead, write a blog, create a video, share your opinion of Facebook, or encourage a friend on Instagram.

Choose creation over consumption

The Internet has become a platform for comparison. We can compare our homes' size, the model of our car, the vacations, even the food we eat.
When you see somebody living a picture-perfect life, remind yourself that nobody is living a perfect life. We use social media to show the story we want the world to see. Nobody is posting photos of themselves exhausted or bored on the couch, but everybody does it.

Realise that everybody is writing fiction about themselves

Advertisers pay many websites based on how many page views they receive. The site owner's business plan is to get as many people clicking onto and within their website to earn more income. They don't care if they are providing value.
To use the Internet effectively, focus on websites and articles that offer genuine substance.

Prefer substance over clickbait

A great aspect of the Internet is that you can find any information 24/7. That also makes it the most dangerous.
Just because you can know what your ex-girlfriend is up to these days, who starred in that movie, what the weather is like in Barcelona, doesn't mean you need it or should find it. It may be much better to be in the moment.

Just because you can find the information online doesn't mean you should

It is remarkable that great minds produce fantastic content for free on the Internet.
Find the voices that you trust and enjoy. When you discover a content creator that is helpful to you and challenges you in positive ways, return to their work routinely.

Find voices you trust

It is crucial to remain true to yourself and be the same person you're online and offline.
If you lie about yourself on social media, you lied about yourself. A lie online is still a lie. Don't be someone you're not.

Don't be someone you're not

Information is great and mostly positive, but it still has its limitations. 
It can be helpful to research a possible disease you're waiting to hear back from your doctor. But knowing more may not make you feel better about it. It can make you feel worse.

Information won't soothe your anxiety

Talk with your friends, sure, but if you want to increase your enjoyment of the Internet and life in general, steer clear of debating politics with strangers.
It's far too easy to make negative assumptions about a stranger's character or motivation.

Don't argue politics with strangers

Even if you disagree with it, not every negative statement about your diet, industry, religion, lifestyle, or political party is a personal attack on you.
Generally, it is more productive to let it go and move on with your life.

Social media posts or news reports are not aimed at you

Websites can be faked; reviews can be faked; identities can be faked; news can be faked; photos can be faked; videos can be faked.
Sometimes it is faked for fun, and other times people have really bad motives. Don't believe everything on the Internet. Verify it.

Don't believe everything

Take time away from the Internet and do more things that make you forget to check your phone.
Anne Lamott puts it this way, “Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.”

Know when to take a break

The top lessons I have learned over the last 12 years of writing for the Internet on how to use it in a helpful way.

12 Rules for Navigating the Internet Intentionally

In 2013, the Academy Awards were rebranded as The Oscars.
A popular theory is that the nickname for the statuette was coined by Margaret Herrick when she said that the figure looked like her Uncle Oscar.

The nickname "Oscar" for the Academy Awards

Sidney Skolsky made the first documented use of &quot;Oscar&quot; as a nickname for the statuette in a 1934 New York Daily News article, but his assertion that he coined the nickname is still in doubt.
Many claim that during Walt Disney&#39;s Academy Award acceptance speech for Three Little Pigs in 1934, Disney referred to the statuette as his little &quot;Oscar&quot;. It was then already a well-established nickname but the first time the name was used in a positive light.

Other claims to the name "Oscar"

The design came from MGM director Cedric Gibbons. He thought to have a knight holding a sword while standing on a film reel.
The first Academy Awards ceremony was held on May 16, 1929, in Hollywood's Roosevelt Hotel. The nickname Oscar was only adopted for the statuette by the Academy in 1939.

The design of the Academy Award statuette

In 2013, the Academy Awards were officially rebranded as simply The Oscars, after the famed statuette that winners receive.

Why Are the Academy Awards Statuettes Called Oscars?

"If you have more than three priorities, you don’t have any."

Normally we are tied up in the unessential, the trivial, small demands that take up our time and energy.We need to prioritize the essential, the important, the things that really matter in life, like family, relationships, meaningful work, and what we love to do.

The Essential Things

Let go of the things that are limiting you:<ul><li>your excuses for not keeping your promises</li><li>your small thinking</li><li>your irrational fears</li><li>you being attached to outcomes rather than to the process</li><li>your complaining instead of problem-solving</li><li>your self-sabotage.</li></ul>

Let Go

Don't waste time doing uncreative or unproductive stuff which is basically inessential nonsense, like mindless scrolling on social media. Daydreaming, resting or playing is not time-wasting, but an essential part of our lives.

Don't Waste Time

Set boundaries and speak up to any harassment you experience, instead of quietly tolerating to avoid conflict. Having tough conversations with difficult people makes us know ourselves better.

Don't Tolerate Harassment

To be the person you want to become, embrace the following:<ul><li>Courage to follow your passion</li><li>Gratitude</li><li>Hope</li><li>Keeping promises to you and your loved ones</li><li>Courage to face the day</li><li>Being what you want to become.</li></ul>

The Person You Want To Become

I've recently completed an extraordinary four weeks of research, writing and travel in Spain, ending in Barcelona after two weeks in Toledo, via a few days stay in both Zaragoza and Burgos. The pressure of unfamiliar places, the space to devote time to walking and soaking up the places, and writing, is perspective altering.

How to measure and not measure a life

Sophrosyne is the epitome of the most desirable traits of one’s mind and character. It is defined by ancient Greeks as the greatest virtue, describing a sound mind, refined character, self-control, temperance and moderation.
Today’s complicated and often chaotic world requires a person to shun the hubris mindset (extreme pride, arrogance and self-confidence) and move towards sophrosyne. This fourth cardinal virtue is the union of self-knowledge and self-restraint.

Sophrosyne: The Greatest Virtue

Sophrosyne is a way to feel more in control of one’s emotions, leading a life of moderation, calm and self-control.
<ol>
<li>One can practise mindful moderation and avoid indulging in unnecessary consumerism. One trick is to delay any purchase for a few days/weeks and then reconsider the decision.</li>
<li>Practise journaling, meditation and breathwork to consciously cultivate a calm mind in this chaotic world.</li>
<li>Practise self-awareness and self-control to consciously build up self-governance and being in charge of your own life.</li>
</ol>

The Art Of Mindfulness Moderation

Sophrosyne is a combination of moderation, self-control, and temperance. This ancient virtue can act as a guide to better manage our emotions.

Bite-sized knowledge
to upgrade
your career

Noah Burke
@noahb

The Stinky Cheese Smell of Shame

Why are we so attached to our things? - Christian Jarrett

How Cats Became Divine Symbols in Ancient Egypt

The Necessity of Moving From a Me to a We Culture

Worry is an unhelpful friend and a shoddy fortune-teller | Psyche Ideas

Bite-sized knowledgeto upgradeyour career

Noah Burke@noahb

The Stinky Cheese Smell of Shame

Why are we so attached to our things? - Christian Jarrett

How Cats Became Divine Symbols in Ancient Egypt

The Necessity of Moving From a Me to a We Culture

Worry is an unhelpful friend and a shoddy fortune-teller | Psyche Ideas

Bite-sized knowledge
to upgrade
your career

Noah Burke
@noahb