What are some cool psychological hacks?

PLEASE WAIT. BELIEF SYSTEM UPDATING.

Why would you want to update your beliefs?

Other than for the fun of it, how about because of the anxiety or depression you feel because they are clashing with your current life sitch?

A hodgepodge of beliefs fence in (or out) our experience of life. I’m talking about how you think kitchens are best organized, the way you expect a friend to respond if you say you’re sad, what a marriage should look and feel like in year 2, who you need to be to do what you want to do, etc.

You’ve been collecting these, largely unknowingly, since your Est. date and many are so ingrained in your reality that you have no idea that you’re covered from head to toe in them. [“What’s water?”- little fishie]

Maybe there are some you’d like to upgrade. (I go over how to find them in my instagram video diary — D81 ;) shaylee edwards (@shaylee__edwards) • Instagram photos and videos )

Let’s use a scarf to highlight why you might want to:
Lucy grows up in Miami and everybody there wears scarves as tiny skirts. In her house, they tie ‘em a special way and she happens to think it’s actually the best way.
One winter, Lucy goes to NYC to see Beauty & the Beast on Broadway. She notices that the peeps there use scarves to keep their necks warm.
After college, Lucy moved to Cali and she saw that some women there used scarves to tie babies onto their bodies.
The same kinda scarf.
None of the uses is wrong, but until she saw them and opened up to the viability of each, Lucy would probably just go on using scarves the way she first unconsciously learned.

Think about this with relationships as the context.
Or your identity.
Or “work.”

The way you’re used to seeing things might be the only way you can currently think of them, but it might not be the only perspective that works.

I don’t think there are any unequivocally “right” beliefs, just some that align better with what you’re trying to do or how your life is currently.

If anything, I think the less hard-n-fast beliefs you have, the better.

Without rigid ideas, you can be more nimbly responsive in the wild.

Like most rules, beliefs are handy until you know them well, and can consciously and artistically choose unique responses as situations arise.

In upgrading them, it can be easier to go from one belief to one that’s just a little looser, rather than something completely revolutionary.

For a long time, I did this. I’d upgrade a belief to a less restrictive option, and then again as time demanded. And then again.

Eventually I realized that “It’s all good,” and “I can learn to do anything with practice,” are really the only ones I need.