Chapter 1: Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff

Chapter 2: Make Peace with Imperfection

Chapter 3: Let Go of the Idea that Gentle, Relaxed People Can’t Be

Superachievers

Chapter 4: Be Aware of the Snowball Effect of Your Thinking

Chapter 5: Develop Your Compassion

Chapter 6: Remind Yourself that When You Die, Your “In Basket” Won’t Be

Empty

Chapter 7: Don’t Interrupt Others or Finish Their Sentences

Chapter 8: Do Something Nice for Someone Else —- and Don’t Tell Anyone

About It

Chapter 9: Let Others Have the Glory

Chapter 10: Learn to Live in the Present Moment

Chapter 11: Imagine that Everyone Is Enlightened Except You

Chapter 12: Let Others Be “Right” Most of the Time

Chapter 13: Become More Patient

Chapter 14: Create “Patience Practice Periods”

Chapter 15: Be the First One to Act Loving or Reach Out

Chapter 16: Ask Yourself the Question, “Will This Matter a Year from

Now?”

Chapter 17: Surrender to the Fact that Life Isn’t Fair

Chapter 18: Allow Yourself to Be Bored

Chapter 19: Lower Your Tolerance to Stress

Chapter 20: Once a Week, Write a Heartfelt Letter

Chapter 21: Imagine Yourself at Your Own Funeral

Chapter 22: Repeat to Yourself, “Life Isn’t an Emergency”

Chapter 23: Experiment with Your Back Burner

Chapter 24: Spend a Moment Every Day Thinking of Someone to Thank

Chapter 25: Smile at Strangers, Look into Their Eyes, and Say Hello

Chapter 26: Set Aside Quiet Time, Every Day

Chapter 27: Imagine the People in Your Life as Tiny Infants and as One-

Hundred-Year-Old Adults

Chapter 28: Seek First to Understand

Chapter 29: Become a Better Listener

Chapter 30: Choose Your Battles Wisely

Chapter 31: Become Aware of Your Moods and Don’t Allow Yourself to Be

Fooled by the Low One

Chapter 32: Life Is a Test. It Is Only a Test

Chapter 33: Praise and Blame Are All the Same

Chapter 34: Practice Random Acts of Kindness

Enjoy the good feeling that doing an act of kindness brings.

Chapter 35: Look Beyond Behavior

Chapter 36: See the Innocence

Chapter 37: Choose Being Kind over Being Right

Chapter 38: Tell Three People (Today) How Much You Love Them

Chapter 39: Practice Humility

Chapter 40: When in Doubt about Whose Turn It Is to Take Out the Trash,

Go Ahead and Take It Out

Chapter 41: Avoid Weatherproofing

Chapter 42: Spend a Moment, Every Day, Thinking of Someone to Love

Chapter 43: Become an Anthropologist

Chapter 44: Understand Separate Realities

Chapter 45: Develop Your Own Helping Rituals

Chapter 46: Every Day, Tell at Least One Person Something You Like,

Admire, or Appreciate about Them

Chapter 47: Argue for Your Limitations, and They’re Yours

Chapter 48: Remember that Everything Has God’s Fingerprints on It

Chapter 49: Resist the Urge to Criticize

Chapter 50: Write Down Your Five Most Stubborn Positions and See if You

Can Soften Them

Chapter 51: Just for Fun, Agree with Criticism Directed Toward You (Then

Watch It Go Away)

Chapter 52: Search for the Grain of Truth in Other Opinions

Chapter 53: See the Glass as Already Broken (and Everything Else Too)

Chapter 54: Understand the Statement, “Wherever You Go, There You Are”

Chapter 55: Breathe Before You Speak

Chapter 56: Be Grateful when You’re Feeling Good, and Graceful when

You’re Feeling Bad

Chapter 57: Become a Less Aggressive Driver

Chapter 58: Relax

Chapter 59: Adopt a Child Through the Mail

Chapter 60: Turn Your Melodrama into a Mellow-Drama

Chapter 61: Read Articles and Books with Entirely Different Points of View

from Your Own and Try to Learn Something

Chapter 62: Do One Thing at a Time

Chapter 63: Count to Ten

Chapter 64: Practice Being in the “Eye of the Storm”

Chapter 65: Be Flexible with Changes in Your Plans

Chapter 66: Think of What You Have Instead of What You Want

Chapter 67: Practice Ignoring Your Negative Thoughts

Chapter 68: Be Willing to Learn from Friends and Family

Chapter 69: Be Happy Where You Are

Chapter 70: Remember that You Become What You Practice Most

Chapter 71: Quiet the Mind

Chapter 72: Take Up Yoga  

Chapter 73: Make Service an Integral Part of Your Life

Chapter 74: Do a Favor and Don’t Ask For, or Expect, One in Return

Chapter 75: Think of Your Problems as Potential Teachers

Chapter 76: Get Comfortable Not Knowing

Chapter 77: Acknowledge the Totality of Your Being

Chapter 78: Cut Yourself Some Slack

Chapter 79: Stop Blaming Others

Chapter 80: Become an Early Riser

Chapter 81: When Trying to Be Helpful, Focus on Little Things

Chapter 82: Remember, One Hundred Years from Now, All New People

Chapter 83: Lighten Up

Chapter 84: Nurture a Plant

Chapter 85: Transform Your Relationship to Your Problems

Chapter 86: The Next Time You Find Yourself in an Argument, Rather than

Chapter 87: Redefine a “Meaningful Accomplishment”

Chapter 88: Listen to Your Feelings (They Are Trying to Tell You

Something)

Chapter 89: If Someone Throws You the Ball, You Don’t Have to Catch It

Chapter 90: One More Passing Show

Chapter 91: Fill Your Life with Love

Chapter 92: Realize the Power of Your Own Thoughts

Chapter 93: Give Up on the Idea that “More Is Better”

Chapter 94: Keep Asking Yourself, “What’s Really Important?”

Chapter 95: Trust Your Intuitive Heart

Chapter 96: Be Open to “What Is”

Chapter 97: Mind Your Own Business

Chapter 98: Look for the Extraordinary in the Ordinary

Chapter 99: Schedule Time for Your Inner Work

Chapter 100: Live This Day as if It Were Your Last. It Might Be!

The subconscious mind consists of 1) memories, stored as visual images with emotions, and 2) thoughts, stored as beliefs with emotions. Our subconscious operates under different principles than our more salient, linear, and logical (well, sometimes!) conscious mind. Associate subconscious with emotions and body, and the conscious mind more with the intellect and discimination faculty.

We may try in all good attempt with our conscious mind to make something work (a project, a relationship, etc), but, more importantly, what does our subconscious mind say about the matter? Anything that makes the subconscious feel bad according to the stored images and beliefs therein will be self-sabotaged in the end—due to the massive power of the subconscious over our emotions and physical body. For this reason, gaining the aid of the subconscious, our most powerful ally, is of great significance for our health and happiness.

We must both 1) understand how our subconscious affects us, and 2) understand how to affect our subconscious. The rest of the post focuses on the latter.

Mantras and affirmations are simply suggestions to the subconscious. Mantras were created by ancient Hindu rshis, the most powerful being the Gayatri mantra, which contemplates on divine illumination and asks to fully activate the intellect for self-realization. Imagine the formulation for self-illumination playing in your subconscious all day: there you have the Gayatri. Affirmations really operate under the same principles, and Louise Hay has some great affirmations and has really implemented the affirmation principle better than anyone else I’ve seen (see her daily affirmation page).  

How to penetrate to the subconscious? Quantity, consistency, relaxation, and most of all, emotion must be utilized. Mantras and affirmations are all most powerful under these principles. 1) Your conscious mind is always babbling. The thought which penetrates your subconscious must be repeated many times before it enters the gates of your subconscious and with 2) consistency. 3) When in a state of relaxation, the more superficial layer of the conscious mind is penetrated, and the deeper the relaxation, the closer access we have to our subconscious. Thoughts repeated under a relaxed state of mind will have a greater impact. 4) The most vital ingredient in the subconscious formula is emotion. Emotion activates our energy and it is thoughts with energy which imprint on the subconscious.

In psychology and spirituality, emotions and physical sensations are often shunned or atleast considered less accurate means to evalute reality than the intellect. This is unfortunate, though, because it only through becoming aware of and lovingly validating emotions and sensations does one feel joy or happiness. Decisions which please the intellect may grant security, stability, etc., but only decisions which also please the emotional and physical aspects actually give the feeling of joy and pleasure.

Many books and works which refer to the “inner child” within us are simply referring to the emotional and physical aspects, whereas the “inner parent” signifies the intellect and discrimination. All of this is very similar again to Rita Bruce’s philosophy. How comfortable we are with the ”inner child” (i.e. our emotions and physical sensations) is a direct reflection of how comfortable our parents were with our contributions and outcries as children and adolescents. This is because our expressions as infants were mostly related to physical sensations and as children, emotions and physical sensations. Thus, our parents were actually training us on how to treat and respond to physical and emotive signals, whether they were to be repressed, shamed, ignored, validated, loved, etc. Today, we take that parental training and apply it to our own feelings and sensations, and that of others and perhaps our children.

Children and animals are a symbol of the more emotional and physical. I find that children and animals are often happier than adults, and this is a reminder to reconnect with those aspects in us. For further reading, I highly recommend a simply written book with profound implications, Self Parenting by John K. Pollard, III.