Blair Ashby 720-789-4000
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V-Z
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V-Z

Self-compassion glossary

Please forgive my dust, disorganization, and broken links. Currently, I am making this site match
Self-CompassionateLiving.com.
Please forgive my dust, disorganization, and broken links. I am making the site match
Self-CompassionateLiving.com

Under Construction

This is a spacer to make room for the H1 tag on the glossary page.

Blair’s Glossary for Learning
Self-compassion and Communication

Words and concepts to assist you with increasing your knowledge for improving your life.

Here is a glossary I’ve developed to assist you with learning self-compassion, becoming more self-aware, and improving your life with that knowledge. Awareness is the foundation of non-reactive living and limiting the amount of suffering that you experience. Thus, I developed this glossary to aid you in understanding how your mind works and give you some familiarity with the standard terms I use on this website, in my classes, and coaching sessions.
Please contact me here if you’d like to offer some comments, improvements, or questions.
A

Acceptance


or Acknowledgement, Allow
  • Recognition of the facts.
  • Allowing thoughts and feelings to exist even with Survival Mind interference.
  • Observing reality, including your thoughts, and allowing all experiences to proceed with minimal automatic Survival Modes interference.
  • Experiencing a trigger, noticing your immediate mental reactions, then resetting back to observing the sensory experience and mental reactions.
  • Observing and possibly interacting with reality while recognizing the triggers to brain activity, the generated Survival Modes and feelings, and the desires to alter the situation that arise after the trigger, and then detaching from those reactions to be fully present as the situation unfolds.
  • The ability to welcome reality as it is.
  • The ability to receive information from our perceptions as only data.

See also: Detachment, Emotions, Letting Go, Present, Programs, Reality, Survival Modes, Trigger.

Acceptance

Acquired Reflex


  • A learned, instantaneous reaction that becomes automatic through repetition. For example, an Acquired Reflex is the classical conditioning of a specific reaction to a particular triggering event.

See also: Autopilot, Classical Conditioning, Habit, Instinctive Reflex, Reaction, Trigger.

Acquired Reflex

Action


  • Any thought patterns or processes, corresponding emotional patterns, physical movements, behaviors, and speaking that occur automatically from an emotional compulsion generated by thoughts.
  • Anything that utilizes energy in your body.

See also: Behaviors, TFFML, Trigger.

Action

Agenda


or Program

  • Brain activity that distorts or influences all of your thoughts, emotions, or actions with specific people or in particular situations.

See also: Brain Activity, Distortion

Agenda

Attachment


or Anchor, Attach, Bind, Bond, Cling, Clutch, Crave, Desire, Glue, Hook, Latch, Stuck

  • Thoughts our survival brain believes are necessary for physical, emotional, or mental survival.
  • Accepting one thought in your brain is more valid than your brain's other thoughts.
  • A belief that a person, place, thing, or idea will affect you in a positive or negative way.
  • A state where something owns us and our emotional stability.
  • The entanglement of self-interest with reality.
  • Normal judgments such as threats or benefits to our Physical Survival or our Sense of Survival that our brains assign to a person, place, thing, or idea.
  • Basing your emotional well-being on a predetermined outcome.
  • Being stuck to an idea, emotion, or object.

See also: Brain Activity, Identification, Judgment, Mental Construct, Personalization, Sense of Survival, Sensory Input, Survival Modes, Thought.

Attachment

Autopilot


or Acquired Reflex, Conditioning, Habitual, Muscle Memory, Programming

  • Automatic thoughts, emotions, and behaviors that arise after a triggering event.

See also: Emotion, Behaviors, Feelings, Programs, Thoughts, Trigger.

Autopilot

Awareness


or Mindfulness, Paying Attention, Recognizing, Being Present, Self-observation

  • Unconditional honesty about yourself with yourself.
  • The ability to acknowledgy events and acknowledge your mind’s reactions to those events while staying detached to the pressures you feel from those events and reactions.
  • Staying present to all your thoughts triggered by and about your experience and your thoughts about the triggered thoughts.
  • Conscious recognition of the thoughts, emotions, feelings, behaviors, actions, activities, and situations you are experiencing while also noticing the additional layers of thoughts about your initial conscious recognition.
  • Watching events happening to yourself as if you were watching someone else while watching your body’s reactions to the experiences as you watch the events.

See also: Actions, Being Present, Detachment, Emotions, Judgement, Mindfulness, Reaction, Thoughts, Trigger.

Awareness

B

Behaviors

or Actions, Reactions

  • The physical actions one takes automatically or intentionally after a triggering event.

See also: Actions, Autopilot, Trigger.

Behaviors

Being Present


or Aware, In the Moment, Presence
The deliberate practice of keeping one’s focus on the current moment.
The intentional act of bringing your mind back to now after it drifts off to predictions, analysis, or memories.
See also: Awareness, Meditation.

Being Present

Beliefs

Beliefs


or Brain Activity, Thoughts
Mental concepts or thoughts your brain holds as real, true, or factual.
See also: Attachment, Brain Activity, Mental Consctruction, Thoughts.
Bias
or Evaluation, Judgment
The determination of where a sensory input, situation, or thought resides on a scale between good or bad, right or wrong, or help me hurt me.
The Automatic determination your mind generates on every stimulus that you experience.
Commentary: Judgments can often be recognized by the emotions they generate.
See also: Emotions, Sensory Input, Thoughts.

Binary Thinking


or Survival Thinking
The human brain’s tendency to think in dead or not dead opposites.
The human brain’s tendency to think in polar opposite terms such as Good/Bad, Right/Wrong, Help Me/Hurt Me, Win/Lose, Black/White, Zero/One.
See also: Brain.

Boundaries


Self-compassionate detachment from unnecessary suffering generated by thoughts that have been triggered.
Healthy restrictions or reinforcements your brain puts around thoughts and actions to help you maintain your desired mental equilibrium.
See also: Actions, Detachment, Self-compassion, Thoughts, Trigger.

Brain


An organ inside of your skull that is comprised of numerous specialized sections for processing the thoughts triggered by sensory experiences and other thoughts to aid in your survival.
See also: Brain Wires, Sensory Experience, Thoughts, Trigger.

Brain Activity


or Memories, Reactions, Thinking, Thoughts
Any neurochemical activity in the brain.
See also: Brain, Thoughts.

Click here to read a partial list of various names for thoughts or brain activity. If you have a suggestion of names for this list, please write to me here, and if it fits this list, I’ll include it.

Brain Wires


or Brain Pathways, Nerves
The biological connections between sections of your brain for transferring information.
The biological connections between committees, subcommittees, and their members for transferring information.
C

Centered


or Balanced, Detached, Equanimous, Equilibrium, Grounded, Present, Settled, Still
The ability to stay detached from your brain’s mental reactions and corresponding feelings about internal or external stimuli you experience.
You can think and perceive reality, breathe regularly, and offer compassionate responses to events in your life.
Survival modes do not control your action. (fight, flight, freeze, grab, hold).
See also: Actions, Compassion, Detachment, Reaction, Reality, Survival Modes.

Chunking


Dividing significant thoughts and physical actions into smaller pieces to manage solutions in parts.
See also: Actions, Thoughts.

Classical Conditioning


or Acquired Reflex, Instinctive Reflex, Pavlovian Reaction
The process of learning specific reactions to triggers.
The intentional process to teach yourself desired reactions to specific triggers.
See also: Acquired Reflex, Instinctive Reflex,  Reaction, Trigger.
Below are examples of the process.
Here is are examples of Classical Conditioning:

A happens + B happens = C reaction.
Eventually, A & B become correlated so tightly in the brain that just A happening will cause reaction C without even needing B.
For example, Pavlov rings a bell (A) and immediately presents food to his dog (B). The dog’s reaction is to begin salivating (C). After enough repetitions, when Pavlov rings the bell (A), the dog starts salivating (C) even without food being presented (B).

or

Your boss looks angry (A) and yells at you (B); your reaction is to worry that you will lose your job (C).
After seeing this happen several times, if you see your boss looking angry (A), you feel worried he will fire you (C) even if your boss is not looking at you.

Committee


or Parts, Sections, Voices
The brain is not a single organ; instead, it has at least 250 separate and individual sections, each with a specialty and instructions on how to use its specialty to favor the physical survival of the body or the sense of survival of the mental construct.
See also: Mental Construction, Sense of Survival, Subcommittees.

Committee Block


or Brain Fart, Ego Block, Mental Block
Momentarily forgetting what you were going to say or what you were thinking.
See also: Committee.

Compassion


Concern for the well-being of others.
See also: Self-compassion.

Compassionate Communication


Thinking, feeling, acting, and communicating with understanding, wisdom, and grace.
See also: Communication, Compassion.

Communication


Information that is transmitted and received via any manner—words, voice inflection, facial expressions, body language, breathing noise, our internal thoughts, etc.
See also: Thoughts.

Contemplation


or Daily Ritual, Deep Thinking, Hobby
The intentional act of performing a ritual for enjoyment while consciously or subconsciously thinking, such as a hobby, exercising, or watching a sunset.
See also: Meditation.
D

Data

or Sensory Data

  • The input from our five senses without additional layers of thought distorting it.

See also: Distortion, Sensory Input, Thought.

Delusion


A false belief or judgment about external reality.
See also: Reality, Thoughts.

Desensitize


An emotional state of not reacting to brian activity such as beliefs, judgments, thoughts about internal (mental) or external (Physical) reality achieved by repeated exposure to the initial trigger.
See also: Brain Activity, Reality, Thoughts, Trigger.

Detachment


or Letting Go, Release
The process of allowing a sensory experience or a thought to occur without believing, personalizing, or identifying with it.
The conscious awareness that one is experiencing thoughts, feelings, or behaviors and observing those stimuli without forming an attachment to them.
Knowing you are okay no matter what changes or experiences happen to you.
Experiencing mental, emotional, and physical stimuli, noticing the automatic judgments your brain forms about them, and letting go of any influence from the various stimuli.
See also: Attachment, Identification, Judgment, Letting Go, Personalization, Sensory Experience, Thoughts.

Discernment


The discipline of judging an experience or situation so that you, and hopefully others,  suffer the least.
See also: Judgement, Suffering.

Discipline


The discipline of noticing your mind’s reactions to triggers and then navigating situations so that you suffer the least.
The practice of maintaining your survival needs while simultaneously keeping yourself centered so you experience a maximum amount of Joy, Peace, and Contentment.
Mentally creating and experiencing each situation to minimize suffering and maximize your experience of Enlightenment.
A word created by Blair Ashby to describe thriving while also surviving.
See also: Awareness, Discipline, Enlightenment, Mind, Reaction, Suffering, Trigger.

Distortion


or Blur, Cloud, Deform, Obscure, Twist, Warp
Any thoughts adding interpretation to the sensory data our senses receive.
An inaccurate perception of reality which influences your thinking, thought patterns, feelings, and behaviors.
Thoughts that are biased to benefit yourself or your sense of survival.
An explanation of an experience or a situation our brain builds from incomplete information.
See also: Actions, Emotion, Reality, Sense of Survival, Sensory Data, Thought.

Dual/Non-dual


or Nondual
The brain’s tendency to react in survival thinking binaries such as Dead/Not Dead, Good/Bad, Right/Wrong, Help Me/Hurt Me, Win/Lose.
See also: Brain, Reaction, Survival Thinking.
E

Emotions


Mental reactions in your brain that generate physical sensations or feelings in the body, such as happiness, sadness, anger, fear, etc.
Sensations that generate psychological and behavioral changes in the body.
See also: Brain Activity, Emotional Pressure, Feelings, Thoughts, Trigger.

Emotionally Blind


or Blinded by Emotions
The inability to think logically or reasonably when you are experiencing emotions.
The inability of the mind to recognize possibilities when under pressure from intense feelings.
The focus of your Survival Mind for relieving the pressures generated by advantages or disadvantages to your Physical Survival or Sense of Survival.
See also: Mind, Sense of Survival, Survival, Survival Mind.

Emotional Meaning


The experience of our thoughts about a situation combined with our emotions generated by those thoughts.
See also: Emotion, The Formula for My Life, Thoughts.

Emotional Pressure


or Emotional Bias, Emotional Charge, Emotional Weight
The positive or negative sensations and feelings that emotions generate in your body.
Positive Feelings - Shifts your mind into Grab, Hold mode; also referred to as Clinging or Grasping.
Negative Feelings - Shifts your mind into Fight, Flight, or Freeze mode, also referred to as Defensive or Protective.
See also: Emotion, Feelings, Mind, Sensory Experience, Survival Modes.

Emotional Shifting


Directing one’s emotions toward a different trigger or target than originally instigated the emotions.
See also: Emotion, Emotional Target, Trigger.

Emotional Stacking


Feeling an emotion, then feeling another emotion in reaction to the initial feeling.
Behavior Stacking - A subconscious action that generates another subconscious action in reaction to the initial action.
Thought Stacking - The process of having an initial thought and then allowing that thought to take over the subsequent thoughts, etc.
See also: Actions, Emotion, Reaction, Thoughts.

Emotional Target


The object, person, or situation that you feel caused your reactions.
The object, person, or situation upon which you release your emotional reaction.
See also: Mental Construction, Reaction, Trigger.

Emotional Turbulence


The numerous feelings we experience when processing several incongruous thoughts.
See also: Brain Activity, Emotions, Feelings.

Enlightenment


or Conscious Living, Living in Reality
The ability to stay present mentally, emotionally, and physically to reality as it is.
Navigating each experience in your life with a minimal or neutral amount of survival mode reactions.
The ability to see beyond your brain activity and feelings while intentionally staying present, keeping your mind open to possibilities, and choosing to act in ways that navigate the situation so that you (and others) suffer the least.
Intentional nondualistic presence.
See also: Awareness, Duelism, Emotion, Feelings, Being Present, Reality, Survival Modes.

Expectation


A type of thought.
An attachment to a particular outcome.
See also: Attachment, Thoughts.
F

Faith


The absolute acceptance of the powerlessness we experience and the firm confidence that we are okay anyway.
The acceptance that we may not recognize how we’ve affected a situation with our actions.
See also: Acceptance, Action.

Feeding the Emotion


or Feeding the Monster, Fueling the Fire, Mental Gossip, Spiraling, Storytelling
Subconsciously giving your energy to a distorted thought, emotion, or behavior by allowing it to take control of your subsequent thoughts, emotions, and actions.
Repeating a thinking process, emotional reaction, or physical action to increase or maintain the emotional weight of a situation.
See also: Actions, Distortion, Emotion, Emotional Pressure, Thoughts.

Feelings


The physical sensations you experience when a subconscious or conscious thought you have is favored or threatened in your survival mind.
See also: Emotion, Survival Mind, Thoughts.
G

Grounded


or Tethered, Centered
An internal space of joy, peace, and contentment you can experience even in the most disruptive mental, emotional, or physical reactions.
An area of acceptance within oneself that can be brought about by cultivating it in meditation or contemplation.
A mental state of solidity you can create to weather the constant changes of life.
See also: Acceptance, Contemplation, Emotion, Joy, Peace, and Contentment, Meditation, Reaction.
H

Habit


or Autopilot, Habitual, Normal, Usual

  • A consistent or regular thought pattern or behavioral action that you perform after specific triggers you experience.

See also: Actions, Autopilot, Thoughts, Thought Patterns, Trigger

I

Identification


The way you think of yourself.
A sense of self.
Who your survival mind believes you are.
See also: Attachment, Personalization, Survival Mind.

Implied Meaning


The emotional weight of a message that hints at more profound information not directly in the words of the message.
See also: Emotional Pressure.

Instinctive Reflex


Instantaneous, unlearned reactions to a survival-related trigger.
See also: Acquired Reflex, Instinctive Reflex,  Reaction, Trigger.
J

Joy, Peace, and Contentment or JPC


or Bliss, Equanimity, Nirvana, Peace of Mind
A mental state unchanged by emotional disturbance.
The state of subtle pleasure that fills your daily life when you train yourself to have an open mind that lets go of attachments to autopilot thoughts, emotions, and actions that arise with every experience.
See also: Attachment, Autopilot, Emotion, Enlightenment, Thoughts.

Judgement


or Bias, Evaluation
The determination of where a sensory input, situation, or thought resides on a scale between good or bad or right or wrong, or help me hurt me.
The Automatic determination your mind generates on every stimulus you experience.
Commentary: Judgments can often be recognized by the emotions they generate.
See also: Emotion, Sensory Input, Thoughts.

Justification


or Excuses, Explaination, Rationalization.
A tool our brain uses to make ourselves feel better.
See also: Brain, Brain Activity, Feelings, Thoughts.
L

Letting Go


or Detaching, Releasing
Allowing the emotions you experience from your mental reactions to weaken so that you suffer the least.
Releasing the pressure you experience to control something.
Freeing yourself from the internal drive you feel to change reality or something which you dislike.
The process of releasing your desire to change that which you can not change.
Separating your true self from the thoughts and emotions your survival mind experiences after a trigger.
See also: Attachment, Emotion, Suffering, Survival Mind, Trigger, True Self.

Limbic System


or Survival Mind
A foundational part of the Survival Mind for generating rewards and punishments to perceived triggers.
A set of brain structures above the spinal cord that supports functions like long-term memory, emotions, reactions.
A foundational part of the physical brain that aids in survival.
See also: Brain, Reaction, Survival Mind, Thoughts, Trigger.
M

Magic Pill


or Magic Switch, Quick Fix

  • A desired fix or problem solution with minimal effort from you.
Meditation
or Stillness, Windshield Time
A discipline of practicing awareness, acceptance, and letting go while being present with your reality in a controlled environment.
Noticing your mind’s thoughts, thought processes, and patterns, automatic mental reactions, emotional experiences, and your body’s experiences.
Seeing our mind’s reactions to thoughts and emotions.
A mental exercise to become familiar with your mind and how it reacts to triggers, processes information, and responds to thoughts.
Learning to discern and then manage the difference between Survival Mind activities, such as autopilot, automatic reactions, or thinking and being present or consciously aware of your mind’s activities.
Practicing being present.
Practicing being alone with your mind.
Guiding your mind’s activities with Self-Discipline and Self-Compassion.
Learning to be truthful with yourself.
Mental practice of cultivating your mind’s responses to triggers.
See also: Awareness, Present, Reaction, Reality, Self-discipline, Survival Mind, Survival Modes, Trigger.

Some Types of Meditation

:
Focused Awareness Meditation – Concentrating on a sensory experience, a sacred word, or a mantra. The process of intentionally concentrating on a sensory experience, such as your breath, a thought process, or a state of mind, while simultaneously noticing when you lose your concentration and then gently bringing your attention back to your point of focus.
Open Awareness Meditation – Keeping your mind open to all sensory inputs and thoughts without concentrating on any specific information; Instead, you are just watching the information pass through your mind. Open Awareness Meditation is similar to a bird's-eye view of a city; it is watching an entire city from above without focusing on one person or car.
Centering Prayer – A hybrid type of Focused Awareness and Open Awareness Meditations where you focus on a sensory experience until your mind settles into open awareness, then you stop concentrating on the sensory experience and experience open awareness until you notice your mind begins thinking again. Once you see that thoughts have replaced your open awareness, you refocus on your sensory experience until you are grounded and can switch to open awareness.
Compassionate or Loving Kindness Meditation – Concentrating one’s mind on broadcasting love, compassion, and positive thoughts to all or a specific group of people. 

Mental Construct


or Mental Concepts, Mental Object
The formation of thoughts into models of reality that seem and feel real.
The thoughts and emotions our brains experience after a trigger.
See also: Emotion, Reality, Thoughts, Trigger.

Mental Turbulence


Numerous incongruent thoughts that happen as a result of triggers.
See also: Brain Activity, Trigger, Thoughts.

Mind


The sense of consciousnesses you experience as a result of your brain’s committees working together.
The sense of you that you experience.
See also: Brain.

Mindfulness


or Awareness, Presence
The practice of conscious awareness while being present with your thoughts, emotions, and physical experiences.
See also: Awareness.
N

Negativity Bias


The Survival Mind’s tendency to give more importance to stimuli that harm your physical survival and sense of survival.
The Survival Mind’s inclination to dwell on negative stimuli.
See also: Sense of Survival, Survival Mind.

Nonattachment


or Acceptance without Attachment, Nonattached
The ability to notice triggers without forming an attachment, identifications, or personalizations to the mental and emotional reactions your brain experiences.
The skill of accepting the meaning our brain puts on an experience without believing it to be accurate or untrue.
The practice of not being fixated or stuck to an idea, emotion, or object.
See also: Acceptance, Attachment, Identification, Personalization. Trigger.
P

Pain


Physically generated discomfort.
Physical affliction or discomfort caused by bodily injury or illness.
See also: Suffering.

Perception


The thoughts and beliefs your mind forms around a sensory experience to explain and interpret the sensory input.
See also: Mind, Sensory Experience, Sensory Input, Thoughts.

Percolate


or sleep on it, simmer on it, rest in it, allow things to settle, allow it to soak in, process it
Allowing your mind to process thoughts or situations over some extended time.
Having the patience to allow your mind to search through the data it has collected and bring forth the best solution for a situation or thought.
See also: Unfold.

Personal Reality


or Your Truth, Your Experience, Your Perceptions
Your interpretation of a situation or experience.
The differences between your sensory experience of a situation and the situation as it genuinely happened.
See also: Perception, Reality.

Personalization


The experience of mentally believing an event or object is a reflection of oneself or identity.
The process of identifying with an emotion, object, or situation as an expression of yourself.
See also: Attachment, Emotion, Identification.

Predictive Suffering


or Future Suffering
The tendency of our brain to imagine outcomes of situations that cause us to feel negative feelings.
See also: Brain, Feelings.
Present
Being consciously aware of your mental, emotional, and physical state, as well as your surroundings and environment.
See also: Awareness

Programs


or Conditioned Responses, Habits, Programming, Reactions
The beliefs, perceptions, rules, and thoughts you learned from your experiences, especially from your upbringing.
Thoughts and brain activity that distort your perception of reality.
See also: Brain Activity. Classical Conditioning, Distortion, Perception, Reaction, Reality, Thoughts.
R

Reaction


A series of thoughts (mainly memories of previous similar events) that generate feelings that compel us to action, usually based on fight, flight, freeze, grab & hold.
An automatic action, behavior, speech pattern, or thought process triggered by a sensory experience or thought.
An autopilot response to a trigger.
See also: Actions, Autopilot, Emotion, Sensory Experience, Survival Modes, Thoughts, Trigger.

Reality


A situation as it is without interpretation or perspective.
The world, situations, or experiences agreed upon by all participants involved.
The laws of nature.
The rules governing a situation.
Your thoughts, feelings, and actions as you experience them and without distortions by your mind’s mental reactions and judgments.
See also: Actions, Distortion, Emotion, Feelings, Reaction, Thoughts.

Below are three types of reality to which I frequently refer.
Objective Reality - Reality as it is irrespective of interpretations.
Shared Reality - Interpretations of data agreed upon by all parties involved.
Personal Reality - Interpretations of data that one individual believes.

Reframing


Choosing to experience a situation focused on the advantages you’ll receive from it instead of the suffering you will endure during it.

Resignation


The reluctant acceptance of a stimulus.
Any resistance to a stimulus.
See also: Sense of Survival.

Right Action


Expending energy to accomplish your goals after all emotional compulsions are released.
Movement toward a desired outcome that represents your authentic self and wants despite your thoughts or feelings.
See also: Action, Emotion, Reaction, Survival Mode, True Self.

Roles


or Parts, Player
The interrelated behaviors, obligations, and expectations assigned to you or assumed by you as part of a familial, professional, or social situation.
See also: Behavior, Expectation
S

Self-Awareness


The ability to consciously notice the thoughts, emotions, and behaviors you are experiencing while also recognizing the automatic stories and judgments of right or wrong or good or bad or win or lose that your mind puts on what you notice.
See also: Actions, Awareness, Behaviors, Emotion, Thoughts.

Self-Communication


or Chatter, Internal Dialogue, Internal Monologue, Voice in your head
Your internal thoughts and autopilot reactions or conscious responses to your thoughts.
See also: Autopilot, Reaction, Thoughts.

Self-compassion


Being present to reality and using emotions as keys to unlock areas of reality your mind is distorting for survival or sense of survival reasons.
Unconditional acceptance of yourself.
Concern for the well-being of your mental, emotional, and physical self.
Loving yourself the way you genuinely want to be loved, treating yourself the way you genuinely want to be treated, and caring for yourself in the way you wish to experience care.
Allowing your core values to guide your life.
Being truthful with yourself even in the midst of uncomfortable thoughts and emotions.
Allowing yourself time to process, space to breathe, and room to ground yourself so you feel stable and solid.
Caring for yourself even when you feel it is inconvenient.
Accepting reality as it is.
The Self-Discipline to practice Awareness, Acceptance, and Letting Go.
Detaching who you are from how you feel.
Experiencing your mental, emotional, and physical sensations without personalizing them.
Non-interference with your conditioned thoughts and emotions.
See also: Acceptance, Awareness, Brain, Emotion, Letting Go, Self-discipline, Sense of Survival, Survival, Thoughts.

Self-compassionate Activity


or Contemplation, Event, Managing, Ritual
A daily delight to bring meaning to your life.
An exercise, hobby, or action that you do to slow your brain or body reactions down to give yourself time to process and navigate the experience with the least amount of suffering.
A discipline, event, or ritual that you repeat for dedicating space and time that create meaning and contentment in your life.
The skill of using physical movement or brain concentration to accomplish one or more of your core values while also expending physical energy that would be otherwise used for autopilot reaction.
See also: Autopilot, Reaction.

Self-compassionate Living


The philosophy about how the mind reacts to stimuli and how to train it to minimize suffering and live easier and happier.
A name invented for the practice developed by Blair Ashby for caring for your mental, emotional, and physical well-being.
See also: Suffering.

Self-compassionate Preparation


The skill of mentally preparing yourself for challenging situations by focusing on your core values and how you want to navigate a situation.

Self-discipline


  • The practice of keeping one’s mind and activities focused on one's primary goal in a situation.

Sense of Self


or Committee, Ego, Survival Brain
The mental construct a person creates to define themselves mentally.
The thoughts and beliefs a person holds as the definition of themselves.
See also: Committee, Sense of Self, Survival Mind.

Sense of Survival


or Emotional Programs for Happiness
The feelings that we are liked and have approval, feel safe and secure, have power, and control in a situation.
Thoughts about yourself, which you automatically perceive as needed to survive, be comfortable, and be happy.
The process of keeping your sense of self unharmed.
See also: Survival.

Sensory Experience


Your brain’s interpretation of the sensory input your sensory organs have received.
See also: Sensory Input, Sensory Organs.

Sensory Input

or Data
Any information you gather from your five senses: eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and skin, or your physical body senses, such as hunger, and experienced as sight, sound, smell, taste, touch, or feelings.
See also: Data, Sensory Organs

Sensory Organs


Your Eyes, Ears, Nose, Tongue, and Skin.

Spiritual


The thoughts, beliefs, ideas, and behaviors you hold closest to your core values or authentic self.
Who you really, Really, REALLY are and what you really, Really, REALLY want in and for your life.
See also: True Self.

Subcommittees


Multiple individual brain sections formed into groups with similar survival goals.
See also: Brain, Committee.

Subtext


or Body Language
Messages that we broadcast from our physical behaviors, facial expressions, gestures, micro-gestures, and voice inflections.

Suffering


Mentally generated discomfort.
Anytime that you emotionally feel negative.
Resistance to reality.
Resistance to the present moment.
Resistance to situations that don’t meet your expectations.
Resistance to thoughts and events happening now in the present moment.
Physical affliction caused by mental or emotional injury or illness.
Any physical sensations from emotions that you experience as unpleasant, uncomfortable, or negative.
Mental and Emotional Pain.
See also: Attachment, Distortion, Emotion, Letting Go, Perception, Reality, Sense of Survival, Thoughts.

Suffering has three forms:
Necessary or Required Suffering
Unpleasant thoughts and feelings that your brain generates from a given situation, such as grieving the loss of a loved one.
Unnecessary, Optional, Programmed Suffering
Unpleasant-feeling thoughts and feelings that your brain generates by reactions to distorted perceptions of your Sense of Survival.
Intentional, Unnecessary Suffering or Purposeful Suffering
Unpleasant-feeling thoughts and emotions that your brain generates, and you consciously recognize, and you choose to endure these discomforts to achieve your desired outcome.

Survival


Physical Survival
The state of being not dead.
The process of keeping your physical body unharmed and not dead.
Sense of Survival
Thoughts about yourself, which you automatically perceive as needed to survive, be comfortable, and be happy.
The process of keeping your sense of self unharmed.
See also: Sense of Survival.

Survival Mind


or Ego, Emotional Brain, Reactionary Brain, Sense of Self
Your sense of self.
Your brain’s conscious and subconscious parts that generate your reactions or try to influence your conscious responses to real or perceived threats and advantages by shifting the brain into Survival Mode.
See also: Limbic System, Perception, Sense of Survival, Sensory Input,  Survival Modes.

Facts about the Survival Mind:
Has no capacity for logical, rational, or reasoning thought.
The closest it gets to logical thought is recognizing patterns or similarities.
Has complete and virtually instant access to every memory or experience you have formed from your Sensory Input and thoughts.
Activates all your emotions.

Survival Modes


The autopilot and usually subconscious reactionary process the Survival Mind uses for adapting to a physical advantage or threat or perceived mental advantage or threat.
The Survival Mind has three reactions:
Positive Feeling - Shifts your mind into Grab, Hold mode, also called Clinging or Grasping.
Negative Feeling - Shifts your mind into Fight, Flight, or Freeze mode, also called Defensive or Protective.
Indifference – The mind perceives no advantage or threat from a trigger and thus generates no thoughts and corresponding emotional reactions.
See also: Autopilot, Perception, Survival Mind, Thoughts, Trigger.

Survival Thinking


The processing of thoughts triggered by the physical threat/benefit or the sense of survival threat/benefit ratio analysis.
See also: Reaction, Sense of Survival, Survival, Thoughts, Trigger.

Survival Want


The desire to own and control something with the thought that it will make oneself happy.
See also: Survival Mind.

Synchronicity


or Convergent Evolution, Miracle, Working Out
The fortuitous circumstance or incidence of events that seem meaningfully related without any obvious connection.
T

The Formula for My Life


or TFFML
A straightforward way to describe how we create our lives from our thoughts.
The formula to explain the process your brain uses to form your life from initial thought to concluding action.
See also: Action, Emotion, Thoughts.
The formula is:
My thoughts generate my feelings.
My feelings compel my actions.
My actions create my life.

Thoughts


Any brain activity.
Any communication between committee members.
See also: Brain, Brain Activity, Committee.

Click here to read a partial list of various names for thoughts or brain activity. If you have a suggestion of names for this list, please write to me here, and if it fits this list, I’ll include it.

Thought Patterns


The way your brain thinks.
The mental pathways or brain wires that your brain grew from experiences, especially from your upbringing.
A mental action that follows brain pathways built on experiences.
See also: Action, Brain, Brain Wires.

Thrivival


The discipline of noticing your mind’s reactions to triggers and then navigating situations so that you suffer the least.
The practice of maintaining your survival needs while simultaneously keeping yourself centered so you experience a maximum amount of Joy, Peace, and Contentment.
Mentally creating and experiencing each situation to minimize suffering and maximize your experience of Enlightenment.
A word created by Blair Ashby to describe thriving while also surviving.
See also: Awareness, Discipline, Enlightenment, Mind, Reaction, Suffering.

Trigger


or Event, Goad You, Input, Push Your Button, Sensory Experience, Wind You Up
Sensory Inputs and thoughts that start new thoughts and pull your attention away from the present.
Anything that shifts your mind into exclusive focus on your survival or your sense of survival’s desired outcome.
See also: Brain Activity, Being Present, Sensory Input, Thoughts.

True Self


or Authentic Self, Authenticity, Core Values, Native to You
The traits or qualities that represent you personally.
The aspects of yourself that you deem as most important and hold the highest value for your personal meaning.
U

Unfold


Allowing a situation or a series of events to arrange itself by releasing your sense of control over the outcome.
See also: Letting Go, Percolate, Sense of Survival.