We have all been hurt and betrayed in one way or another sometime in our lives. When we are hurt and betrayed there's a natural response or reaction that is quite involuntary: we close and cringe. This would be analogous to what happens when a person touches a very hot surface: there is an involuntary response that causes you to quickly move your hand away.

The nervous signal that causes us to snap our hands off the hot surface does not go up to the brain initially. We feel the pain later because the signal travels through a different nerve fiber to the brain, only then we become aware of what happened. The initial reaction is to move the hand, with no thought involved, and no awareness of the heat; the body does that to protect itself from tissue damage. It is this lack of initial awareness of potential damage to the hand that reflects the unconscious nature of reactions.

Just as in the hot surface example, emotionally we also quickly snap away from situations that are hurtful to...

How to a life you love

Flavio Ballerini, Ph. D.

1. What life would you love to live?

This is a good place to begin: the beginning is a definition of what the life you would love to live looks like to you. In general, an awesome life is awesome because we feel that we excel and succeed in four domains: Relationships, prosperity, health (energy and vitality), and vocation (as in doing work that you love to do and matters to you).

Think about it: if you wake up with a spring in your step, next to a person you love, respect, admire and genuinely want to be with; if you have a satisfactory sex life with that person, and if you can plan your day according to what is actually important to you, instead of basing it on what your income allows you to do, how can you not love that? Add to that the ability to move, run, carry things (such as babies and grand-babies) and the certainty that your contribution to the world matters, for sure you will love that life.    

2. The...