The Genuine Power of Community

Surprising Approaches to Stop Undermining Yourself

We often observe self protective strategies in ourselves with a mixture of puzzlement and embarrassment. Why are we like this? Why can’t we be more normal? What’s up with us? Our newsletter is a treasury of ideas: ideas that can inspire, console, and improve your mental wellbeing. You’ll also hear news about our app, latest releases and exclusive Q&A content, where we answer your questions:https://www.theschooloflife.com/signup/ If you want to keep working on your mental well-being and self-understanding, download our hugely helpful new app now: https://www.theschooloflife.com/app/ Our website has books and articles to help you lead a more fulfilled life: https://b4f4.short.gy/QElbpO For Psychotherapy and other therapeutic services: https://www.theschooloflife.com/therapy-booking/?presetTherapyType=Psychotherapy For information on The School of Life’s learning and wellbeing solutions for businesses, including workshops and talks, visit https://www.theschooloflife.com/at-work/ Email business@theschooloflife.com or join our monthly business newsletter: https://share-eu1.hsforms.com/1U9XMcR1KRRSyg1D8hYB1TQg4qle FURTHER READING You can read more on this and other subjects on our blog, here: https://www.theschooloflife.com/article/letting-go-of-self-protective-strategies/ “There’s an enlightening and sometimes slightly painful exercise one can do by oneself to learn a bit more about the origins of how one feels and behaves. Pick out an emotional skill or habit that you know you’re not very good at – and write it down on a sheet of paper. Here are some examples: — Staying calm — Taking pride in yourself — Trusting — Missing people who go away We often observe these traits in ourselves with a mixture of puzzlement and embarrassment. Why are we like this? Why can’t we be more normal? What’s wrong with us?” MORE SCHOOL OF LIFE Watch more films on SELF in our playlist: http://bit.ly/TSOLself SOCIAL MEDIA Feel free to follow us at the links below: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theschooloflifelondon/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheSchoolOfLife Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theschooloflifelondon/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-school-of-life-for-business/ CREDITS Produced in collaboration with: Léon Moh-Cah http://leonmohcah.com Title animation produced in collaboration with Graeme Probert www.gpmotion.co.uk Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

Why we should pity High Achievers

It is a measure of our collective delusion that we are so ready to be proud of high achievers and so slow to detect the wound that powers them on. Enjoying our Youtube videos? Get full access to all our audio content, videos, and thousands of thought-provoking articles, conversation cards and more with The School of Life Subscription: https://t.ly/cLi_e Be more mindful, present and inspired. Get the best of The School of Life delivered straight to your inbox: https://t.ly/422i- FURTHER READING You can read more on this and other subjects here: https://bit.ly/304T25U ‘It might seem – at first glance – as though the people we term high-achievers could not possibly have any relationship to self-hatred: they are the ones who did exceptionally well in exams, whom the teachers admired, who won places at the best universities, who graduated with honours, who got into law and medical schools, who founded thriving businesses, who live in the wealthiest parts of town, who are up early in the morning preparing themselves healthy breakfasts before a day of important meetings. Surely we can’t impute that these might be sufferers from the ravages of self-disgust?..” MORE SCHOOL OF LIFE Watch more films on SELF in our playlist: http://bit.ly/TSOLself SOCIAL MEDIA Feel free to follow us at the links below: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theschooloflifelondon/ X: https://twitter.com/TheSchoolOfLife Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theschooloflifelondon/ CREDITS Produced in collaboration with: Eunju Choi https://www.rca.ac.uk/showcase/show-rca/eun-ju-choi/ Title animation produced in collaboration with Vale Productions https://www.valeproductions.co.uk/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

The Relevance of Soft Toys

Children’s relationships with soft toys is neither superficial nor unimportant to psychological development. If you like our films, take a look at our shop (we ship worldwide): https://goo.gl/bbNOLH Enjoying our Youtube videos? Get full access to all our audio content, videos, and thousands of thought-provoking articles, conversation cards and more with The School of Life Subscription: https://t.ly/bfKhG Be more mindful, present and inspired. Get the best of The School of Life delivered straight to your inbox: https://t.ly/k7PPm FURTHER READING "Sometimes you can catch important things about human nature in apparent incidentals. It’s well observed that between the ages of around one and twelve, many children manifest a deep attachment to a stuffed soft object, normally shaped into a bear, a rabbit or – less often – a penguin. The depth of the relationship can be extraordinary. The child sleeps with it, talks to it, cries in front of it and tells it things it would never tell anyone else. What’s truly remarkable is that the animal looks after its owner, addressing him in a tone of unusual maturity and kindness. It might, in a crisis, urge the child not to worry and to look forward to better times in the future. But naturally, the animal’s character is entirely made up. The animal is simply something invented, or brought to life by one part of the child, in order to look after the other." More on this and other topics here: https://goo.gl/Z0Zk5b MORE SCHOOL OF LIFE Our website has classes, articles and products to help you think and grow: https://goo.gl/P0DPzb Watch more films on RELATIONSHIPS in our playlist: http://bit.ly/TSOLrelationships Do you speak a different language to English? Did you know you can submit Subtitles on all of our videos on YouTube? For instructions how to do this click here: https://goo.gl/ZPGmkH SOCIAL MEDIA Feel free to follow us at the links below: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theschooloflifelondon/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheSchoolOfLife Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theschooloflifelondon/ CREDITS Produced in collaboration with: Julia Veldman http://www.juliaveldmanc.nl/ #TheSchoolOfLife Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

How to Become a More Captivating Person

We tend to evaluate people on how interesting they are. But we are thereby liable to miss a more acute and relevant issue: how interesting does a given person make us feel? Why in the company of some do our minds quickly fill with stories, while around others, we experience ourselves as blank, dull and close to inert? FURTHER READING You can read more on this and other subjects here: https://9qq0.short.gy/fEFTlw “We start with an unusual observation: there is a huge variance in how much we feel we have to say for ourselves around some people compared to around others; certain people make us feel boring, others do not. We tend to evaluate people on how interesting they are. But we are thereby liable to miss a more acute and relevant issue: how interesting does a given person make us feel? Why in the company of some do our minds quickly fill with stories, while around others, we experience ourselves as blank, dull and close to inert. Why – when some people ask – ‘so what have you been up to lately?’ do we positively brim with a multitude of topics, whereas with others, outwardly equally polite, do we struggle to remember that we have ever even existed?..." MORE SCHOOL OF LIFE Watch more films on SELF in our playlist: http://bit.ly/TSOLself SOCIAL MEDIA Feel free to follow us at the links below: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theschooloflifelondon/ X: https://twitter.com/TheSchoolOfLife Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theschooloflifelondon/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-school-of-life-for-business/ CREDITS Produced in collaboration with: Deanca Rensyta https://www.deancarensyta.com/ Title animation produced in collaboration with: Graeme Probert www.gpmotion.co.uk Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

Emotional Articulation

One of the lesser known skills of relationships is the ability to translate what a lover says to reveal its deeper meaning. Enjoying our Youtube videos? Get full access to all our audio content, videos, and thousands of thought-provoking articles, conversation cards and more with The School of Life Subscription: https://t.ly/HnJ15 Be more mindful, present and inspired. Get the best of The School of Life delivered straight to your inbox: https://t.ly/7Pnl1 The School of Life runs a global online psychotherapy service that assists clients from over 40 countries. To find out more and book a session today, please visit our website: https://t.ly/xP3EL FURTHER READING “Listening to a lover is a vital skill in relationships. But there is an associated, and perhaps less well-recognised talent we may also need to nurture: that of sometimes not quite listening to what a lover is saying in favour of deftly imagining what they might really mean – which could be a different thing altogether. Though taking someone at face value is rightly seen as a supreme symbol of respect, within love, it may at points be more accurate, as well as a great deal kinder, to dig beneath the surface meaning of words in search of a partner’s real but more bashful, complex or hesitant underlying emotional intention.…” You can read more on this and other topics here: https://goo.gl/NchXWr MORE SCHOOL OF LIFE Watch more films on RELATIONSHIPS in our playlist: http://bit.ly/TSOLrelationships SOCIAL MEDIA Feel free to follow us at the links below: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theschooloflifelondon/ X: https://twitter.com/TheSchoolOfLife Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theschooloflifelondon/ CREDITS Produced in collaboration with: Zedem films http://www.zedemanimations.com/ #TheSchoolOfLife Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]