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Legions of self-help authors rightly urge personal development as the key to happiness, but they typically fail to focus on its most important objective: hardiness. Though that which doesn't kill us can make us stronger, as Nietzsche tells us, few authors today offer any insight into just how�to springboard from adversity to strength.�
It doesn't just happen automatically, and it takes practice. New scientific research�suggests that�resilience isn't something with which only a fortunate few of us have been born, but rather something we can all take specific action to develop. To build strength out of adversity, we need a catalyst. What we need, according to�Dr. Alex Lickerman, is wisdom―wisdom that adversity has the potential to teach us.
Lickerman's underlying premise is that our ability to control what happens to us in life may be limited, but we have the ability to establish a life-state to surmount the suffering life brings us. The Undefeated Mind distills the wisdom we need to create true resilience into nine core principles, including:
--A� new definition of victory and its relevance to happiness
--The concept of the changing of poison into medicine
--A way to view prayer as a vow we make to ourselves.�
--A method of setting expectations that enhances our ability to endure disappointment and minimizes the likelihood of quitting
--An approach to taking personal responsibility and moral action that enhances resilience
--A�process to managing pain―both physical and emotional―that enables us to push through obstacles that might otherwise prevent us from attaining out goals
--A method of leveraging our relationships with others that helps us manifest our strongest selves�
Through stories of patients who have used these principles to overcome suffering caused by unemployment, unwanted weight gain, addiction, rejection, chronic pain, retirement, illness, loss, and even death, Dr. Lickerman shows how we too can make these principles function within our own lives, enabling us to develop for ourselves the resilience we need to achieve indestructible happiness. At its core, The Undefeated Mind�urges us to stop hoping for easy lives and focus instead on cultivating the inner strength we need to enjoy the difficult lives we all have.
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- Sales Rank: #9091 in Books
- Published on: 2012-11-06
- Released on: 2012-11-06
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.50" h x 5.50" w x .75" l, .60 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 288 pages
Review
"Alex Lickerman mines life's greatest challenges with an artist's eye, a scientist's rigor and a Buddhist's wise hand. The result is a book that I could not stop reading.�Alex's unique gifts as a writer, doctor and scientific thinker make for an epiphany-studded quest to tame his own mind and to commune with the minds of others. He has produced a book that is profound, compassionate, and triply inspiring."
--Kaja Perina, editor-in-chief, Psychology Today
"Buddhism and Western medicine would seem an incongruous mixture, but in the hands of Alex Lickerman they meld seamlessly into a recipe for overcoming life's hardships―indeed, for turning them into advantages.� An accomplished physician, Lickerman has no truck for the supernatural, but recognizes that the tenets of Nichiren Buddhism have been honed over centuries to help alleviate life's inevitable sufferings. The Undefeated Mind is a deeply engaging story of how Lickerman has fused modern medicine with ancient wisdom to heal his patients both physically and psychologically―lessons that apply to all of us."���
--Jerry Coyne, professor of Ecology and Evolution at University of Chicago and author of Why Evolution is True
"Eastern religious practices such as chanting are often brushed aside as 'mysticism' by Western science. In this highly original book based on extensive case studies, Lickerman effectively bridges these two great traditions, providing novel insights along the way on how we can all triumph over the psychological impact of adversity and live joyfully, even in this 'vale of tears.'"
--V. S. Ramachandran, director of the Center for Brain and Cognition at University of California San Diego and author of the New York Times bestseller The Tell-Tale Brain
"Dr. Lickerman's wisdom and compassion are evident on every page of this outstanding book. Inspired by his many years of practice in the Nichiren Buddhist tradition, Dr. Lickerman, a practicing physician, sets forth nine principles for developing an 'undefeated mind.' An undefeated mind is not a passive mind that is sometimes associated with Buddhism. It is a mind that never gives up the search for solutions to life's inevitable obstacles. It is a mind that knows that peace and happiness are attainable even in the midst of hardships, such as rejection, illness, and loss. It is a mind that treats adversity as an opportunity for growth.
By sharing personal stories of how he and his patients have benefited from these nine principles, Dr. Lickerman turns them into easy-to-apply tools that everyone can put to use immediately.
Incorporating the nine principles of The Undefeated Mind into your everyday life will open the door to limitless compassion for others and to unshakeable happiness for yourself. This profound book has the power to change your life."
―Toni Bernhard, author of How to Be Sick: A Buddhist-Inspired Guide for the Chronically Ill and Their Caregivers
The Undefeated Mind: On the Science of Constructing an Indestructible Self Alex Lickerman.
HCI Books, $15.95 trade paper (288p) ISBN 978-0-7573-1642-5�
����When life brings adversity such as profound loss or illness, we may sometimes feel defeated and powerless to change either the circumstance or our emotional response. Physician and blogger Lickerman tells us that things are only as bleak as they seem, and, using actual conversations with his patients, reveals the process of achieving an "inner life state" that mitigates suffering. More than presenting just a good theory or interesting stories, he interweaves compelling scientific research and core tenets of Nichiren Buddhism to flesh out this inner life state: nine central principles that moderate physical and emotional pain. The point of easing suffering is "not for solving problems but for establishing a life state that makes all problems solvable." The interplay of dialogue, narrative, science, and faith flows effortlessly, interrupted only by thought-provoking observations such as "research suggests that the more we use our willpower, the weaker it becomes," and "our expectations profoundly influence our responses to our experiences." The principles are well constructed and the book well written; the author not only describes an undefeated mind but also teaches the thinking that yields one. Agent: Stephany Evans. (Nov.) (Publishers Weekly Publishers Weekly)
"One of my favorite new books is�The Undefeated Mind.� It's a powerful book that helps you cultivate your inner strength to face hard times with a fearless heart. It's more than a book.�It's a set of tools for life."
--J.D. Meier, Sources of Insight
About the Author
Alex Lickerman, MD, is a physician and former director of primary care at one of the world's most prestigious universities, the University of Chicago. He is also a practicing Nichiren Buddhist and leader in the Nichiren Buddhist lay organization, the Soka Gakkai International, USA (SGI-USA). Dr. Lickerman is a prolific writer, having written for medical textbooks, national trade publications, and even for Hollywood with an adaptation of Milton's Paradise Lost. He has extensive speaking experience, having given lectures at high schools, colleges, and medical conferences, and was recently selected by the Consumers' Research Council of America as one of America's top physicians in their publication Guide to America's Top Physicians. Dr. Lickerman's blog "Happiness in this World" is syndicated on the website of Psychology Today, and receives over one hundred thousand unique visitors per month. Please visit his website at www.alexlickerman.com.
Excerpt. � Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
The Meaning of Victory
We are, all of us, meaning-seeking creatures. We may begin life as pleasure seekers and pain avoiders, but as our brains develop and language begins flowing from our mouths, we soon begin demanding to know the why of things, as any parent can attest who's been subjected to the inexhaustible energy children have for asking why the sun shines or the sky is blue. Yet the difficulty we face as parents in providing good answers becomes immediately apparent when we turn to science for help, perhaps murmuring something about thermonuclear fusion or the way the Earth's atmosphere scatters light. 'But why do hydrogen atoms fuse?' we'll inevitably hear next. 'Because of heat and pressure,' we answer. 'Why is there pressure?' they ask after that, and so on, each successive query sounding less like a follow-up question and more like a reprimand for our foolishly offering how answers to why questions, reminding us that when children ask why something is, they're actually asking to know its purpose.
At first glance this seems an innocent wish―even charming―so it's one we're willing to indulge. But if we chase the answer to any 'purpose' question far enough down the rabbit hole, inevitably we'll come face to face with the frustrating truth that we can't answer the simplest one even to our satisfaction. We don't know why the sun shines or the sky is blue―or if such questions even make sense―any more than we know the ultimate reason for anything, including, most importantly, ourselves.
Which doesn't stop us from trying to figure it out. As we grow from toddlers to children and our thinking becomes more self-reflective, at some point we narrow the scope of our investigation into the purpose of things down to one overriding question: 'For what purpose do we live?' And while some of us may only be asking how we'd like to spend our lives, others are asking about the meaning of life itself, seeking not just an answer but rather the answer, the ultimate reason for which we were all born. Undaunted by the possibility that no such ultimate reason even exists―that we simply are―some of us try mixing varying proportions of intuition, reason, introspection, philosophy, and religion in an attempt to uncover a purpose with which we've been endowed. Yet even if we eventually choose to place our faith in an omnipotent maker who's bestowed upon us the purpose we seek, belief in that maker's existence brings us no closer to knowing it. (Despite the protests of the faithful to the contrary, belief in a creator grants us no firsthand knowledge of that creator's intent.)
On the other hand, if we're willing to accept that we don't have an endowed purpose but rather an evolved function, we can begin from any one of the many desires that populate our everyday life and follow it back through all the desires that lie beneath it to find the answer we seek. We may rouse ourselves out of bed one day to study for a test, the next to help a troubled friend, and the next after that to run errands, but in every instance our motivation arises from some other, broader reason; and if we ask why that reason rouses us, we'll find the answer in yet another, even broader reason, and so on. We want to study for our test to pass it. We want to pass our test to get a good grade in our class. We want to get a good grade in our class to get into a good college. We want to get into a good college to get a good job. And if we continue asking why, like the child we once were, trying to excavate down to our most rudimentary ambition―a time-worn exercise―we'll eventually find all reasons lead to the same place, to the one core reason for living we'd sought all along, the core reason against which we measure the value of everything we do: to be happy.
Our Desire to Be Happy
Here, though, evolutionary biology would raise an objection, arguing that the ultimate end toward which all living organisms aim their activities is survival and reproduction. And though true for the vast majority of life on planet Earth, not so I'd argue for Homo sapiens. For when we evolved the ability to have thoughts and feelings about our thoughts and feelings (for example, the ability to recognize we enjoy football more than baseball), we gained the ability to form judgments about our experiences and make choices about which ones we'd rather have―choices, observation suggests, that are driven less by the desire to survive and reproduce than they are by the desire to become happy. (Though the desire to become happy undoubtedly evolved to promote survival and reproduction, with the advent of self-awareness, the relative strength with which we're motivated to become happy and motivated to survive and reproduce has reversed.) A sizable minority of people, for example, choose not to have children at all, believing that parenthood will lead them on balance to less happiness rather than more.1 In addition, in circumstances in which the drive to survive is pitted directly against the drive to become happy―that is, when people perceive the need to make a choice between the two―the drive to become happy (or, at least, to avoid suffering) typically proves itself the stronger. We see this, for example, in patients suffering from intractable pain who have been known to make the reasoned choice―meaning in the absence of clinical depression or psychotic delusion―to end their lives. And though we may be tempted to believe that patients with chronic pain who choose to suffer it rather than kill themselves do so because they want to survive even at the cost of their happiness, the more likely explanation is that their personal degree of pain tolerance enables them to remain happy despite their discomfort. Either that, or their hope to be relieved of their pain is great enough to sustain their hope that they'll become happy one day in the future.
An Irresistible Pursuit
We actually have as little choice about wanting to become happy as the heart does about pumping blood. We're incapable of wanting not to become happy. The pursuit of happiness isn't merely an inalienable right with which we're endowed or an activity we're capable of choosing; it's psychological law we must obey. Even people who appear to want nothing to do with happiness, like those so immersed in self-hatred that their principle aim becomes self-sabotage, will say they haven't lost their desire for happiness so much as ceased to believe they deserve it. Similarly, people suffering from severe depression who seek their own destruction typically do so only to escape the pain they're feeling, not because they no longer want to be happy. They may no longer believe they can be happy and therefore stop behaving as if they want to be, but that's because depression often leads to a state of learned helplessness (once convinced that happiness is no longer possible, continuing to take action toward it becomes next to impossible). Just as the heart's function continues to be the pumping of blood even when it starts to fail, our minds aim toward happiness even when they appear to stop seeking it or even wanting it. Whether we want this to be true or even realize it is makes no difference. Like the heart, our minds are built a certain way to perform a certain function we can't change, one that by virtue of our sentience and self-awareness we just happen to be able to perceive.
But if happiness is indeed our primary function, why is it so difficult to achieve? Perhaps for at least two reasons. First, because merely desiring happiness more than anything else doesn't itself teach us how to achieve it. And as we're all capable of believing things without evidence, many of our beliefs about what makes us happy will simply turn out to be wrong. How many of us, for example, consider happiness to lie in the unmitigated pursuit of pleasure? Certainly pleasure plays an important role in contributing to happiness, but to appreciate how an existence can be overflowing with pleasure and still be miserable we only need look at people for whom certain pleasures (sex, gambling, drugs, and so on) send all other considerations spinning off into the distance and often cause the collapse of the very lives they delight. Further, too much pleasure can be paradoxically unpleasant (a few jelly beans are delicious, but too many make us sick), something happiness, by definition, can never be.
Loss Aversion
Which brings us to the second reason happiness is difficult to achieve: it requires not only the presence of joy (meaning a positive emotional state), but also the absence of suffering. Unfortunately, we often fail to appreciate these things as separate and focus most of our efforts on finding things that bring us joy rather than on preparing ourselves to withstand hardship. We may think things that bring us joy―a good job, money, a loving spouse, and so on―simultaneously immunize us against suffering, but if anything they actually make us more vulnerable to suffering by providing us more attachments to lose.
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�2012. Alex Lickerman, MD. All rights reserved. Reprinted from The Undefeated Mind. �No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the written permission of the publisher. Publisher: Health Communications, Inc., 3201 SW 15th Street, Deerfield Beach, FL 33442
�
Most helpful customer reviews
265 of 292 people found the following review helpful.
Potentially Useful, But Not to Everyone
By Book-Movie-Music Lover
I rarely see the point in giving something a three-star review. It basically tells readers that the book, CD or movie is "average," so what's the point?
However, this book has a lot of plusses, as well as some "not-so-plusses," so I figured that a review might be of use to people to decide whether they would find the book to be of value or not.
On the "not so plus" side, the book is basically "Self-Help 101." In other words, if you are new to self-help books, then most of what is in this book will be new to you. However, if you are a "veteran" of such books, you will find very little new information or insights in this book. In fact, the author cites hundreds of journal studies. This isn't necessary a bad thing. The only problem is that, if you've read many self-help books before, you will recognize dozens of these studies. They are the exact same ones that hundreds of authors have cited before in hundreds of other books. (You probably have a lot of these studies memorized.)
On the plus side, there are a few new and interesting insights, most of which are contained in the first couple of chapters. After that, though, in the remaining chapters, it's pretty much "more of the same" that you've read in every other self-help book over the years.
Where the book really shines, though, is in the compassion that literally exudes from every page. It is obvious that this author is genuinely a caring and loving individual, with a great deal of compassion for his patients in specific, and people in general. As a result, by the time you are finished reading the book, you may not have learned anything intellectually, but you do end up with a really warm feeling - a true emotional high.
So, if you're new to self-help books, this book "clicks" on all counts.
If you are a veteran of self-help books, you may not learn much new information (no need to keep a pen and pad of paper handy), but you WILL feel really good by the end of the book.
111 of 120 people found the following review helpful.
Very Insightful Path for Better Living
By John Chancellor
We all grew up listening to fairy tales. For the most part, the story plot provided a dilemma, a solution and usually ended with "and they all lived happily ever after." I think we came to believe that after reaching certain points in life, after completing school, getting married, establishing a career, we would enjoy the fairy tale of living happily ever after.
For most of us, it did not take too long to realize that was not the way life is. While our innate drive is to seek to maximize happiness, for the most part we are not given very good directions. For a time we were led to believe that achieving certain materialistic goals would bring the happiness we longed for. But we soon learned that no matter what material goals we achieve, we soon habituate to them - the new wears off and their ability to satisfy us diminishes.
Clearly we need a better approach to life and its ups and downs if we are going to lead a happy, productive life. Dr. Alex Lickerman, the author of The Undefeated Mind has provided us an exceptionally well written book which gives us the tools necessary for a better approach.
The first lesson we need to understand and accept is that we need to "... stop hoping for easy lives and instead to focus on cultivating the inner strength we need to enjoy the difficult lives we all have."
We have grown up thinking that things will bring us happiness. But the more things we acquire and the more attached we become to these things, the more vulnerable we become. Our attachment to things increases the possibility we will experience suffering.
According to Dr. Lickerman, what we need is the wisdom to deal with life the way life is. "Wisdom is so powerful, in fact, that it can even put a halt to suffering without changing the circumstances that cause it." If we learn to "turn poison into medicine" we can find a way to benefit from the suffering.
In the book Dr. Lickerman deals with ten different topics which will help us develop an undefeated mind. "An undefeated mind is not one which never feels discouraged or despairing; it's one that continues on in spite of it. An undefeated mind does not fill itself with false hope, but with hopes to find real solutions, even solutions it many not want or like. An undefeated mind is itself what grants us access to the creativity, strength, and courage necessary to find those real solutions."
The topics covered give us a blueprint for dealing with life's problems. The book is extremely well written and therefore easy to read and understand. There are plenty of examples from Dr. Lickerman's own life as well as his interaction with patients. There are also so lots of summaries or conclusions from psychological studies. All the theories and studies are extensively referenced. If you choose to follow the references, you will greatly expand your knowledge of human behavior.
One of the more insightful discussions concerned dealing with the past. Most people spend a lot of time focusing on past events - reliving them, hoping somehow to change the past. We all know that changing the past is not possible -that we cannot change the facts of what happened. Yet we still live a lot of our lives going over past events. A better way to deal with this is to change the meaning of the event. If we change the meaning we give to the event, we in effect change the past. Dr. Lickerman tells us how he changed his past by changing the meaning of the event. He further tells us how we can do the same.
Dr. Lickerman makes frequent reference to Nichiren Buddhism throughout the book. However he is not in anyway advocating that one needs to understand or adopt the teachings of Nichiren Buddhism. The references are to provide the reader a better perspective for viewing problems and solutions. I found the references insightful.
This book is not one you will be able to read once and gain all the insights available. In my opinion, the best approach is to read through the book and then go back and read it more slowly, digesting and allowing the teachings to sink in. You will gain some real insights from this book.
There are valuable insights on being fully committed to your goals. Taking full responsibility for the accomplishment of your goals - that is not depending on others for too much help, thus diffusing your own effort. There are excellent discussions on letting go, accepting pain, developing gratitude and overcoming fear.
An excellent book but will require time and work to gain all the good it contains.
I was provided a review copy of this book.
49 of 53 people found the following review helpful.
Undefeated Mind
By Julie Clayton
Many years ago, the renowned humorist and columnist Erma Bombeck wrote a book called, "If Life is a Bowl of Cherries, What Am I Doing in the Pits?" And while humor can be a great salve for life's challenges, when we are in the midst of adversities such as a physical illness or addiction, or the pain of losing a dear one, or facing financial devastation, it can feel like the "pits"-- far from being a laughing matter.
But when we experience powerlessness and defeat, things are only as bleak as they seem, says author Alex Lickerman, M.D. While the circumstances may be out of our control, the wisdom extracted from adverse experience can impart "an inner life state" of undefeated strength. More than just a good theory, he illuminates nine core principles that assuage suffering, interweaving them into actual dialogues with his patients, and reinforcing their efficacy through examples of scientific studies and tenets of Nichiren Buddhism. An undefeated mind is when the goal for achieving something is to is to keep trying--rather than achieving the goal itself: "Never giving up isn't just necessary for victory, it is victory."
The author turns some cherished notions on their head - such as embracing the pain rather than resisting it, or that resilience is the capacity to endure the pain that adversity causes, or that distraction is superior to willpower for delaying gratification. Seamlessly blending dialogue, narrative, science, and faith, he convincingly demonstrates how one can achieve an inner life state of undefeated inner strength in any circumstance.
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