Why Self- Acceptance and Letting Go Are Essential for Happiness

Our brains are excellent at keeping us alive. They keep all the functions of your body going and running harmoniously. They will tell you when you’re hungry, thirsty or if you need to go to the bathroom. They will alert you to dangers real or imagined.

But our brains are awful at making us happy. Let’s take the act of thinking. As a species, we tend to believe in the validity of our thoughts. After all, you’ve never been given any reason to think otherwise.

But is that true? In neuroscience, something called the Default Mode Network (DMN) is responsible for much of our thinking. DMN is the background noise of consciousness, the constant chatter of daydreams, mind-wandering, or just thinking about one’s self or others. Most of this chatter is harmless. It allows us to plan for our days, fantasize about vacations we want to take or people we have crushes on.

But what happens when you examine the granular details of the DMN. One of the great insights of meditation is seeing how random the DMN is. Buddhists call it “monkey mind,” because our minds are just wandering and jumping from tree branch to tree branch. In deep…