The Healthy Management of Reality - Stanford University

Chapter 8Managing External RealityAs you read this chapter, you will often experience the feeling that youknow all this already. And you will be right. The ideas in this book are verycommonsensical. All of us know them at some level. Yet it is surprising to mehow often the people who come for therapy or to one of our educational groupsfind them useful. I believe the power of these ideas lies in placing them in acontext in which the individual is able to apply them systematically.The context for this chapter is the idea of shaping or molding your externalreality, that is, the world outside of your mind, the physical world, the world thatcan be observed by others. We will first address the place in which your mindresides, that is, your body. We will then focus on the time and space in which youlive. We will proceed to your social world. Finally, I will share with you theconcept of a “minimum daily requirement” of rewarding activities.Our Bodies: Our Most Immediate RealityThe part of physical reality that has the most impact on our life is our body.It stands to reason that the state of our body will have a major impact on the stateof our mind and of our life in general. Our body can certainly be shaped andmolded in a variety of ways. Most of these ways are under our control. Beingmindful the state of our bodies is the first step toward managing our physicalreality.HMOR.July2005.Muñoz.doc 85