Blog | Dr. Amy Johnson

How Your Brain is like the Play-Doh Fun Factory

Your brain is an appliance. A physical apparatus. It’s a little like the Play-Doh Fun Factory (which is modeled after a pasta maker in case you aren’t familiar).You select an extruder plate (an extruder plate is one of those things that looks like a stencil with shapes cut out) to place over the opening.Then you

Good Ideas Are Shallow and Short-Lived Without a Framework

The world is full of good ideas and nice people who are happy to share them.Bumper sticker phrases. Instagram memes. Pop song refrains.There is only now.Let it go.You are perfect.Spend time in silence.It’s all in your head.Forgive and forget.Serve others.These good ideas might point out something you hadn’t thought of, or remind you of something

I Know I’m Feeling my Thinking, but…

The first time I heard that I was “living in the feeling of my thinking”, I thought: “No kidding”. As my kids say (usually with a frustrated eye-roll), “I already know that.”The second time I heard it, I thought: “Seriously, this again?”The third time, it felt like all thought stopped. My mind got incredibly quiet

The Single Source of All Addiction

Beneath the perceived complexity of addiction—beneath layers of chemical dependency, psychological and emotional instability, complicated relationships, fear and trauma—lie some incredibly simple truths. These simple, universal truths apply to every human on earth, no exceptions. They are that universal. These truths apply to you regardless of the nature of your habit and regardless of how long

There’s an Excellent Chance You’re Completely Wrong about Why You Do the Things You Do

Every profession has rockstars.You know, those people in your field who are as kind and down-to-earth as they come, but in whose presence you feel like a tongue-tied loser.As a graduate student, one of my professional rockstars was Daniel (Danny, to those who actually knew him) Kahneman.My field of study was social cognition–how information about social life is

Change You Didn’t Know You Wanted

I recently wrote the foreword to Jill Whalen’s new book, Victim of Thought: Seeing Through the Illusion of Anxiety. Victim of Thought tells Jill’s story of finding freedom from something she didn’t know was a problem.Which is kind of interesting, isn’t it? Finding peace and freedom that you didn’t know you didn’t have? Once Jill

Victim of Thought: Seeing Through the Illusion of Anxiety by Jill Whalen (the Foreword)

Below is the Foreword I wrote for a book called Victim of Thought: Seeing Through the Illusion of Anxiety by Jill Whalen. ***What if—regardless of how anxious you feel—you are 100% healthy and well?The first time I heard that question, I thought the person asking it was insane. “YOU certainly don’t have complete mental health to propose

A New Definition of Freedom (and How it’s Much Better than “This too Shall Pass”)

No experience is off limits.Nothing you do will make you immune to feeling things you’d rather not feel.But what if there’s an even better definition of freedom?Seeing how thought and feeling work allows you to still go through the full range of human experience…but this time, with freedom.

Experience is Always Changing. But that’s Not the Point.

I talk a lot about how our experience is always changing. It is. Thoughts and feelings are fluid, impermanent, not “yours”. They are like weather, coming and going on their own.A revolving door of human experience. Why exert effort to change it? It moves out naturally in its own time.Why take it personally? You’re not creating