1 . When you look at yourself in the mirror, do you focus on something you wish were different, and hear a critical inside voice?     1    . But if you are ready to be kind to yourself and willing to send that negative voice away forever, how do you begin? There are three steps to overcome our “negativity bias” (负面偏见).

1. Start with Mindful Awareness

Being aware of how you are treating yourself is really the first step.     2    . Use your actual name as you describe what you are doing, seeing, and feeling.

Then, instead of criticizing yourself, be curious about what you did and the reasons behind it. Remind yourself that you are doing the best with what you have. And pay your attention to the positive side of the situation.

2.     3    

We all are worthy of love and we need to show loving kindness to ourselves. That might seem awkward at first, but with a little practice, the process will become easier. Soon the positive feeling you receive from self-kindness will provide you with a sense of happiness.

One of the best practices to build up your self-kindness is called “Note to a Dear Friend”. When you are facing a challenge or difficulty, write a note to a friend as if they were facing the same problem.     4    . Then, take the note and change your friend’s name to your own.

3. Recognize That You Aren’t Alone

Not one of us lives a perfect life. Everyone faces challenges and makes mistakes.     5    . First, you get a little bit less lonely. You are not the only person suffering, and knowing that takes a weight off your shoulders. Second, it becomes a little easier to open up to others, and say, “I need help.” We don’t have to pretend that everything is great when it isn’t. It’s OK to take off our masks and let people know exactly how we feel!

2 . I have to admit I’m an old-school reader. Put simply, I   _______old books.

Alone in a new city to _______my first daily newspaper job, I was feeling vaguely anxious as I dipped into a used   bookstore to_______my   mind. The   shelves, full of the smell of the past, quickly_______me. One of the occupational hazards (职业病) of journalism, my chosen_______, is a desire to stay on top of the Next Big Thing. With their cracked spines (书脊) and yellowed_______, the titles in the shop usefully pointed me toward the longer view. “No_______to get too worked up over today’s headline,” they seemed to say. “ There is not much _______ under the sun.”

Francis Bacon’s essays are always a ready antidote (解药). “Prosperity (繁荣) is not without many___ and dislikes,” Bacon wrote, and“___ is not without comforts and hopes.” For me, that comfort and hope often come from a second-hand____.

Reading deeply from the   past can be   at   least as______ as   following the day’s   news. Don’t _____     missing out on the___ gossip. All matters of fact, which a man did not___ before, are news to him.

3 . Sitting on the sofa in Xiao Jia’s apartment, I learned how difficult it was to apply makeup（化妆品）to a face you cannot see.

I visited Xiao on a winter day. She greeted me with a big smile and then _______ me her multi-layered makeup box. With the help of friends, she has _______ everything with special tape and braille (盲文).

As we sat next to each other, she touched my face to _______ its shape and suggested I get bangs (刘海). After _______ my cheeks, nose, and forehead, she found bottles of makeup that _______ well with my skin, and _______ patted them onto my face and neck. That finished, she went on to pencil my eyebrows, line my eyes..., slow but with amazing accuracy!

“Though many people don’t think it’s _______ for blind people to put on makeup, since it’s difficult and we wouldn’t even ‘see’ the _______, I consider the whole process a way for me to enjoy the moment,” Xiao told me.

Xiao studied painting for six years before being diagnosed with an eye disease, which left her without _______ after just two years. Xiao has never seen her own makeup. All her __________ comes from her teacher Ji Chunli’s feedback over the years. They met at a beauty event in 2015 after Xiao __________ a makeup tutorial video featuring a blind British girl, which gave her __________ to master the skill. Ji had no experience __________ the blind, but was touched by Xiao’s resolve. Every week for a year, Xiao took a one-hour bus ride to __________ classes at Ji’s beauty studio.

Finally Xiao chose from different shades of lipsticks to match my skin color, which I__________ to her. Considering the shape of my lips too, she __________ the “flame red” to my lips.

When she finished all, I was __________ anticipation(期待)and had my face nearly pressed against the mirror to see the result. I didn’t see much difference with the makeup I wore __________ I sat down, but that was probably the __________. In any case, it is the process that really __________.

4 . As I work in the garden, I take my time. And the garden is ________ me about working with the earth. I recognize that there will be both successes and failures and there are many factors that ________ them both. The ________ of the seeds can affect the growth of the plants. The ________ can be too hot, too cold, or ________ right. Weeds need to be ________ and thrown away to ________ that the fruits, vegetables, and flowers we have planted grow well.

I take time to stand back and rest, and to ________ the plants. Each plant is ________ and develops in the way that is best for them. Some have large broad leaves to ________ their fruit from the rays of the sun, while other plants are more ________, their fruit needing the ________ to grow and ripen.

Getting my hands ________ and feeling the sweat on my forehead, as I work under the summer sun, reminds me I am ________ in the ways I wouldn't have remembered sitting on the couch.

I feel attracted to move things around to transplant and to ________ the natural order of how plants grow. The garden teaches me the importance of knowing when to disturb things and when to let them be. The garden's life cycle ________ a pattern that is repeated according to the ________ of nature. Birth, growth, and then death and it teaches me to accept this fact.

Perhaps life is like the ________, successes and failures, time to be active and time to ________ to let go of what is no longer needed, to cultivate what helps us to grow into our light and power, and to readily ________ life from beginning to end.

5 . Being able to travel the world is truly an accomplishment of the modern society. _________, many people take it for granted and miss out on it. I _________ that travel is an efficient way to experience life and _________ the mind.

Many people think that travel is a(n) _________ hobby. But that's not the _________. Travel is, in fact, what you _________ it. If you're planning to fly around the world and live in a 5-star hotel, then sure, it is. However, travel can be cheap, too. This means that _______ you're on a tight budget, there's no problem. The _________ is to know what you're looking for before the trip and plan everything _________. In some situations, travelling can be __________, such as with hitchhiking (搭顺风车).

When travelling to another country, we __________ get out of our comfort zone and __________ new experiences. Talking to strangers, sleeping in new places, or even eating food you are not __________ all can be the source of __________ for some shy people. However, such experiences can make a big __________, taking a person onto a whole new level of being and bringing great changes to the mind.

Moreover, travelling is also a process of ________ .The best history class is the one that you can experience for yourself. Of course you can't ________ to go back in time, but to be there where "big things" happened is truly breathtaking. When I went to Berlin and saw all the areas where battles __________, I was completely shocked. It's as if the __________ of the event crawls (爬) inside of me and __________ me to experience a piece of it the way it was back then.