We often ask, “What’s wrong?” Doing so we invite painful seeds of sorrow to come up and manifest. We feel suffering, anger and depression and produce more such seeds. We would be much happier if we tried to stay in touch with the healthy, joyful seeds inside of us and around us. We should learn to ask “What is not wrong?” and be in touch with that”.
Thich Nhat Hahn, Peace is Every Step
“My son, every day work on only as much ground as your body takes up in space lying down, and your work will progress gradually, and you will not lose heart”
When he heard this, the young man acted accordingly, and within a short time the field was cleared and cultivated. Do the same, work step by step and you will not lose heart.
Sayings of the Desert Fathers.
These 4th Century sayings have a lot of wisdom in them for our life today. In this one the young man gets discouraged because the field is hard to plough. He does not have the strength and feels unmotivated, paralysed. He does not know where to start and as a consequence leaves everything just lying around. We are like this when we have to face a difficult or long task, or indeed a difficult person.
The old man gives the best advice. Do not consider the whole field, just do as much ground as you would sleep on in the night. That can be done easily. And so the young man begins, slowly, but soon the whole field gets done.
Each day we can have a mountain of tasks ahead of us. And if we get tired or stressed they seem even greater. The advice is to start at one place and work slowly, not considering the whole of the task. If we look at the whole day and the extent of work to be done, we can get discouraged and make no progress. Just do one thing after another, step by step….we can all do that without being overwhelmed.
It is the same with our inner life. If we get frightened by our faults or difficulties and think that we will never change, we will never get started. We give up on ourselves. It is enough to do a little piece of work each day, such as a short session of meditation, and not concern ourselves with the whole field. This way progress happens, without us even noticing it.
An indepth study on gratitude has been carried out by psychologist Robert Emmons and colleagues at the University of California, Davis. He examined the effect of noting the good things that happen regularly. To conduct the study he set up three groups. One kept gratitude journals. One recorded daily hassles. The third wrote down neutral events.
He found that the group keeping the journal exercised more regularly, reported fewer physical symptoms, felt better about their lives as a whole, and were more optimistic about the upcoming week than the other groups. A second study found that the gratitude group enjoyed higher levels of alertness and energy compared with the others. A further benefit was observed in the realm of personal goal attainment: Participants who kept gratitude lists were more likely to have made progress toward important personal goals (academic, interpersonal and health-based) over a two-month period compared to subjects in the other experimental conditions.
If you want to try this exercise in your own lives you can do so very easily. You can choose to follow these simple instructions from Dr. Emmons : “There are many things in our lives, both large and small, that we might be grateful about. Think back over the past week and write down up to 5 things in your life that you are grateful or thankful for.” In actual fact it was found that those who wrote in their gratitude journals every day got far more benefits than those who did so weekly, so it is best to keep a small notebook and write up to five good things that happened during the day.
Or for those of you that have an iPhone and want to keep a gratitude journal, you can download the app “Gratitude”: http://itunes.apple.com/app/gratitude-journal-positive/id299604556?mt=8
See more at http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/labs/emmons
Within psychology, the notion of Locus of Control refers to our perception about the causes of the events in our lives. If we have a high internal Locus of Control we believe that our behaviour is mainly influenced by our own personal decisions and efforts. If we have a high external Locus of Control we believe that external circumstances – such as luck, destiny, fate, the stars, an external god, or our boss, or other people – have the greater influence.
Studies have shown that the understanding we have of locus of control has a significant impact on our motivation, expectations, self-esteem, and even on the actual outcome of our actions. A high external locus has been associated with depression and with lower motivation. It also shapes the way in which we deal with setbacks. A key element in our inner life is how we explain to ourselves why a negative event occurs. People with high external locus of control tend to attribute setbacks to stable internal and global factors, which will not change. In other words, setbacks tend to be seen as being caused by elements inside me that will not change – “I never succeed, I am not good enough” combined with factors outside which are stacked against me – “That college, job, person is way out of my league”. If bad, this can lead to a sense that nothing I can do will make a difference and I will feel powerless to change my own circumstances.
On the contrary, it has been noted that high internals expect to succeed more, are more motivated and are more likely to learn from their setbacks. They believe that their approach and attitude contributes significantly to what they achieve in life. If something goes wrong they tend to see it as due to non-stable factors that can be overcome in the future – “Ok, I got refused this time, but I will work harder and reapply”. In other words, the story the person tells themselves allows them not to over-identify with the setback and see it as the whole story. It has been found that a high internal locus of control leads to behaviours that cope better, that are more flexible, purposive and open, are less defensive, and are cognitively more complex, differentiated, and sensitive. They tend to realize that they have choices to change their situation, even if that only means working on internal factors, like attitude and motivation.
Many people fail to distinguish between their true nature and their personality traits, particularly their less desirable traits. The fact is you are not the worst characteristics of your personality. It is the nature of the untrained mind to want what it perceives as advantageous and to fear or hate what seems painful. Discovering how your heart and mind can work together to use these feelings allows you to move beyond them. You may feel overwhelmed by the circumstances of your present life or bound by past traumatic events. Again, this is a failure in perception. They are just mind-states which can be known. They can be seen as impermanent and not belonging to you and, therefore, they do not ultimately define your true nature.
Philip Moffitt
Sometimes the reason why we do not acheive something, or even set out to achieve something is that we are afraid of failing, or that we imagine a possible conclusion even before we have taken one step. In other words, we are already in the future when we need to concentrate on the present and the little first steps we can do here-and-now. This form of “all-or-nothing” thinking is a very common trap that people, including me, like to fall into. It essentially says, “If I can’t do it all, then why bother?” or “it is obvious I will not succeed so let me give up already”
In his book Excuses Be Gone! Dr. Wayne Dyer identifies this as one of the main reasons people do not pursue their goals. He names this the “It’s too big” excuse. He goes on to say that we tend to think of successful people as “big thinkers” when, in actual fact, successful people have a knack for thinking “small” or breaking down their big vision into small, manageable pieces.
Once you get started, you only have to do one step at a time.
Often, getting started is by far the hardest part.
We are born helpless infants, creatures of pure need with little resource to give, yet we are fed, we are protected, we are clothed and held and soothed, without having done anything to deserve it, without offering anything in exchange. This experience, common to everyone who has made it past childhood, informs our deepest spiritual intuitions. Our default state is gratitude: it is the truth of our existence.
Charles Eisenstein
If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough.
Meister Eckhart
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