Tag: Have a Positive outlook

Wonder and Happiness

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A person I have known for some years now just recently got engaged. It is a time of celebration and joy. Moments like these bring a smile to all and has made me realize how much I like the word happiness  However I am slow to use it and it nearly always provokes a strange look on the faces of those who hear. It seems almost presumptious to speak as if we have any right to expect full happiness. And yet happiness has been the concern of humans since earliest times, as we can see in the Greek Philosophers reflections on happiness. And we are told that among Jesus’ first words in his early Sermon on the Mount was “Happy are those who…. ”  In  more recent times, Daniel Gilbert has made the focus of his study happiness and what makes us happy, as seen in his excellent book Stumbling on Happiness.

We are told that happiness is deep within us, even if we do not feel it.  However,  it seems to me that we have to work at it every day. It can occur even when times are tough, if we cultivate a spirit of noticing and wonder. We can practice the brain’s capacity for happiness by explicitly noting to ourselves the moments which are pleasant in each day, even the simplest.  As in response to my friend’s engagement we can mentally toast these moments. And we can go further: we can create occasions  of celebration in even the smallest events in our lives. This reminds us that life is not there just to be endured but to be celebrated. As Brother Roger of Taize used to say, we should ensure that the spring of jubilation will never dry up in our hearts.

The eye is meant to see things. The soul is here for its own joy.

Rumi

Having trust

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When I am anxious or hurt I tend to instinctively react. I often move fast to blame and then make decisions which help me feel back in control. However, decisions made from fear are never our best decisions; fear is not our best friend. We risk throwing the baby out with the bathwater.  A walk in nature shows us a different perspective, a gentler way to change. We learn to not act on the fear but to sit with it. We get some distance from the story that is making us feel defective and fearful.

Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.

Lao Tzu

Richard Davidson’s new project

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We have already written about the work of Richard Davidson and his work at the Laboratory for Affective Neuroscience in the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He was featured in an interesting article last week in the New York Times where the Dalai Lama contributed 50,000 dollars to his recently established Centre for Investigating Healthy Minds. The short article is worth reading and charts the increasing scientific interest into the effects of meditation on the brain.

The center  is now working on an exciting new project, teaching meditation skills to school children in Madison. Based on earlier research,  they wish to see what the effects of teaching compassion and loving-kindness meditation has on the children. The children are led in meditation  focusing on kindness thoughts toward loved ones, strangers, even enemies. Previous research by Barbara Friedrickson would indicate that this will boost positive emotions and a general sense of well-being in life. The research which Davidson has commenced is longitudinal,  and so the children will be followed into middle school to see how their behaviour compares with a control group of non-meditators.

For the fully article check out www.nytimes.com/2010/09/27/us/27happy.html?_r=3&th&emc=th

Photo taken from the New York Times

Welcoming wolves to the table

Karl Duffy1 Comment

Today is the feastday of St Francis of Assisi (1182 – 1226), perhaps the most popular and likeable Christian saint. The example of his extraordinary heart reminds us of the joy that can be found in a life of meaning and service. Unlike some other saints he seems approachable. In his connection to nature he opens us out to all of creation. I am reminded of two stories from his life, both, not surprisingly, involving animals.

The first is the famous story about the wolf which was terrorizing the people of the town of Gubbio. It had killed several people, and they were now afraid to leave their homes. Francis heard about this and decided to go approach the wolf . When he came upon the wolf, it lunged at him, mouth open wide, about to bite. Francis simply, gently,  greeted the wolf as “Brother Wolf” and spoke to it, telling it not to harm him.  It stopped and lay down at his feet.  Francis and the wolf made a deal: the town would provide food for the wolf for the rest of its life, in exchange for the wolf’s ceasing to harm them. We are told the wolf  placed its right paw into Francis’ hand, and so the wolf lived in peace with the people of Gubbio for the rest of its life.

It is clear Francis was a peacemaker and reconciler – in this case helping the people in a society deal with what pushed them in fear to close their doors and withdraw. But I like to think of this story as a way that we can deal with our fears, the emotions that arise within us and scare us, like anger, jealousy and dislike of others. The stuff that relationships bring up in our lives.  Our normal first response is to be disturbed or frightened by these strong emotions and we move to push them away. However, in themselves,  these are not the problem, but it is our mind’s relationship to them that is. So what learn from Francis is to approach the things that frighten us – not to be afraid of the frightening wolves within us – but to begin by simply, gently looking at them directly. What would it be like to experiment with seeing them just as part of who we are at that moment and instead of pushing them away, to invite them to come close and to stay. As if they are part of the family – “brother wolf”, “brother anger” “brother fear” – and welcome them to the table? This is the practice: to first experience the anxiety you are going through – if it is not too overwhelming – as an embodied feeling, with no shoulds or shouldn’t about it. Our wounds – even the most frightening,  shameful, or self-inflicted ones – do not need to become a moment for showing ourselves further violence. They are, like all our practice, to be occasions of self-compassion and a letting go of judgment.

A second story tells us that Francis and Brother Leo were about to eat when he heard a nightingale singing. Francis seemed to have a special fondness for birds. So he suggested to Leo that they should also sing out their love along with the bird. Leo made the excuse that he was no singer, but Francis lifted up his voice and, line after line, sang a duet with the nightingale, until, late into the night, he tired and had to admit that the bird sang out his joy better than he could. I love the way that Francis opened his heart with all of creation and did not let the self- conscious, doubting “I am not a singer” story – which we all tell ourselves – get in the way. His heart naturally wanted to share and he did not let his fears get in the way.

The cure for sadness

Karl Duffy1 Comment

I know a cure for sadness:

Let your hands touch something that

makes your eyes smile.

I bet there are a hundred objects close by that can do that.

Look at beauty’s gift to us –

her power is so great she enlivens

the earth, the sky, our soul.

Mirabai

Developing a secure sense of self:2 – True self, False Self

Karl Duffy1 Comment

In the previous related post we saw how our sense of self is shaped in our early years. There is a relationship between a strong inner sense of self-cohesion and the consistency of love we got in our early relationships. However we also saw that an  insecure working model of relationships can be formed and will be reflected in the way we relate to others in adult life, due to the fact that we did not feel safe some or most of the time. The last post ended with the encouragement to understand your childhood insecurity and the force it still contains. This post will suggest some other reflections.

One way we respond to our unmet needs when we are a child is to create a False Self. We realized that safety and affection were more likely when we behaved in certain ways. Thus the False Self is created, effectively to please the parents or other caregivers and maintain their love, which we instinctively grasped to be based on certain conditions –  such as that we always perform well. It develops when the mother, father or other caregiver reflect their own defenses or emotional lacks onto the infant rather than reflecting the infant’s actual moods.  It then goes on, even into adulthood, to constantly anticipate the demands of others and keeps up this mask  because it believes that is the best way to get approval.

Now,  most of us, to some extent, have masks or public personas which we use in different situations in adult life. However, what we are referring to here is a False Self functioning which operates in an unconscious way in repeating patterns and internal demands in our adult choices.

The False Self helps comes about to hold the family together by balancing or denying problems and keeps a certain functional harmony alive. However, it becomes so well constructed and adapted that eventually the true self can become lost to us. We find it hard to “be ourselves”. We use the False Self as our “better self” because our true self feels  too weak at times to gain approval.

This can lead to low self-esteem.  Self-esteem is a person’s core belief about himself or herself,  and although it varies depending on circumstances, the pattern usually leans toward a optimistic  or pessimistic sense of self. In general,  one way of dealing with a pessimistic view is to look for anything outside to make us feel better. For example we may have chosen  to become a perfectionist.  The reasons are clear: if we do something perfectly, then we will be praised and get the affection of others.  Or we can develop dependent behaviour, when as Dr Weiss states, one’s “whole life is spent in wildly swinging arcs to meet others’ expectations. If you’re nice to me, I’m a good person. If you look at me funny, I’m a bad person. I don’t know who I am. I am incredibly dependent on other people to tell me who I am.”

Developing Self Compassion is one way to work with low self esteem. This is the ability to  treat oneself kindly in the face of failure, rejection, defeat, and other negative events. Being self-compassionate means we are less likely to compare ourselves with others, to seek all our support outside ourselves and to dwell too long on negative feedback. We will post more on this in the next post.