It’s like lying in bed before dawn and hearing rain on the roof……..
This simple sound can be disappointing because we were planning a picnic. It can be pleasing because our garden is so dry. But the flexible mind doesn’t draw conclusions of good or bad. It perceives the sound without adding anything extra, without judgments of happy or sad.
Pema Chodron, Comfortable with Uncertainty
“How shall I experience my oneness with creation?”
“By listening,” said the Master.
“And how am I to listen?”
“Become an ear that gives heed to every single thing the universe is saying. The moment you hear something you yourself are saying, stop.”
Anthony de Mello
The best way to boost positivity, according to Barbara Fredrickson Ph.D, researcher and author of Positivity, is to live in the moment.
If you can be present to what you are experiencing right now – whether you are having breakfast, walking the dog, mowing the lawn, driving the car or attending a meeting – you’ll significantly increase your chances of feeling positive. “ Our interpretations of our immediate circumstances define our emotions” she says “and we have a lot more choice about those interpretations than we give ourselves credit for”. Turn our focus to the now ( for example, reading this blog post, working at your desk) and you will have less space in your head for negative thoughts. In addition, you’ll feel more grounded and creative when tackling the many challenges that the day offers.
Give yourself a break from the Snowball Effect of your Thoughts
If you have done the first two practices in this series, you will have noticed 
how difficult it is just to be quiet or present to nature. Our minds get drawn away by the continual spinning effect of our thoughts. One thought leads to another, and yet another, until you feel agitated or upset or worried. If we get stressed, this can almost feel like a “thought attack.” When you notice your thoughts starting to spin, consciously ground your posture and use awareness of your breathing to create a space before they build a momentum. Try to shift your focus back to the present moment, to this period of quiet or to the sights of nature. Even a five minutes gap from our continual planning and ruminating can have an effect on our health.
To love is, above all, to be there. But being there is not an easy thing. Some training is 
necessary, some practice. If you are not there, how can you love? Being there is very much an art, the art of meditation, because meditating is bringing your true presence to the here and now. The question that arises is: Do you have time to love?
Thich Nhat Hahn
The deep meaning of many rules of conduct and more principles of the past — so many 
of which have been abandoned without our understanding their real roots in human nature — involved the cultivation and development of the uniquely human power of attention, its action in the body, heart and mind of man. To be present, truly present, is to have conscious attention. This capacity is the key to what it means to be human.
It is not, therefore, the rapidity of change as such that is the source of our problem of time. It is the metaphysical fact that the being of man is diminishing.
Mindfulbalance 