“Think not lightly of good, saying, “It will not come to me.” Drop by drop is the water pot filled. Likewise, the wise one, gathering it little by little, fills oneself with good.”
(Dhammapada 9.122)
With Thanksgiving recently past, I’ve been diving into deep contemplation on gratitude, what constitutes goodness and taking in that good. It’s well-known that focusing on gratitude and goodness is an important aspect of living mindfully and doing so helps us show up and live with more compassion, appreciation and joy.
On and around Thanksgiving, people tend to focus on what they are grateful for, although developing and maintaining a daily gratitude meditation and focusing on the good is invaluable year-round. These practices can also help us better navigate the rest of this holiday season, which can come with increased stress due to more on the to-do list, alterations in routine, extra social events and spending time (or not) with challenging family members, all of which can rock us off balance if we're not conscious of what is going on in our internal landscapes and in the grander scheme of it all.
There are also blessings to be discovered in uncovering what we can be grateful for in difficult circumstances and/or with difficult people in our lives. There's always a silver lining and something to learn. And, when we practice gratitude with compassion and loving kindness—both for the self and for others involved in a challenging situation—we may be able to soften some, view the situation from a fresh perspective and perhaps even move toward forgiveness or, at least, begin to think, feel and act from a kinder place.
Even, or especially, if things are feeling overwhelming or stressful right now, I encourage you to listen deeply to what is going on within and around you and practice cultivating a mindset that infuses the feeling state of love into whatever you choose to place your attention and awareness on.
Focusing On The Good
I’ve been thinking a lot about what elements are essential to the processes and practices that help us “take in the good,” a phrase and idea coined by psychologist, Senior Fellow of UC Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center and NYT best-selling author, Rick Hanson, Ph.D. To learn more about why and how to take in the good, as well as a couple of practices to help you do such, check out Rick’s Take In The Good article.
For me, the primary elements of cultivating goodness include gratitude, attention, awareness, awe and love. These five qualities, it seems to me, bring a heart-felt experience to whatever it is that we place our thankfulness on. As one group member in my biweekly meditation class recently said of focusing on the good and gratitude, “this is a meditation practice for people, places and things.”
What elements/attributes come up for you when you think of and feel into goodness?
On Gratitude…
Dr. Martin Seligman, the creator of positive psychology, once stated that if he had to stress the importance of only one practice, it would be gratitude.
Most of us are aware of the suggestions and some practices for increasing gratitude—starting a gratitude journal, focusing on all that you’re grateful for once a day, etc—but these are just prescriptions really. They can feel much like, “take the trash out,”, “eat your broccoli,” or “brush your teeth.” Like it’s something that you should do, but not necessarily something that is done for pleasure or for joy.
On the brushing your teeth note, I recently had my bi-yearly dental cleaning. The tech was excited to tell me that there are now apps available for young people to use with their electric toothbrush to encourage them to brush their teeth. In my dental office, the staff now holds competitions to see who is brushing the best. They found a way to make brushing fun! It’s no longer a chore.
The same can be applied to focusing on goodness, mindful contemplation and gratitude through introspection, appreciation, awareness and gratitude meditation practices. When we infuse the process of being grateful with focusing attention on what or who we are grateful for with the emotion of love, we give ourselves a squirt of oxytocin, which is described by neuroscientists as the hormone of bonding and love, into our brains. We also get a burst of dopamine too!
Increasing Gratitude: Pause, Pay Attention & Use Deep Listening Skills
When practicing gratitude, it’s important to pause and pay deep attention to what you are grateful for, feeling the connectedness to that which you deeply appreciate. To do so, I suggest focusing on listening.
Deep listening is something that we rarely do. We get distracted so easily. Externally by our cell phones and everything else going on around us. We also become distracted internally by our own thoughts and assumptions. Due to all the distractions, we barely pay attention to the present moment. We’re often not fully present to what is being said, nor are we able to fully be with and process the experiences we have with others.
One practice that can help is to really let the information that we are being told or we see or feel “land” within us—to fully process what another person is offering us. To help us be fully present, we can ask inquiring questions, such as “tell me more,” “what was it like when that happened?” and/or “what did you feel?”
And then we can mirror—repeat back—what was said as a way to internalize the experience of the other AND to make it known that you really heard what their experience is. For example, we can say, “If I understand you, what you’ve said is…” and, “you felt…”
When doing a deep listening practice, I’m always reminded of the words of the psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott.
When I look I am seen, so I exist.
I can now afford to look and see.
I now look creatively and what I apperceive I also perceive.
In fact I take care not to see what is not there to be seen
(unless I am tired).
-Winnicott 1971
Journal Prompts To Help Find The Good In A Challenge
Gratitude can be extended to the more/most challenging experiences and people in our lives. Practicing gratitude is not always about savoring the good. It's also about finding and seeing the good—the beneficial aspects that can be found in many things, including that which has caused us great discomfort.
It's easy to focus on being grateful for all those things in our lives that are going well, but much tougher to find and feel the gratitude when we're in the throes of a challenge.
In his Spirituality & Health article, Seven Buddhist Lessons in Gratitude, author Victor M. Parachin offers seven suggestions to help you increase your gratitude level and build your sense of thankfulness the Buddhist way, noting that Western science now confirms that those who consistently express gratitude are happier and healthier. Although all of his suggestions are helpful, and I suggest checking out the article, I found his third suggestion particularly interesting and helpful, especially in the context of this blog post.
According to Parachin,
3. APPRECIATE IRRITATING PEOPLE. Atisha (980-1052 CE), the great Indian Buddhist sage who brought Buddhism to Tibet, famously taught through short, simple slogans. One of those is “Be grateful to everyone!” He specifically had in mind those individuals who are highly irritating and who bring out the worst in those around them. Commenting on that slogan, Judy Lief says, “Conventional gratitude is based on distinguishing what we like from what we do not, good fortune from bad fortune, success from failure, opportunities from obstacles. But what about all the obstacles, unpleasant people, and difficulties in our life?”
According to this slogan we should be especially grateful for having to deal with annoying people and difficult situations, because without them ... how could we practice patience, exertion, mindfulness, loving-kindness, or compassion? It is by dealing with such challenges that we grow and develop. So we should be very grateful to have them.
A Guided Gratitude Meditation Practice
I invite and encourage you to contemplate what you consider to be goodness, as well as how you can look deeply, listen fully and make others aware that you are fully present. It’s often said that we get what we focus on, so why not focus on goodness, gratitude and love?
My most recent gratitude meditation practice, Encouraging Gratitude For People, Places And Things, is designed to help you bring in gratitude by focusing on the loving sensation that arises as you really focus your attention on someone or something you are deeply grateful for. If you’re in the throes of a challenge or conflict with another that you’d like to reframe, this practice can also help you create some softness or a new perspective.
As with all the guided meditations, please enjoy this guided meditation for free and share it with others and on social media. Should you, I just ask that proper attribution is given.
Journaling: The following journal prompts are designed to help you find gratitude in challenging, stressful or even situations that may feel completely awful. The idea here is to be WITH the pain and the discomfort, and see if you can ALSO find anything – anything at all – that could bring you a lifeline to help you withstand and strengthen your resilience.
Begin by focusing on a person, situation or circumstance that you're struggling with, perhaps even feeling resentful toward. Take about 5-10 minutes to write down everything that is coming up for you as you contemplate this struggle.
Pause. Take a few deep breaths. Feel into your body.
Next, focusing on that same person, situation or circumstance, take another 5-10 minutes to reflect on what is or could be good within it. Perhaps you're learning and feel compelled to practice a new skill or you're being pushed out of your comfort zone and get to explore a new edge. Perhaps this situation has propelled you to take a new action, contemplate other ways of relating to the person, situation or with yourself, and/or remember that this life is precious, our energy is finite and that, in the grand scheme of things, the better approach may be to work with the situation and the feelings it creates rather than continuing to fight it or push those feelings down. Get creative with this, see what comes up and employ loving kindness for all as you do such.
Pause again. Take a few deep breaths. Feel into your body.
Finally, take another 5-10 minutes to journal about any shifts you noticed throughout this short practice. It may be that nothing shifted, and that's okay. Or, you might notice yourself feeling a bit lighter, more empowered, kinder or softer...
In closing, I offer this poem by Jane O’Shea.
My Balm
I close my eyes and sigh, and here I am lying in the hammock in my heart. Moving gently, with the soft air of my breath.
When I fall from my head past my words, I’m caught lovingly by the hammock of my heart and rocked to its rhythmic beat.
It is my peace, my rest, my quiet, cradled in the hammock of my heart. It is constant; it is safe to be held in the hammock of my heart. No place to go. Nothing to do. Nobody to please.
It is my altar, my blessing, my balm, here in the hammock of my heart.
I wish each of you, your families and the entire world around us a peaceful and contented holiday season. May every day be filled with blessings and ease.
Blessings to all,
Karen