I’m waiting for two hospital admissions.  I don’t know when they’ll be or how how much notice I’ll be given before I have to pack my bag, say goodbye to my kitties and face yet more inpatient treatment and sleepless nights on a plastic hospital mattress.  I have imminent meetings and assessments to review the care I receive, which, given government bureaucracy, can create huge amounts of stress.  Not to mention the day to day challenge of managing my condition, living with difficult symptoms and finding ways to enable me to complete basic tasks most people take for granted.  It could easily consume me.  My life could centre round illness and disability, and all the suffering that accompanies it.  That would be perfectly understandable.  It might even be expected.  It has happened in the past.  But I know if I broaden my awareness, there is always something pleasant to experience.

It’s the theme of this week’s module in the ‘Mindfulness for Health’ course I’m taking.  In ‘The Treasure of Pleasure’ we are guided towards noticing pleasant experiences, however small and subtle, through the awareness of our body and senses.  A daily guided meditation helps us to focus on and practise this, and each hour we’re encouraged to stop and notice something pleasant, using as many senses as possible to help ground the experience in our awareness.  At the end of each day, we write a list of those experiences, aiming for at least ten, as we recall the day’s pleasant moments.

There’s good reason for this.  The human brain evolved to have a negativity bias.  A good proportion of the brain’s neurons are dedicated to processing negative experiences.  We recognise threat in a fraction of a second.  We’re quick to store the memory away in case we’re faced with such threat again.  In our cave man existence it helped us to survive, but in the modern world it is far less helpful.  It takes longer to notice something pleasant and it’s harder to retain the memory.  We’re more likely to focus on pain and suffering, and less likely to hold positive experiences in our awareness.  It’s how we are wired, but we can open up our awareness to help address this imbalance.  As course founder Vidyamala Burch says, “you can be in pain, of any kind, and still enjoy life.”

The neuroplasticity of the brain means it can adapt and create new neural pathways.  The practice of noticing pleasant experiences in your day to day life can help make these changes, increasing your overall well-being.  There’s an important point to make here; this is not about ‘positive thinking’, a phrase that suggests you look for the good, ignore the bad and everything will be okay.  This is not about pushing away ‘negative’ experiences whilst clinging onto ‘positive’ ones.  It might sound tempting, but by pushing away suffering you end up dulling awareness of all experiences, including the most pleasant. This is about holding all experiences in awareness.

Each day this week, I’ve been sitting in my rocking chair in the warm evening air.  Writing in my diary, I’ve been surprised by how many pleasant experiences I can recall.  Yes, my days have plenty of challenges, but they also have treasured moments of pleasure.  I am a far bigger container than I thought.  I really can hold it all.

 

You can read fascinating articles about the negativity bias on Dr Rick Hanson’s blog here.

Find out more about Breathworks and the courses they offer here.