Gratitude and Mindfulness

Will gratitude work for me? Today I'm trying to parse the resistance I have to gratitude: It feels too easy, too superficial. How can it be the fix all it's said to be? Also, it's boring - I am grateful for my house and my grandchildren, yada yada yada. Also, it feels like a  form of denial, of minimizing my true experiences and feelings, and all the terrible shit going on around me.

Sile Walsh says, "Positivity can be as destructive to authenticity as can depression, they are both extremes that pull us from our own balance, our own grey areas, our process of being in life fully. They both have a way of coloring life in a certain light, a light we can tolerate. ... Be grateful for what you do have, seek comfort in knowing that life isn’t always the way we want — for any of us. ... appreciate the crap for what it is — crap. “Right now is crap. Can we be grateful for the reality established between us?

The dark side of gratitude is that it sounds great and can be easily misused. Mind yourself, mind your heart, mind your emotions, they hold the key to the balance we all seek.”

Agenda Today:

1. Gratitude list

2. 

Read 

"Mindfulness-Based Emotional Balance Workbook"

3. Mindful Thinking journal

1. My gratitude list:

I've been looking at how to reset my underlying doomsday mode with gratitude, by actively cultivating positive thoughts. I think gratitude might be important right now, and I want to go deeper, but for now, I'll make a short list each day, with attention on my true feelings and the darkness I see.

1. I'm thankful that I had a whole extra unscheduled day in which to recover and sleep, and that I was able to squelch my judgement of a lazy day and just enjoy it.
2. I'm grateful for bountiful harvest of sweet, crunchy peas.
3. I'm grateful that I know about the riots in California, and the threat of martial law, and still feel willing to protest and risk arrest. 

2. Read "Mindfulness-Based Emotional Balance Workbook":

I'm reading again from the Mindfulness-Based Emotional Balance Workbook, by Margaret Cullen and Gonzalo Brito Pons (2015). I got it after realizing that mindfulness might be the key to gaining the equanimity I crave. This is supposedly an "8-week program for Improved Emotional Regulation and Resilience"; I'm taking it much slower. 

I'm on Chapter 6: Mindfulness of Thoughts. The last two chapters explored body, breathe, and feelings. Now we are moving on to thinking: "Our opinions, preconceptions, memories, and expectations based on previous experience, filter our direct perception and experience in the presence." This thinking we do all the time has the benefit of giving life some stability and predictability, and helps us to make decisions in any given situation.

Our thoughts very often give rise to strong emotions, and these are colored by our mood, past experiences, and habitual way of thinking - by our prejudices; our thoughts are not reality. If we open to a new way of thinking and expand just a little, we can change the emotional response. 

For example, when I am criticized and think, "This is not fair," it spirals me downward into resentment. I can try to open my thinking to look for the grain of truth in the criticism, or if that isn't possible, I can say, "This is not personal; something else is going on," - and I can feel more equanimity. 

3. Mindful Thinking journal:

More equanimity is a very big goal for me, and speaks to all my Flow Project intentions: improving the underlying system of my life, living in the flow, aware and awake, and stretching beyond the way I’ve always done things.

Part of the answer to that question is to build self-awareness, and learn how to handle challenges and conflict with resiliency. This is really the crux of flow and resilience: How to stop being derailed by every piece of bad information or upsetting situation.

So, here's the plan. This week I will begin a practice of observing my thoughts, and how they influence my mood and my equanimity. Whenever I notice that I'm hooked by a thought that is affecting my equanimity I will pause, invite skepticism, and ask:

1. Is this really true? Am I sure?
2. How else could I interpret it? How can I expand my thinking?
3. What additional information could I seek?

And every morning I'll review the last day for moments when I was able to expand into equanimity, and moments when I was hooked by my thinking.