Taking in the Good
Taking in the Good
Embracing positivity, looking at life with rose colored glasses, living optimistically are all chosen perspectives to allow or take in goodness. For some, allowing goodness to enter into your being comes naturally. For others, it might take some tweaking and adjusting. And for some, there might be a block against taking in the good. Bertrand Russell says, “It is not selfish to take in the good. The good life, as I conceive it, is a happy life. I do not mean that if you are good you will be happy; I mean that if you are happy you will be good. In other words, when our cup runneth over, we’re usually more inclined to be giving and helpful to other people.” Taking in goodness is a birthright for everyone.
Rick Hanson speaks on the neurobiology of this concept being primarily the reasons why our brains are wired in somewhat negative ways. He indicates three reasons for this: 1) We do or don’t treat ourselves well. 2) Things happen to us. 3) Our brain has what is called negativity bias. Negativity bias depicts our brains operating as Velcro for the negative and Teflon for the positive. Our brains have evolved to be very good at learning from bad experiences, but bad at learning from good experiences. For example, we could have 30 successes in any given day, accomplish all 30 of them, be praised 30 times, but if we had 1 goal we didn’t meet or if we received 1 criticism: BOOM! … we remember that one.
In the “The Self-Acceptance Project,” Rick Hanson talks about 4 simple ways to take in the good following the acronym HEAL:
Have it - The first step is to have a positive experience in the first place. Either notice when you’re experiencing something good instead of ignoring it, or create a positive experience. Marinate these experiences.
Enrich It - Stay with the positive experience for 5, 10, 20, 30 seconds in a row. Get those neurons really firing together so they really wire together by helping the experience be as intense as possible and opening to it in your body.
Absorb it - Sense that the experience is sinking into you, like water into a sponge or like a jewel into the treasure chest of your heart.
Link it - The 4th step is optional, but powerful. Hold both positive and negative material in awareness at once, but make the positive material more prominent, more in the foreground of awareness, bigger, so that it gradually associates with, soothes, and even eventually replaces the negative material. For example, while feeling cared about by a friend, you could also bring to awareness experiences from childhood in which you felt left out and unwanted.
Life storms will happen. If you can enrich the goodness in your life, these storms have a way of settling. Notice the storm, send yourself compassion and acceptance, get on your own side or be a friend to yourself, and then make a plan are all ways to switch the narrative so we become Velcro for the positive/goodness.
“The person to whom we have the highest moral obligation is the one whom we have the highest influence, and that is our future self. So, if you want to give yourself the gift tomorrow or next year, or perhaps in the next lifetime, treat yourself well” - Rich Hanson
Laura Widger is a NY State Licensed Clinical Social Worker with 15 years of experience in the field of emotional wellness and mental health. She owns and operates Inner Peace and Strength - Mental and Emotional Health, and specializes in trauma healing with children and adults. She lives in Cattaraugus County with her husband, children, and German short haired dog. Laura personally and professionally strives to promote internal self leadership and the discovery of true genuineness and balance within.