For a few weeks now, my daughter has wanted us to order Chinese food for dinner. I have not been in the mood for it. Nonetheless, one night we ordered. I was, if I’m honest, kind of annoyed about it. But as we sat down to eat, I also faced a choice: I could either be angry and annoyed about the meal, or I could find what else was present in that moment (perhaps even enjoying it), despite the fact that it was not my preference. I choose the latter.
My default mode of looking at things is somewhat critical, but over the past several years, I have made an intentional effort to be happy, or to enjoy things that are not my preference. Activities that I would rather not do nonetheless can be fun. Experiences I find boring have elements in them that are lovely. I am not perfect at this, and do not mean to imply I can always make this shift, but it is a goal and intention of mine.
One way of viewing our lives is simply as a summation of our days– and each day is, in turn, a summation of the moments within that day. I started asking myself a question– how do I want my days to be? How do I want to remember this period of my life? I realized I did not want my days, months, and years to be characterized by unhappiness, criticism or feeling disgruntled.
Judgement
For me, this was especially relevant when thinking about parenting. I love my kids, but I noticed that certain activities with them did not bring me a lot of joy. In fact, I often found it fairly tedious. I know this is a similar experience for many parents. However, the more I sat with that thought, the more I struggled with it. Why should I dislike spending time with the kids? How ungrateful, how wretched, for that to be my experience. Two layers of unhappiness quickly built up here: the boredom of the original experience, and then the self-recrimination for feeling bored. I should enjoy this, I told myself, but I did not.
The more I was able to shift my attention and drop judgement, the more my experience changed. First, I could notice explicitly what I was feeling in the moment. I also started noticing the should in my thoughts. I should enjoy this, a good parent should like this. Letting go of that (and the judgement that went with it) and embracing the fact that I was bored helped me start to notice what else I was feeling in those moments. It turns out, in addition to boredom or dislike, there were a lot of other things also there too. Letting go of the judgment didn't make the boredom disappear. It made room for me to notice what was alongside it.
Attention Shift
When I started shifting my attention into the beauty and the wonder of these experiences, my feelings and emotions would follow. It’s an interesting shift, because I wouldn’t tell myself to be happy–we have all tried that. Our emotions do not respond to commands. Neither I, nor anyone else, can be happy, grateful, cheerful, or interested because we tell ourselves to be that way. However, we can often find happiness in our experience– if we look. When we ask ourselves to notice the beauty or peace or wonder of a moment, it is there. If we look for nostalgia, or wonder, or sadness– those things are often there too.
There are a couple of things that make this possible. First, we have to attend to the more negative emotions we are feeling. Not only do we have to recognize them, but that recognition has to be paired with the understanding that all our feelings are always changing. Second, we have to be able to have the desire, willingness, and interest to find other emotions in the experience.
This can be a difficult thing to talk about, because finding a more pleasant emotion in an experience can sound awfully similar to “just be happy” or to denying the hard parts of life. It can also easily sound like blame, like saying if we are not feeling good it is either our fault, or that something is wrong with us. However, that is not correct. Instead, it is recognizing that there is a whole world open to us all the time, if we can remember to look.
Funeral
I remember being at a funeral, and feeling heavy grief. That was appropriate for the occasion, and I would not talk myself– or anyone else– out of that feeling. I also remember being able to notice other emotions: gratitude that I had as much time with the person as I did, appreciation for a life well lived, comfort in the experience of shared loss and sorrow. I did not tell myself “don’t be sad,” but instead looked for what else was also present in that moment. Finding happiness at a funeral was not the point, but finding feelings in addition to grief is. It is not that grief disappears, but that other things appear alongside it.
Meditation has been a helpful practice for me with this. When we meditate, we do not choose what appears in our minds. A thought arises, a sound catches our attention, an emotion appears. We notice, and then we have the opportunity to return our attention to the breath or the present moment. Over time, we become more familiar with the movement of attention: where it goes, when it gets stuck, and our ability to redirect it. We also see that thoughts and feelings change from moment to moment. The same practice applies in our daily lives. We may not be able to choose what we feel, but we can become more practiced at noticing where our attention has gone and remembering that we can look somewhere else. Some meditation practices also give us practice cultivating particular qualities, such as gratitude, love, and kindness. The more familiar those feelings become, the easier it can be to notice them when they arise in the rest of our lives.
Not a Bypass
Again, the idea is not to bypass the hard parts of life, or to put on a happy face, or to make the best of things. The point is not to pretend that things are what they are not. When we feel sad, it is important to really feel that sadness.This is not a strategy for skipping. Instead, it is realizing that more exists in these moments of pain.Gratitude, joy, relief, and wonder exist alongside grief, sadness, anger, pain, and loss.
When we're caught in anxiety or rumination, our attention can become narrow. We see fewer possibilities and fewer ways forward. The same practice can help here: not forcing ourselves to think differently. When our attention narrows, we can notice it and ask: What else is there?
Love,
Doc
Forwarded this email? Sign-up here
See past posts here.