Just One Thing (JOT) is the free newsletter that
suggests a simple practice each week that will bring you more joy, more
fulfilling relationships, and more peace of mind.
A small thing
repeated each day adds up over time to produce big results.
Just one
thing that could change your life.
(�
Rick Hanson, 2010)
|
Click the box to subscribe to Just One Thing. (You can unsubscribe any time.)
|
This newsletter comes from Rick Hanson, Ph.D., neuropsychologist, founder of the Wellspring Institute for Neuroscience and Contemplative Wisdom, PsychologyToday.com contributor, and meditation teacher.
See Rick's workshops and lectures for therapists and the general public.
|
|
My Offerings
� Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom - Written with a neurologist, Richard Mendius, M.D., and with a Foreword by Daniel Siegel, M.D. and a Preface by Jack Kornfield, Ph.D., it's full of effective ways to use your mind to change your brain to benefit your whole being. � Meditations to Change Your Brain - Three CDs of powerful guided practices, plus practical suggestions, for personal transformation. � Meditations for Happiness - Downloadable program (3 CDs worth) on gratitude, inner protectors, and coming home to happiness.
|
|
When Have People Been Caring?
|
The Practice
Feel cared about.
|
|
Why?
Everyone knows what it's like to care about
someone. Remember being with a friend, a mate, a pet: you feel warmly
connected, and want him or her not to suffer and to be happy. On the other hand, you've probably had the
sense, one time or another, of not being cared about. That you didn't
matter to another person, or to a group of people. Maybe they weren't actively
against you, but they sure weren't for you. As soon as you recall a time like that, it's
immediately clear why it's important to feel cared about - which is to the
heart what water is to your body. Sometimes we feel embarrassed about our
yearnings to be cared about. But they are completely normal - and deeply rooted
in evolution. Love, broadly defined, has been the primary driver of the
development of the brain over the last 80 million years. Our ancestors - mammals, primates, hominids,
and humans - survived and flourished and passed on their genes by learning to
find good mates, bond with their young, draw males in to provide for children,
create "the village it takes to raise a child" whose brain is quadrupling in
size after birth and thus needs a long and vulnerable childhood, and team up
with each other to compete with other bands for scarce resources. In this context, being cared about was
crucial to survival. Mammals, etc. that did not care about being cared about
did not pass on their genes. No wonder you care about being cared about! Studies show that feeling cared about
buffers against stress, increases positive emotions, promotes resilience, and
increases caring for others. Plus it feels darn good. And over time, feeling
cared about today can gradually fill any holes in your heart left over from a
childhood (or last job, or last marriage) in which the caring felt like a thin
soup.
|
How?
Let's start with the
hard part: opening to feeling cared about often brings up not feeling
cared about. Those feelings are real, and they're based on real things, like
having a disengaged or critical parent, or being left out in school social
situations. It's important to accept those feelings, and hold them as best you
can in a large space of awareness so they are not so overwhelming. Then, take a breath,
and turn to the other side of the truth: the ways and times you have been cared about. Those really exist! They do in everyone's life. The caring
may not have been perfect or sustained, so it could be tempting to discount it
or push it away as not good enough. (And we have to watch out for tendencies in
the mind to hold on to grievances and reproaches way past the point of any
value; that harms us more than anyone else - including the people we may want
to punish.) But the caring that was present amidst everything else was indeed the
real deal. And you, like everyone else, needs to take that in as the living
food every heart must have. For starters, recall
being with someone who is (or was) caring toward you. Perhaps a grandparent
making cookies, or a parent, friend, teacher, sibling, mate, child, or pet. Or
a spiritual being or presence. Then open to feeling cared about. What does your body do when someone
cares about you? What kind of thoughts or attitudes go through your mind?
What's your emotional response to being cared about? Know what it feels like to
be cared about so you can find your way back here again. During this week,
look for opportunities to feel cared about. Most of these will be small,
passing moments when someone is sincerely thoughtful, friendly, or concerned. Look
behind the eyes of people, and see the human caring for you when it's there -
even if it's masked behind formalities, a prickly personality, too many words,
or no words at all. When it's there,
take it in. Let the feelings, body sensations, and thoughts of being cared
about soak into you, like swallowing water on a hot and thirsty day. And then each night, before you fall asleep,
take a moment to call to mind again the sense of being cared about - resting in
that feeling as it weaves its way into your breathing, body, and dreams.
|
|
|
|