For many years I specialized in providing therapy for people with disabilities and chronic health conditions. Some of my clients had difficulty performing basic activities without assistance. For instance, putting on socks or cutting food with a knife can be challenging for people who suddenly lose hand function. People often express feelings of loss over activities they previously thought were mundane.
Often, we take the simplest things—the tasks we do every day without thinking about them—for granted. Every day, many small moments pass us by. For example, when COVID-19 hit, many of us quickly began longing for the simple things that were put on hold—hugging friends, watching our kids play freely with their friends, and pouring cups of tea for neighbors. We realized how easily we overlooked things we loved about life because we hadn’t been paying much attention to them. Had we known these activities would be taken away from us, we might have approached them differently. Not only do we easily overlook happy moments, but the moments that catch our attention aren’t always the ones we want to focus on. Our brain is designed to dismiss positive experiences and to pay attention to the negative ones—this keeps us safe and can help us to survive.
The good news is that you can enrich your life by intentionally savoring the experiences that matter to you. Do you want to savor feelings of contentment and connection? Gratitude and joy?
According to Rick Hanson (2018), intentionally practicing awareness by savoring positive feelings that arise actually sculpts the neural structure of our brain! Our positive experiences are more likely to be transferred to our long-term memory when we linger on them and absorb them more fully.
Daily Writing:
Appreciating Daily Life
What moments of life do you take for granted? What moments might you savor or linger over in your daily life? What might you appreciate just a little bit more?
Today’s Practice
Today practice savoring small enjoyable moments, to encode them in your memory. When you notice one, use the beginner’s mind skill from Day 2 to see it with fresh eyes and to absorb it more fully.
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