A Time for Joy and a Time for Weeping
So often I come to this blank slate of computer space and I have the desire to write. Do I have the inspiration? Do I know where I'm going? Hardly... but the desire to fill the stale, shining void calls to me. The more my thoughts and feelings find themselves in the typed letters and sentences, the more I hone my craft of expressing, opining, teaching... but most importantly learning. If there's any one reason I write, it's to process, to learn.
If you follow this blog in any fashion, you've most likely realized that I'm liberal with my attention to pain and brokenness in life. I feel sadness quite deeply when it finds me. I'm not afraid of it, nor do I think it should be altered based solely on what others want to see from you (I do think a healthy dose of "fake it til you make it" can be applied gently and wisely to a seemingly hopeless situation and attitude, but not without other pivotal factors such as love, acceptance, and affirmation to name a few).
Anyway, it's easy to speak about pain, it is more easily remembered, or at least more salient than happiness oftentimes. Some psychologists even propose that people are quicker at finding one sad face in a crowd of happy faces than one happy face in a crowd of sad ones (if this were an academic post, the citation would go here, but you're just gonna have to google it). I understand this because that fits with how I understand life, but who says that how I understand life has to remain the same? As much as I like to think the labels I have in life are trustworthy and stable, I'm coming to realize they are malleable and flexible (an opportunity if you think about it!). I can take the adapatability of my cognitions and use it to change and alter the unhelpful molds that shape my life. If my life were an ice cube tray, I want to have many different shapes, not just squares (perhaps not my best analogy but hey).
Therefore, it is just as important if not a million times more important for me to dwell on and process the positive things in my life as the negative ones. It comes much less quickly for me, and often strikes me as shallow or inauthentic, but I think it's merely foreign... nothing to shy away from. I was talking with a patient once at Veritas about breaking dear and personal habits that have come to be detrimental for us. She was talking about how she doesn't see how she could ever give up her eating disorder because it came so naturally for her, it was her identity. In talking with her, I was reminded of a teachable moment my father shared with me when I was young. I was a "mouth breather" as are most kids, and my dad was helping me learn how to breath through my nose instead of my mouth. I remember looking at him, I was baffled: how can he breath so effortlessly though his nose like that? As a child, I reasons that I got more air from my mouth into my lungs than I could from my nose, so I actually felt like I was suffocating when I forced myself to breath only through my nose. When I stopped focusing, I would immediately go back to mouth breathing. My father and I had two different instincts, as he would quickly return to nose breathing if forced to mouth breath for any given time. I remember feeling hopeless and like I was never going to be able to master this seemingly simple task that the rest of humanity expected of me. My dad was patient with me and taught me in that moment that it takes time for something to feel natural, and we often forget the hard work that goes into habits and instincts. We think that somehow our "natural tendencies" simply forced themselves upon us, but in reality hard work, diligence, and endurance were often needed to create what eventually becomes second nature (take tying your shoes for example, does anyone else remember how frustrating that experience was??? When's the last time you thought" I wonder if I'm taking too long to tie my shoes???").
Anyway, my point here is that writing about positive things is like learning to breath through my nose. It seems weird right now, and kind of like I'm not getting all the air I need. With time, I think it will become second nature and will open many doors and mindsets I've been unaware of so far.
Easier said than done, yeah?
If you follow this blog in any fashion, you've most likely realized that I'm liberal with my attention to pain and brokenness in life. I feel sadness quite deeply when it finds me. I'm not afraid of it, nor do I think it should be altered based solely on what others want to see from you (I do think a healthy dose of "fake it til you make it" can be applied gently and wisely to a seemingly hopeless situation and attitude, but not without other pivotal factors such as love, acceptance, and affirmation to name a few).
Anyway, it's easy to speak about pain, it is more easily remembered, or at least more salient than happiness oftentimes. Some psychologists even propose that people are quicker at finding one sad face in a crowd of happy faces than one happy face in a crowd of sad ones (if this were an academic post, the citation would go here, but you're just gonna have to google it). I understand this because that fits with how I understand life, but who says that how I understand life has to remain the same? As much as I like to think the labels I have in life are trustworthy and stable, I'm coming to realize they are malleable and flexible (an opportunity if you think about it!). I can take the adapatability of my cognitions and use it to change and alter the unhelpful molds that shape my life. If my life were an ice cube tray, I want to have many different shapes, not just squares (perhaps not my best analogy but hey).
Therefore, it is just as important if not a million times more important for me to dwell on and process the positive things in my life as the negative ones. It comes much less quickly for me, and often strikes me as shallow or inauthentic, but I think it's merely foreign... nothing to shy away from. I was talking with a patient once at Veritas about breaking dear and personal habits that have come to be detrimental for us. She was talking about how she doesn't see how she could ever give up her eating disorder because it came so naturally for her, it was her identity. In talking with her, I was reminded of a teachable moment my father shared with me when I was young. I was a "mouth breather" as are most kids, and my dad was helping me learn how to breath through my nose instead of my mouth. I remember looking at him, I was baffled: how can he breath so effortlessly though his nose like that? As a child, I reasons that I got more air from my mouth into my lungs than I could from my nose, so I actually felt like I was suffocating when I forced myself to breath only through my nose. When I stopped focusing, I would immediately go back to mouth breathing. My father and I had two different instincts, as he would quickly return to nose breathing if forced to mouth breath for any given time. I remember feeling hopeless and like I was never going to be able to master this seemingly simple task that the rest of humanity expected of me. My dad was patient with me and taught me in that moment that it takes time for something to feel natural, and we often forget the hard work that goes into habits and instincts. We think that somehow our "natural tendencies" simply forced themselves upon us, but in reality hard work, diligence, and endurance were often needed to create what eventually becomes second nature (take tying your shoes for example, does anyone else remember how frustrating that experience was??? When's the last time you thought" I wonder if I'm taking too long to tie my shoes???").
Anyway, my point here is that writing about positive things is like learning to breath through my nose. It seems weird right now, and kind of like I'm not getting all the air I need. With time, I think it will become second nature and will open many doors and mindsets I've been unaware of so far.
Easier said than done, yeah?
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