Crappy days are here again
Everyone has crappy days or crappy weeks or crappy months... some poor souls have crappy years or crappy decades. I often have days that just start out wrong + get worse as the day progresses.
For instance, sometimes while I'm getting ready in the morning + I reach for the toothpaste as usual, every bottle on the shelf leaps out of the cabinet instead... I know it's going to be "one of those days" where everything I touch turns to crap. For me, having that negative expectation lessens the irritations that inevitably happen thereafter. PS: I'm kinda clumsy by nature; 'those' days happen to me more often than not.
However, it's easy to stay in that state of hypervigilant paranoia; expecting everything to always be + always go wrong. I used to live + breathe by the motto: "Expect the worst; hope for the best." In application, though, that motto became markedly more negative: "Expect the absolute worst possible + wonder why you even bother to try at all." It's a pleasant surprise when things go right, but the rights seem to be few + far between.
The faultiness of focus
Richard O'Connor in Undoing Perpetual Stress talks about how our focus can only be on one thing at a time. Either the positive or the negative. Not both. And, it's human nature to fluctuate often between the two.
But, when you've built a habit out of looking for the negatives, the positives get filtered out. It's possible that you can become so skillful at negative-spotting that you'll rarely 'see' the positives that are also happening all around you each day.
Life is kind of like investing in the stock market... it's definitely risky business with lots to lose but you don't jump ship when it takes a nose-dive, you stay in it for the potential long-haul payoff (even if it is a long-shot, high-stakes gamble) + you ride the waves of both the highs + the lows. Sometimes it feels like the whole world is against you, but, to balance it out, there are also times when everything is as right as rain.
Problem is, when you find yourself in that craptactular trough, you can't see the fantastical that's floating right beside you.
The practice of active gratitude
Alice Domar in both Be Happy without Being Perfect + Self-nurture outlines a tactic to fight negative thinking/depression that she calls Gratitude Journaling. I'm paraphrasing (a lot) here, but essentially you document any little thing that happens to you or around you throughout the day that doesn't stink to high heaven. At the end of the day, you review the day's worth of precious little nuggets of joy. Collectively, those nuggets make life seem more a-okay.
I'm not so sure that you need to go as far as documenting the good things that happen daily in a journal (it's a sticking point for me... just enough work to make me avoid doing it), but being mindful of those little goodies as they happen is definitely a healthy, balanced move.
I've observed life's treatsies around me when walking in the park. I love the little chipmunks that zip around just off the path where I'm walking. To them, I'm probably a giant, anxiety-provoking intruder on their little worlds, but, to me, I could have a gratitude journal full of their miniature ruckus.
My current work as a groomer's assistant could also fill a journal with face-melting cuteness that I observe + get to interact with each day as I bath + prep lil sweethearts. I've been tweeting #dailydoseofcute pics daily (if not hourly at times) of all my little darlings that I'm going to steal away to Stephie's Cute Ranch someday:)
This is beautiful, that is beautiful, everything is BEAUTIFUL! (blah)
The gratitude journal or simply looking for the positives is not the super irritating + unrealistic optimism that some propose like: Isn't it just amazing to be alive today? I seriously want to punch those people, too, just to shake them out of their fantasy world of glittery gumdrops + cotton candy kisses. No one's life is that good all the time; + if it is, don't gloat.
It's also not the backhanded optimisti-guilt like: I'm so thankful that I have this food on the table while there are hundreds of children starving in Africa today. Good for you, but how is that mentality helping those poor children in Africa?
No, things can seriously suck in your life + that's okay.
We live in a time when more people are struggling more than ever before + when there is an abundance of things that are simply unfair. The Occupy Movement is highlighting many of the injustices + faulty assumptions that have been slowly coming to a boil for well over two decades.
It's not pessimistic to acknowledge that things are not okay in this country or in this world. I love the picture of present day life that O'Connor describes in the final chapter of Undoing Perpetual Stress:
Our culture has turned into something that discourages adventure + is afraid of insight; it values conformity over thought, things over people, show over substance. It has you working very hard + worrying a lot, but it makes you pretend you're not. It chews you up + spits you out, but you're supposed to smile about it. It's the Age of Depression, but no one asks why; instead we pop pills. If you're going to escape, you're going to have to arm yourself.
So sayeth Neo, "Guns. Lots of guns."
Just like any army has a multitude of weapons, tactics, maneuvers + points of attack to win the battle + eventually the war, you're going to need to build an armory of healthy strategies + become a skilled welder of each in order to win your sanity; becoming less stressed.
One weapon -- note it's not the be-all-end-all weapon that will save you + make it everything magically better -- is the practice of active gratitude. Even though there's a lot going wrong, there's always something, even if it's small + seemingly insignificant, that's going right; personally +/or individually.
It's 'active' gratitude because you've got to activity work toward observing + appreciating. Usually, it just takes a shift in focus to 'see' the good, but it's an intentional shift that may be foreign to you.
It starts by literally looking around, being present in the moment as life is occurring + observing the #dailydoseofcute that are happening all around, whether you pay attention to them or not.
Most call this practice mindfulness. It's the polar opposite of mindlessness.
Choose the path of mindfulness
Because it's much easier + because it's a defense against a very over-stimulating world, most of us wander around in a mindlessness lovingly referred to as auto-pilot. Unfortunately, that pilot is usually a cranky old man who constantly has kids on his lawn. You catch my drift?
Mindfulness + active gratitude will seem super lame-o + awkward at first. Don't get discouraged so quickly. It won't take long for proficiency to develop. Before very long, you'll build a habit out of looking for + appreciating the small positives. It'll become second nature + will save you a lot of trials + tribulations in over-stressfulness or full-blown anxiety/depression.
So... right now, I'm thankful for the little wiggly-bottomed, white, fluffy doggie prancing around me while I type this morning.
What are you thankful for?
Still don't believe me? That's cool... read this article on abcnews.go.com, Science of Thankfulness: Thankfullness Linked to Positive Changes in the Body + Brain.
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