I invite you to try a new practice each week. To enjoy life more, you can decrease the negative or increase the positive. Unfortunately, for those of us with chronic pain, we sometimes can’t lower that negative experience. So these practices will be designed to increase the positive!
Recent research shows that our brains are programmed to look for danger and negative things more so than the positive ones. Thousands of years ago for early humans, this attention to problems helped us keep an eye out for lions. But it didn’t encourage a positive perspective. We need to counter that natural negative bias of our brains by purposely focusing on the positive.
Your Invitation: Take 5 minutes each evening to remember and savor the good experiences you had during the day. Remember a juicy raspberry, a kind word from a stranger, a joke shared with your partner, or the smell of a rose you saw on a walk. Focus on the senses involved in the experience and your positive feelings during it.