Taking in the Good

Lately I've heard several people talk about the importance of gratitude. I wish that counting my own blessings made me feel good in the way that these people described. When I think of the best things in my life, what I feel instead is FEAR: Oh please, don't let me lose this, too! I couldn't stand it! The fear is paralyzing. It makes me feel like there's nothing to look forward to.

How to let the good stuff sink in, to feel gratitude in my heart as well as think it in my head? I'm trying to do what Rick Hanson and Richard Mendius suggest in their book Buddha's Brain: savor the good and even neutral moments as they come up, in a vivid and physical way, to balance out the negative bias of memory.

Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love & Wisdom
by Rick Hanson, Ph.D. with Richard Mendius, MD

They explain how our brains evolved to pay more attention to negative experiences than to positive ones, because the negative ones usually had more impact on survival. As a result, our baseline state is one of vigilantly scanning for threats. Also, our brains tend to detect negative information faster than positive information, then emphasize it more in memory. Hanson and Mendius explain how these changes happen neurologically. Then they summarize:

Your brain preferentially scans for, registers, stores, recalls, and reacts to unpleasant experiences; as we've said, it's like Velcro for negative experiences and Teflon for positive ones. Consequently, even when positive experiences outnumber negative ones, the pile of negative implicit memories naturally grows faster. Then the background feeling of what it feels like to be you can become undeservedly glum and pessimistic. 

Sure, negative experiences do have benefits: loss opens the heart, remorse provides a moral compass, anxiety alerts you to threats, and anger spotlights wrongs that should be righted. But do you really think you're not having enough negative experiences?! Emotional pain with no benefit to yourself or others is pointless suffering. And pain today breeds more pain tomorrow. For instance, even a single episode of major depression can reshape circuits in the brain to make future episodes more likely (Maletic et al. 2007).

Oh great, another thing to fear. But they do have a suggestion. Instead of "thinking positive"—sweeping negative realities under the rug while reading a mental list of all the reasons we should feel happier—here's what they suggest:

The remedy is not to suppress negative experiences; when they happen, they happen. Rather, it is to foster positive experiences—and in particular, to take them in so that they become a permanent part of you… 

Turn positive facts into positive experiences. Good things keep happening all around us, but much of the time we don’t notice them; even when we do, we often hardly feel them…Whatever positive facts you find, bring a mindful awareness to them—open to them and let them affect you. It’s like sitting down to a banquet: don’t just look at it—dig in! 

Savor the experience. It’s delicious! Make it last by staying with it for 5, 10, even 20 seconds; don’t let your attention skitter off to something else. The longer that something is held in awareness and the more emotionally stimulating it is, the more neurons that fire and thus wire together, and the stronger the trace in memory (Lewis 2005). Focus on your emotions and body sensations, since these are the essence of implicit memory. Let the experience fill your body and be as intense as possible...

Finally, there's this:

Positive experiences can also be used to soothe, balance, and even replace negative ones. When two things are held in mind at the same time, they start to connect with each other. That’s one reason why talking about hard things with someone who’s supportive can be so healing: painful feelings and memories get infused with the comfort, encouragement, and closeness you experience with the other person.