Mindfulness by Lani Muelrath

Author:Lani Muelrath
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780744041538
Publisher: DK Publishing

When you read this list, you may imagine that pervasive joy and gratitude are accessible only if you adopt positive (and perhaps naïve) ideas. However, this is about mindfully observing your life without a deep investment in ideas or expectations—even positive ones.

For example, when you allow yourself to be inspired by the fact that people are often kind, fair, and generous with one another, this has nothing to do with an idea about how the world is, on the balance, more wonderful than terrible. It doesn’t require you to deny the prevalence of injustice, violence, or greed. But when you’re not holding on to any idea about the way people should act—when you have no expectation that the world should be a place free from conflict or selfishness—what stands out is people’s voluntary positive actions, instead of how they fall short of an ideal. When you recognize an expectation as a mere idea (even if it’s reasonable or good), it doesn’t have the power to make you miserable.

In fact, you can find reasons to be grateful no matter how circumstances are measuring up to your plans and hopes. For example, when you get sick, even though you always eat well and exercise, you simply deal with being sick instead of getting discouraged. When you feel healthy again, you’re grateful, instead of feeling as if health is something you’re owed because of your efforts. When someone dislikes or mistrusts you despite the fact that you’ve tried to treat them well, you continue to treat people well because that’s what you want to do—but you shrug and acknowledge that human interactions are mysteriously complex and impossible to predict. When people end up liking you, you appreciate it as a pleasant outcome instead of thinking of it as payback for being nice.

Take care that when working on appreciation and gratitude, you stay honest with yourself. If you don’t feel it, you don’t feel it. Mindfulness is about becoming aware of things as they are, without judgment. If you notice expectations that are hard to let go of or things in your life you just can’t accept, that’s okay. As long as you stay mindfully aware of your life, you’ll keep learning and things will keep shifting. Just keep your mind open—at least a little bit.

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