Seeing The Good
The practice of savoring
Journal: 15 October, 2024, morning.
So much good is going on all around us, all the time. Do you believe that? I ask because I see the skeptical look on your face. It’s not that the good doesn’t happen, it’s that the bad shocks us, demands more attention. The good, if noticed at all, fades into the background. We take it for granted. It’s not particularly significant. The problem with that is that our world view skews toward what we pay attention to and if we mostly notice the bad, we begin to think everything is bad, and that’s terribly corrosive to hope and enthusiasm and optimism, which are the very things we need to counter the bad.
Grace and joy are embodied in the good but what we take for granted disappears from our conscious minds, becomes invisible to us. Our brain immediately bonds like Velcro to everything negative (this is related to survival instinct) but if you want to notice and remember the good stuff (and walk in the grace and joy that remembering it brings), the good stuff has to be savored.
Savoring just means being fully present and mindful during an experience so that you remember it vividly and can recall it, replay it, relive it, can experience again in your mind all the things that made it a good thing, made it pleasurable. For example, that special date night: the song that was playing, the honeysuckle scented air, the feel of the warm breezes, how it felt to be held by him for the first time. All those sensory things. Savoring.
My daily five thankfuls are savoring. My “tell me one good thing” is savoring. My journaling is savoring. My #smalljoys and #tinystories are savoring. My #beginthedaywithbeauty is savoring. All those are my practices in being fully present to and mindful of the good.
I need these good things like I need air to breathe. I know this. It’s why I do the things I do. Joy doesn’t happen accidentally. Choosing joy is a fierce act of rebellion, a vote to see the good that shines in the darkness, done with full knowledge of the risk of doing that, of recognizing what can be lost. It requires bravery.
Let’s be brave together. ❤️
#journalingalife