The Power of Mindfully Embracing Positive Experiences

When life is crazy busy or hard, your brain and body need a break from the stress and strain. Notice how your mind inevitably wanders after a period of focused concentration. Notice how your body requires you to stop, sit, rest, or sleep after a period of steady exertion. You require respite.

But not just any respite. You require repair in the form of positive experiences. Positive experiences cultivate the resilience of your brain and body, boosting your strengths, which you can draw on when you’re overwhelmed and in survival mode, as well as when you’re thriving.

The mindfulness piece is important because the human brain is most efficient at highlighting unpleasant experiences and emotions—often because alarms are triggered, resulting in efficiently built and reinforced neural pathways that focus on the negative. This tendency may have promoted human survival over the eons, but unfortunately, it coincides with the brain’s tendency to ignore, gloss over, or dismiss pleasurable experiences and emotions—which are experienced as harmless and no big deal—resulting in a relative lack of positive neural pathways.

To see this bias in action, you might recall that when a group of people praises you, you shrug it off, or even reject it outright, rather than taking it to heart, feeling appreciated, or even graciously saying, “Thank you.” Instead, “Oh, no, not me. You’re too kind.” But when one lone person criticizes you, you take it to heart and it bothers you for days. That’s your brain easily absorbing the negative and rejecting the positive. Unfortunately, this bias can lead to chronic stress, depression, anxiety, anger, pessimism, and bitterness. Naturally, if you’re chronically overwhelmed, you are even more prone to this kind of misery.

Misery is part of life, for sure, but you needn’t suffer prolonged or unnecessary misery. Chronic misery is not living. And to ward it off, it’s important to nourish your brain by seeking and embracing positive experiences. To do this effectively, start by offsetting your brain’s bias toward the negative and actively focus on the positive.

How to Offset Negative Bias

You can offset negative bias whenever you encounter a positive experience, by mindfully noticing it, staying with it, and absorbing it.

1. Mindfully notice, in the moment, when you’ve had a positive experience. This can take practice, especially if you’re an expert at glossing over the positive. Be on the lookout for even fleeting moments where you experience laughter, wonder, love, gratitude, contentment, being appreciated, being cared for, a sense of accomplishment, or anything else enjoyable.
2. After you note having a positive experience, stay with it. Don’t brush it off or hurry away from it. Accept it, reflect on it, and lean into it. Sense how it feels in your body, and sit up or stand a little straighter in the face of it. Commit to momentarily dwelling on it, knowing it will help your brain build positive neural pathways. By actively staying with it, you enrich the experience and make a bigger impression on your brain.
3. Absorb the positive experience. Be a sponge. Imagine your brain holding on to it. Visualize folding the positive experience into your body. Let it land. Rejoice in it. Feel gratitude for it.

Even 10 to 15 seconds of noticing, staying with, and absorbing each positive experience can make it easier for your brain to build and strengthen positively inclined neural pathways. Over time, it’ll become even easier, because shifting your attention to the positive actually changes the neural connections in your brain.Your neural connections produce the content of your thoughts, and by guiding the content of your thoughts, you change the neural connections. And having more positive neural pathways reinforces your positive traits and emotions, which contributes to your resilience. By rewiring your brain in a positive direction, you reap the benefit of having a more positive life.

How to Adopt a Habit of Positivity

Many people find focusing on the positive to be a challenging habit to adopt. It may feel unfamiliar or counterintuitive, it takes effort, or it’s seemingly too time-consuming to fit into a busy life. Needless to say, it can be very challenging when you’re overwhelmed. But when you are able, practice being aware of your thoughts and shifting your attention to the positive. Here are several simple ideas to get you started:

• Give yourself credit for your triumphs, accomplishments, and responsibilities fulfilled, large and small. Make a detailed to-do list, even at the end of the day, and check off everything you managed to do so that you can feel satisfaction. Include tasks you used to take for granted, such as showering, getting dressed, going outside, or eating a nutritious snack.
• Accept compliments as gifts. Saying thank you shows your gratitude and fosters a sense of mutual connection, which benefits both you and the giver. If you forget to say thank you in the moment, don’t just drop it as a missed opportunity. Rehearse thank you in your mind, and when you can, bring up the compliment and thank the person then.
• Read, write, and say positive affirmations to reinforce positivity in your brain. Notice and refute any negative self-talk.
• Seek out contemplative experiences, particularly connected to nature, that invite you to simply be and effortlessly enjoy the present moment. Watch bees pollinate flowers. Sit in the sun. Lounge by a body of water. Study the clouds. Observe the rain, lightning, or snowstorm. Hug a tree. The idea is to focus on being rather than doing. Schedule be-me time to get your daily dose.

As with all mindfulness practices, embracing positive experiences gets easier with practice. You got this.