If you paid attention to the thoughts in your mind and the words that you speak, what would you hear? Maybe spend some time today listening to yourself. Listen without intentionally directing, without judging, without self-censoring. Just listen. What do you hear? And perhaps more important, how does what you hear make you feel?
Without making it complicated, do you feel more expansive, connected, peaceful, uplifted? Or do you feel contracted, isolated, agitated, dragged down? Or even simpler – does your heart feel open or closed?
When I used to research and write about happiness, I learned that 90% of our happiness is based in our thoughts, not in our circumstances. I suspect that the same is true for suffering. I’m not speaking here of denying challenging circumstances. I’m talking about how we engage with our circumstances.
When our thoughts and words are full of criticism, judgment, anxiety, anger, whether directed at others or at ourselves, we suffer. When we recognize this pattern and then judge ourselves for it, we suffer even more.
So how do we break this pattern? Not with judgment or discipline, but with compassion. When we reject parts of ourselves with judgment or force, those parts just dig in deeper. It’s like holding a stone tightly in our fist and expecting it to drop to the ground. But compassion is like opening your hand letting the hardness drop away.
It might sound silly, but I actually used this closed/open hand idea recently and was surprised that it helped so much. I recognized that I was holding on to some less than loving feelings towards someone, and that I was judging myself for it. I felt stuck. I closed my fists tightly, imagining that I was holding all these thoughts in my grasp. And then I just opened my hands. I felt my whole body relax, and my heart softened. I felt compassion for my oh-so-human self, and before I knew it, that compassion welled up and spilled over to become compassion towards the other person.
With an open heart, I was able to view the situation from a different perspective. I could understand things that I was unable to consider before, and I was amazed by how different everything seemed to me. I felt stable, centered, at peace, happy. The circumstances had not really changed, but I had changed. Perhaps that will lead to an improvement in the circumstances, or perhaps not. But with an open heart, improvement is possible where before, with a closed heart, it was not. And in any case, I am at peace with whatever happens.
It all starts by listening to yourself with curiosity and willingness to see what you discover. And whatever that is, release it from an open hand tenderly with compassion.
I stand before what is with an open heart. And with an open heart I dwell in possibility. ~Macrina Wiederkehr
Another valuable and beautifully written post! When I read that 90% of our happiness is based in our thoughts, not our circumstances, I couldn’t help but think about the battle for our minds. We are bombarded by messages most of the time and everything affects us in one way or another. Thank you for sharing your personal story about gently dropping rocks that hindered. I want to remember that!
Thanks Pam. Yes, those happiness studies are quite surprising. And most of those thoughts, studies show, are not even conscious thoughts but the thoughts running on a loop in the background of our minds. It’s our thinking “habits” rather than individual thoughts that influence our happiness most. Something to “think” about, right?
About the open/closed hand experiment I tried, I was surprised again at how intimately linked our bodies and minds are. Our minds can certainly expand beyond our body’s limits, but even something as simple as how we breathe can influence what our brains tell us. Relaxing my tight grip seemed to have a direct impact on how tightly I was holding my emotions and judgments. Go figure! Pretty amazing.
Thanks for commenting.