I have a mouthful of sour jelly babies. Fruity, fizzy sharpness, squidgy and grainy, the warm hug of sweet.
I often write about the dark tangled places. Before offering advice on how to feel better about yourself, I describe my cruel self-recrimination. When speaking of the joy of being accepted just as you are, I start with my list of failings. My writing is often confessional and focusses on our rough edges, our frailty and fallibility, the gaps between expectations and actuality.
Not today. Today I will be seeking the sunny places, and resting there for a while. Join me?
I remember my spouse Kaspa coming home from a week of body therapy training. They described how one of the trainers, Stephen Tame, encouraged them to find a place in their body that felt good, comfortable or relaxed, or at least neutral. Once they found it, even if pain or nervousness was jostling inside them and almost filling them up, even if only the tip of their big toe was at peace, they were invited to linger there for a while. To enjoy the sensations, to appreciate the way their body was working for them, to take a break from all the rest.
At the time this struck me as radically counter-cultural. Our capitalist society is continually pointing us towards lack, so it can sell us the solutions. Religion, psychology and popular morality encourage us to ferret out our dysfunctions, in order to transform them. We must be more productive! We must be kinder to each other! We must save the planet!
Even worse, we internalise these messages. We become our own worst publicists and our own harshest critics. We set the most unrealistic targets for ourselves and are the most disappointed when we inevitably fall short. I’m not going to linger any longer here as that’s not what we’re doing today, but I think you will know what I’m talking about.
How can we loosen the ties of zoning-in-on-the-negative?
It’s very simple. We seek out the sweet spot, and we linger there.
Maybe try it right now.
What else might help?
🌞 It’s okay to start (and continue) very very small. If you can enjoy the feeling of release for three seconds as you sit at your desk and stretch your neck, wonderful. If you can pause for a moment to enjoy the feel of your satin bedspread under your fingertips, marvellous. If you can notice how you weren’t quite as wobbled by that thing as you were the last time it happened, then hurray.
🌞 If resistance to feeling good arises, then pay attention to it. What are these parts of you1 afraid might happen if you leaned into feeling good for a while? Do they have concerns about needing to keep you vigilant? Do they hold the belief that pride comes before a fall? Does it just feel new and strange to them? Whenever resistance is there, it has something important to tell us - be patient with it, listen carefully, and try to understand.
🌞 When difficulty is here, reassure these parts of you that you will tend to them - maybe later or with the help of a friend or a journal. We can’t spend the whole of our lives swimming in sweetness - a good life needs salt and sour too. My suggestion is more that we don’t fall into obsessing about the sour, imagining that we might eliminate it altogether if we just tried harder, or feeling that we should.
🌞 Enjoy exploration and play. What kind of books makes you happy? What clothes make you feel good about yourself? How much rest or time alone do you need? Like all other beings you are unique - what conditions will make it more likely that you will thrive? (I know that this is often hard to implement. That’s okay - just move towards it.)
🌞 Look at yourself (or difficult situations) through someone else’s eyes. When it’s hard to find compassion for ourselves, or to appreciate our finest qualities, or to find a silver lining, it can help to look through the eyes of our best friend, dear Earth, the Buddha, or whoever else might see us and everything with love.
We began with a mouthful of jelly babies. First thing this morning, as I gulped the water my body is always thirsty for, I zoned in on the sense of quenchedness2. As I opened my tin of deodorant, the scent of rose and jasmine wafted out and I sniffed deeply several times. In between writing these sentences I am letting my eyes rest on the bright warm tongue of flame, dancing on my writing candle.
There is sweetness all around when we seek it out. We can become cats, moving into the sunny spot on the rug and stretching out. I wish this for you, and I hope that you can linger.
Go gently,
Satya <3
Tell me: I’d love to hear about your sweet spots. Also, sweetness is infectious - so share it!
If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. ~ Mary Oliver
Parts = the magic of Internal Family Systems
I know this is not a word.
Just lovely!
Definitely going to incorporate some of the suggested tips. Thanks, Satya.