Can we enjoy the spring and the open air after two years?
In our daily life, we experience many positive and negative events together. Some days it can be positive, some days negative events can dominate. But mostly negative events remain in our minds. As human beings, our minds tend to see and remember the negative.
It's like this year in April. There are many people around us who complain about not being able to enjoy it. Maybe we are one of them. Come, let's remember the past years together. For the last two years, there was a curfew in April and we had to spend our weekends indoors, unless we had an excuse. Nature wakes up outside, and we were happy that we could at least breathe this air while going to the market.
We are free this spring! We can spend as much time outside as we want, we can enjoy it. But this is the structure of our mind, our attention again shifts to the negative. “The weather did not improve.”, “Will there be snow or rain in this season?” we keep complaining. When we look at the general picture, there are many positive situations, right? But why do we still find ourselves in the negative?
Perhaps the most important reason for this is our expectation of what “ought to be” and our holding on to this expectation! Many of us expected that when we were free, the weather would be sunny, the flowers had already bloomed, we could wear our spring clothes and be able to stand outside comfortably without getting cold. Two years later, we would finally be able to experience spring as we "expected". We hold on to this so much that we get upset because the weather is not permanently warm and constantly fluctuating, and we cannot see the positive unless it is what we expect.
Pain is negative events that happen to us and it is inevitable. It is not in our hands whether the adverse event will occur or not. But if we resist pain, that is, if we constantly try to stay away from it and get rid of it, the pain turns into suffering. Pain is inevitable while suffering is optional. It is shaped by our response to pain.
Returning to the topic of enjoying/not being able to enjoy the spring and the open air, we can call the lower temperature of the weather as bitter. This is inevitable. I don't think we can heat the air when we think about it day and night! Relying on the warming of the weather and keeping the fact that the weather is not warm on our agenda is our resistance to pain. While the resistance is low in some, it can be quite high in others. The amount of resistance shown will determine the suffering. The person with little resistance can accept the situation and still enjoy the outdoors, celebrating freedom this season two years later. On the other hand, the person who shows a lot of resistance may close himself to the house, this time of his own will, and complain about the situation all the time.
By showing resistance, the structure of our brain evolves to show resistance. In other words, it is not a realistic expectation to suddenly drop the resistance. It is necessary to deal with the habits that lie here and to try to change the structure of the brain by intending to let go of the resistance. The work will bear fruit.
If you are willing to reduce your resistance, regular meditation is one of the most effective tools for this. Scientific studies have revealed that mindfulness meditation changes the structure of the brain. If you want to meditate and don't know where to start, you can get regular meditation practice by joining my morning meditation group.
