On the way, you meet a friend you haven't seen for a long time. When you ask how it is, you get an unexpected answer. “I just tasted the most delicious apple in my life” she says. The pleasure he gets from just eating apples is refreshing and innovative. There seems to be no trace of the feeling of heaviness and imbalance that has spread all over the world with the pandemic. He has a feeling of happiness and he provides it with the taste of the apple he eats.
Absolute happiness is such a feeling; small, unpretentious, harmless. It's in an apple, maybe in the words of a song, maybe in the smile of a child, maybe in the hug of someone you love, or in the snuggle of a purring cat. We often try to persuade ourselves to incorporate these moments into our awareness. It is time to openly allow these moments to come into your awareness, such as when a purring cat unexpectedly snuggles into you.
Our attention is often occupied with other aspects; The sound of drills coming from the neighbor's house on the upper floor is not silenced, the downstairs neighbor's child screaming at six in the morning, our sadness when a loved one falls ill, and the anxiety triggered by the dismissal of a close acquaintance keep us busy enough. Pandemic, economic imbalance, inflation, climate change, uncertainties about the future can have greater effects than what I wrote in the previous sentence. How do we achieve the "neutral approach to every situation" mentioned in all the mindfulness teachings?
There are sparkles of happiness in all these dark, foggy and stormy situations. Even if we see that the sky is covered with white, gray, or even black clouds for days, maybe months, it is like remembering that one day the rays of the sun will appear after those clouds. The happiness we experience by noticing the small moments in our lives that sometimes escape our attention is not actually rejecting the things that went wrong, but appreciating what comes up at the opposite moment.
Tasting the apple for the lead person, writing this article for me right now, maybe reading this article for you (I hope so) or drinking a drop of water or sipping your morning coffee... it also breaks the pattern.
Pandemic or not, somehow most of us have a mental orientation towards the negative. The reason for this is very simple, because our ancestors were able to continue living in this way. They didn't wander through the forest with their eyes closed, they walked with their guns in their hands, mindlessly against the bear, tiger or lion that could attack at any moment. When you go to the Belgrad forest in Istanbul, I don't think you have a gun in your hand or you walk nervously. “The brain is like a hook for negative experiences and Teflon for positive ones” says psychologist and meditation teacher Rick Hanson.
Enjoy your slowdown
The brain needs a few seconds to perceive the message "Something good is coming". By slowing down, you are reminding the heart, mind and body that happiness exists. Eating an apple with care and attention by biting it increases the pleasure of eating an apple, while the pleasure of walking barefoot instead of running on the grass is completely different.
Problem free happiness
Sometimes you simply find happiness when you realize that nothing is wrong and that everything is fine. As we oscillate between pleasurable and unpleasurable, we pass over the pleasure created by the neutral. When I wake up most mornings, I remember sleeping peacefully in my warm bed, the sun rising safely and saying hello to the day amid the birdsong that fills the air. These may not be the situations that excite us, but every time we accept them into our lives with appreciation and gratitude, our souls are covered with a feeling of happiness.
Change your reference point
When we create a reference for the great moments of life, such as the birth of a child, our graduation, our wedding day, the moment we receive the news of the acceptance of our project, we can pursue that great situation. By finding happiness in our daily activities and making it more accessible, we can experience more happiness and become happier individuals.
Most times the problem we have is that we focus so much on the problems that we even begin to create more problems for ourselves.
If we can look away just for some minutes, we might feel even better in the face of challenges.