Number six is the last one that is in my second catagory of “needs some help”. I am getting a C on these, not great but not a bad grade. And number six is Increasing Positive Emotions.
My current thinking leads me to believe that working on this factor means something like working on “not taking life too seriously”. Somehow my encounter with cancer brought about something that put me working on this. I don’t know how or why but it happened. Also included in there is the resilience that resides in Catholicism. And also included is the belonging and the trust fostered by the Way of St James or the Camino de Santiago. I have no idea of how this dynamic worked but it did.
If one is to reside in the place of positive emotions one has to come to grips with negativity. Worry and fear have to be put in their place, not boiling away on the front burners of our life. It takes a certain amount of trust to unlock this, to move in this direction.
I hear watching comedy movies can be in this catagory of healing. Well OK! I can get aboard that train. Dr Turner was talking about the idea that our bodies can’t heal when they are stressed by fear and worry and an hour break to watch a funny movie is a healing time. Seems a small thing but a string of positive experiences can be hooked together I suppose to make a big change.
But ultimately I think we are talking about finding joy and and being able to dwell there as the ultimate connection to the positive. To find peace in our lives is a major component in this process. I saw peace in thousands of malades (people with a malady) who had come to Lourdes when I was there in May.
That was my major takeaway that peace is possible in the middle of sickness and suffering.
Yup, we batted it around. I have time to get some projects worked on before our walk at 4 PM. I think we will be showing the Phil’s Camino documentary afterward today. Stop by when you can. Peaceful loves, Felipe.x
Hola Felipe,
Today’s post is such a good one… and I don’t think you got a “C” on it… I actually think you did quite well 🙂
What you said, that “peace is possible in the middle of sickness and suffering”, is a conclusion to which you arrive only after a long time of reflection and dwelling into what suffering has to teach you.
When I read “Increase Positive Emotions”, I thought on all those things that are in our life, in equal parts as suffering; these are the things that we often times don’t appreciate because suffering takes over… but they are there. In my “secret mission”, I made the point to focus on them, and I was surprised at “seeing and feeling” all these things that are part of my life, but sinked into the things that make us suffer, we are more often than not, neglecting them.
Friendship, the care of others, those emails just saying “hello, I was thinking of you”, the emails finishing with “blessings” or “love” or “hugs”, words that someone else posts in a blog that speak right to you, your neighbors watering your plants, the kindness of the taxi/bus driver or the waitress at the restaurant or the owner of the B&B, a random meeting with someone else that opened up a new friendship, and I could continue.
The point is that the problems continue to be the problems, the things that make us suffer are still there and often times there is nothing we can do about them, and it is so easy to be caught up on them, that we take for granted all the other things, we don’t appreciate them, we don’t think how GREAT they are. And perhaps, the “necessary suffering” has to come to our lives for that purpose, to make us stop and appreciate what we have, because otherwise, we probably wouldn’t have stopped to “smell the roses” from our garden…
Grateful perfumed Love,
Cris
Cris ~ so glad that you are back from your secret mission and have the time to write these great long comments. i guess anything that we can do to increase the positive is a plus. It is so easy to dwell in the negative sometimes and get stuck there. We are blessed to see this side of things. Felipe.x
This is a neighborhood with beautiful gardens! <3
I’m working on this one, too. I once heard the phrase ‘when you worry you suffer twice’ which helped – but I like this idea of watching funny movies.
Catalina ~ My Rebecca helps me with this. She likes to have a lot of comedy in her life. Felipé.x