Joy Project: Abundance

For the second joy aesthetic in her book Joyful: The Surprising Power of Ordinary Things to Create Extraordinary Happiness, designer Ingrid Fetell Lee has chosen abundance. Admittedly, abundance is quite often a wonderful thing, but the concept seems a bit fraught in this time of Covid-19. For some, abundance is a closet full of toilet paper, all the shows they can stream, and a raging bull stock market. For others, abundance is an overflow of kindness, selflessness, and generosity. I imagine most of us fall somewhere in the middle, with an extra helping of worry thrown in.

So it was really interesting to read a designer's take on it. Lee writes, "The kind of abundance that really matters is not material accumulation but sensorial richness." She cites some interesting research about how animals and humans raised in "enriched environments" perform better on cognitive tests. Babies naturally seek out sensory experiences in order to support neural development. Adults of all ages are emotionally more satisfied and tend to adapt better physically with the right level of stimulation around them. (This is a key point, because overabundance--of food, alcohol, or technology, for example--tends to have the opposite effect.)

And how does a person go about enriching her or his environment with abundance? By focusing on "a diverse array of sensations", lest we develop what Lee calls "sense hunger."

As I write this, I'm noticing the diverse sensations around me: Music playing, candles burning, a fountain trickling, and a lava lamp blobbing away. I'm sitting on an inflatable exercise ball in lieu of a chair, which adds bouncing into the mix. (This is what happen when two people must work from home with only one office chair. But I'm okay with it!) A dish of seashells, smooth stones, and bits of wood sits near my desk, offering a variety of textures for my eyes, and, if I choose, my fingers.

Considering all that, I'm giving this little corner of my life an A+ for abundance! But it's still going to take practice to think of abundance in these sensory terms, instead of the material acquisition we are conditioned to value from birth.

If you have an example of abundance from your environment, please share in a comment. And speaking of abundance, next month will be full of posts from me, thanks to the A to Z Challenge!

I hope you're safe and well! See you April 1st. No fooling!

Think Like a Proton

Think positive, that is! Okay, bad joke, but we all know there's too much negativity in the world these days, and I'm not just talking about those electrons zipping around. And it's easy for negative vibes to seep into our brains and poison our thinking. But there is a cure (or at least an effective treatment) and it's called...

Positive thinking. Or, if you prefer, positive affirmations. The internet and your local bookseller are teeming with pithy, uplifting quotes and wise sayings that convey feel-good messages. But according to mindvalley.com, it's not enough to just slap together a bunch of warm fuzzies. Brains are very literal and prefer affirmations that adhere to certain rules:

• They are in the present tense. So, no "will" or "was."
• They use only positive words. Apparently, brains aren't thrilled about expending extra energy to change those "don'ts" to "dos."
• They are statements of fact, as in "I am" or "I do."

Repetition is key. If you've tried to master a golf swing or tennis serve, you've probably been told that repetition strengthens the connections in the brain. Hence the old adage that practice makes perfect. And this, my friends, is where I failed miserably this week. I don't know why (maybe there's some ironic twist here), but I kept forgetting to positively affirm myself. When I did remember, I would get wishy-washy about exactly what I was affirming. My health? My happiness? My desire to manifest thicker hair and improved social skills?

Anyway, I learned that mentally half-assing some random bumper sticker slogans didn't quite cut it. But I'm not giving up, because I believe there's some truth in the assertion that we are what we think we are. Or, in this slightly more eloquent example:

"The mind is everything. What you think, you become." ~ Buddha

This week is a Keep It, and...what's that? You'd like to see the ultra-affirming opening scene from the 1995 movie Stuart Saves His Family? Happy to oblige.

Radio Silence

Welcome to another Wednesday here at the Take It or Leave It challenge! After last week's extra podcast listening, I decided to flip the script this week and give my ears a rest. I'm a big fan of background music and almost always have it playing at home, at work, and in my car. I like many different musical genres, so it often doesn't matter what makes up the soundtrack of my day. But there's always something.

Until I turned it all off.

On the drive to work that first morning, which takes a whole twelve minutes, I feared I had made a terrible mistake. Without public radio, I had nothing to distract me from the annoying rattle coming from somewhere in my car. One of the first things I do when I get to my desk is choose the music I will stream for the day. Instead, I gritted my teeth at the sound of the fluorescent lights buzzing overhead. Were they always that loud, or had I spontaneously developed some kind of Jaime Sommers bionic woman hearing?

At home, things were no easier. Cooking and eating without jazz music in the background is a lot less fun. And I don't know if this is weird, but I always wake up with a song in my head. Sometimes, it's a song I like. Sometimes, it's Wham's "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go". There's no rhyme or reason to it. Without a new song to take its place, I was stuck with the bad song earworm for much longer than I wanted.

That's how most of the week went: me being hyper-aware of sounds I usually don't even acknowledge. And I also found out that there is such as thing as having too much time alone with one's thoughts. Well, maybe not for Bill Gates. But definitely for me. I confess that I had many moments where I almost lost my resolve and turned on some damn music already.

But I made it through seven full days of radio silence. Surprisingly, things got easier by the end, and I actually began to appreciate (some of) my silent moments. And various studies suggest that silence lowers blood pressure, boosts immunity, promotes brain cell growth in the hippocampus, regulates hormones, prevents arterial plaque formation, and decreases stress (even more than listening to music!).

Well, that's some food for thought. I know this week can't possibly be a Take It, because listening to music makes me happy. But I will make a point to be more mindful of silence and fit it into my day on a regular basis.

And now, for some throwback weirdness, here's Thomas Dolby's "Radio Silence". So very 1982.

An Om of My Own

Happy Wednesday! I don't know about you, but 2019 has been a stressful year so far. Not in any earth-shattering way, thank goodness, but to the point where I frequently feel on the verge of being overwhelmed. Some of it is good stress--what they call eustress, which is physically or psychologically beneficial--and some of it is definitely distress. (And that's without throwing politics into the mix.) There just don't seem to be enough hours in the day to get everything done, which is nothing new or unusual for any of us, I'm sure.

For years, I've toyed with the idea of starting a meditation practice. I was never sure how to go about it the right way, though, and I wasn't convinced I was that kind of person (whatever "that" means). Books were helpful but a little too static, and joining a class seemed too intimidating. What if my chakras started acting up in public or something? But now, well, this is one place where I have to give technology credit, because there are multiple meditation and mindfulness apps that made dipping my toe into the calm waters of meditation a whole lot easier.

After a bit of trial and error, I ended up using the (inadequately named, IMHO) app called InsightTimer. It offers 15,000 free meditations, which was a little overwhelming at first. But they are easily filtered by length and focus. I did have to set up an account, but just name and email, no credit card information. Then, I was up and running. (And by that I mean sitting and still.)

I tried a variety of meditations during the week. The shortest was a minute long, the longest was twenty. Most of them were guided, but a couple of times, I just listened to some relaxing music. I meditated in the morning, at night, and occasionally in between. Even though the guided meditations were fundamentally similar in nature, they varied a lot depending on the presenter. Different accents, different pacing, different background music... Some of them didn't quite click for me, but with 15k to choose from, it was easy to find a better fit.

Frankly, I was surprised at how much I enjoyed my meditation time. On the whole, I felt happier and less stressed this week--though that might be because we also had some very lovely spring weather. Maybe when the blizzard we're expecting hits and drops the temperature by 40 degrees F, I will be back to my normal grumpy self.

Although the Take Its are definitely piling up, I have to add this one to that list, as well.

Have a relaxing week!