Even for as long as I have been studying positivity consciousness and working on maintaining a daily practice, it still surprises me that the simplest, seemingly the most basic aspects recede from view. It was upon listening to a Pema Chodron lecture on joy that I realized what was keeping me from experiencing positivity lately. When she was explaining the basic experience of joy, she shared a story of how the mood in her workshops always seem to lift when people start to understand the “workability” of their own minds.
In part, coming to see that your problems and personal thinking errors are workable is the result of opening and having compassion for ourselves. In fact, without this recognition that your mind and life are workable, joy is impossible. It is easy to get into this stuck place, where issues have this stickiness and intractability. When we believe that our shortcomings and weaknesses define us and we can’t perceive the possibility of growth, it shrinks our capacity to love, to feel loved.
The shift to having a mind and a life that are workable is one of the most easily accessible bridging thoughts to greater positivity. Others, like curiosity and wonder likewise lead to a greater state of opening, which is where positivity can breathe. Judgment, especially and maybe mostly against ourselves, is often invisible. We don’t witness the sticky tentacles of our self doubt and personal recriminations’ familiar tug.
Lately, this is my singular prayer to just see the workability of my own mind and heart. It is a freeing and simple way through.
