Creating Beneficial Experiences

Most good experiences wash through our brains like water in a sieve. Change that cycle by exploring the aspects of having a good experience, applying it to being cared about, and learning to create your own beneficial experiences.

Transcript

Hi,

I'm Rick Hansen for the Foundations of Wellbeing program,

And these are practices related to the first part of the learning pillar,

Ordinary Jewels.

And in these practices,

We will focus on the first step of the Heal practice,

Having a beneficial experience in the first place.

To begin with,

We'll explore five different aspects of an experience and apply this exploration to one particular experience,

The experience of feeling cared about.

I'll take half a minute or a minute or so for each one of these aspects of an experience.

So let's begin.

Bring to mind the knowing,

In other words,

Under the heading of thoughts,

The knowing that somebody does care about you.

Find someone in your life today or in your past who cares about you.

You may know that it's not a perfect relationship,

But you also know that in at least one aspect of it,

One part of it,

This person cares about you.

It could be a group of people as well,

Pets,

Animal companions,

Spiritual beings or forces.

Whatever it is,

There's a knowing that indeed you are cared about.

So I'll be quiet for a few moments here as you explore your thoughts about feeling cared about,

Being cared about,

Including your perspectives on the situation,

Your perspectives on yourself,

Or beliefs you might have about the experience of being cared about.

All right.

Another aspect of experience are perceptions,

Hearing the voice of someone who cares about you,

Seeing them or seeing their picture,

That's a perception.

And also,

For example,

Sensations.

What are the sensations?

What's it feel like in your body when you feel cared about?

Maybe a warmth in your heart,

Maybe a kind of softening in your face,

Perhaps your shoulders relax a bit.

I'll be quiet here as well as you explore the somatic aspects,

The sensations of feeling cared about.

Next,

Emotions.

What are the emotional aspects of feeling cared about?

Both passing feelings,

Like fondness or caring about the other person back or feeling support it,

As well as moods.

Moods are more lasting than feelings.

Moods like,

Is there a background mood in you of feeling loved or feeling comfortable or safe with this other person who cares about you?

Maybe on the surface from time to time,

They kind of make you raise your eyebrows,

But deep down as a kind of mood,

There's an underlying relatively stable sense of feeling like you matter to this person.

So I'll be quiet here as you explore some of the emotional aspects of feeling cared about.

Next,

We have desires.

So with regard to this experience of feeling cared about,

What are your wants?

It could be soft longings in your heart.

It might be intentions related to this other person or other beings.

There might be values or aspirations that you have,

Purposes related to this feeling of being cared about.

So I'll be quiet here again as you explore for a few moments some of your desires related to feeling cared about.

And then last,

Actions.

So for example,

Here and now,

You might put a hand on your heart.

That's an action.

Or a hand on your cheek.

And in the action,

See what that feels like,

Particularly related to feeling cared about.

You might imagine or even do it,

Reaching out your arms to the one who cares about you.

Or hugging yourself even,

To give yourself a feeling of being cared about.

These are different ways to intensify an experience or to explore different embodied aspects of it.

Okay.

And then I'll be quiet here again for a few more minutes as we finish up this part of this longer sequence of practices here.

This part being an exploration of the aspects of an experience.

I'll be quiet for a few moments here as you just kind of hang out with feeling cared about and letting your attention recognize or note different aspects of the experience.

Okay.

It's interesting,

Isn't it,

How many aspects there are of an experience.

And if you think of it,

Each one of these is an opportunity,

Each one of these aspects is an opportunity to have a beneficial experience,

Which is the first step to taking it in and growing the inner strength related to that beneficial experience inside yourself.

Now let's move on to noticing a beneficial experience.

So of the two main ways to have a beneficial experience,

Noticing or creating,

We're going to start with noticing.

So if you could,

Right now,

This is a new practice here,

If you could right now,

Notice that you're already all right in your body.

You're basically all right.

There's enough air to breathe.

There's enough,

Your heart is beating.

You may not be a perfect moment,

But you can notice already present in the background of awareness is an ongoing sense of fundamental bodily all rightness.

Now occasionally we're not basically all right in the body.

You may not have been basically all right in your body in the past.

You may not be basically all right in your body in the future,

But right now,

Almost certainly the inputs coming up into your brain from within your body are like the calls of a night watchman saying all is well.

So see if you can notice that.

I'll be quiet for a moment here as you notice it.

Notice it again.

And again,

Notice that you're basically all right.

Something could be a little achy.

There might be thoughts going by.

Your stomach might be growling.

But fundamentally you're basically all right right now.

And then even though our focus here is on the first step of the heel practice,

We'll explore the second and the third as well.

So once you're starting to have this experience of feeling basically all right,

You're moving it to the foreground of awareness from the background where it spends most of its time.

In the foreground then let's move into enriching.

Protect this experience.

Keep regenerating it.

Keep coming back to it.

Help it last.

Feel it in your body.

Is there a kind of letting go that can occur in your body?

Kind of an easing?

And how about absorbing?

Can there be a sense of the all rightness,

Basic okayness sinking into you?

And as it sinks in,

Can you get a sense of a letting go of unnecessary guarding or bracing?

Unnecessary anxiety?

Could be a sense of relief.

Oh,

I'm all right.

Letting this really sink into you.

Okay.

So that was a brief practice in noticing a beneficial experience that's already happening,

Which is to say for most of us,

Most seconds of most days,

There's an ongoing sense in the background of awareness of a basic all rightness in the body.

And then you became more aware of that sense of being basically all right,

Moved to the foreground of awareness,

And then enriched and absorbed it to really help it install in your brain.

Now we're going to move on to the third practice in this collection of practices,

Recognizing some of the good facts around you,

What I call ordinary jewels.

So I'll go through each one of these,

Mention a few examples often to be quiet for you to bring one or more good facts for each one of these eight to mind.

So to begin,

Can you look around your immediate situation and find at least one good fact there?

For example,

A moment ago,

I found some water.

How about in current or recent events?

Any good facts there?

Something nice that's happening today or has happened recently?

It's factually true.

Most good facts are relatively small and mild,

But they're still authentic.

They're objectively real.

See if you can almost list as many good facts as possible.

See as many as possible of those ordinary jewels in the path before you of everyday life.

Third,

Stable conditions,

Ongoing things that are true,

Like ongoing being alive or ongoing being in a relationship with some good people.

Or I think about the ways in which we're breathing stardust right now,

Literally oxygen born in the heart of an exploding star.

Wow,

That's an ongoing condition.

That's pretty amazing.

What are some of the good facts and the ongoing conditions of your life?

Okay.

Number four,

Good facts about you.

Good intentions you have.

Those are factually true.

Good heart you have for other people.

You're caring about others,

Your kindness toward others,

Your compassion,

Your sincere wish that they not suffer.

Those are good facts about you.

Things you've accomplished,

Things you've done,

The efforts you've made to do them,

The ways you caused those good results.

Those are good facts about you.

Maybe the deepest layer of your own being,

The love,

The wakefulness,

The wisdom that's innate to us.

Deep down in there,

That's another good fact about you.

So what are some of the good facts about you?

If you push through the kind of taboo these days at recognizing what's good in ourselves.

And good facts about the past.

Number five,

Good things that have happened.

Fun with friends,

Accomplishments.

Thank goodness I fixed that leaking faucet.

Thank goodness I arranged with my neighbor to stop,

You know,

Letting their dog run around my backyard.

Important experiences,

Perhaps the birth of a child,

Perhaps getting together with your partner.

Maybe good fact,

Separating from someone who is really problematic for you.

Maybe a friend or a work situation.

All right.

How about identifying good facts in the future?

Maybe some nice things that are going to happen for you later today.

Maybe a nice meal to see other people.

Maybe finish a tough day at work.

Maybe finally be able to have that chocolate,

Crawl into that bed,

Read that book,

Turn out that light.

Rest your weary head.

These are good facts that will come to you in the future.

What are some of them?

You can even look further out.

You know,

Maybe the holidays coming up or a graduation or you're finally going to finish a tough project at work.

What are some good facts in your future?

Okay.

Here's a tricky one.

Bad situations.

So think of one or more bad situations in your own life,

Maybe tough things that have happened,

Maybe tough ongoing conditions in your life.

You're not trying to ignore the bad.

You're not trying to cover it over or minimize it in any way,

Shape or form,

But you're trying to see also,

Did any good come out of the bad?

Or alongside the bad,

Were there also some good facts such as other people who helped you out or stood up for you?

Or maybe you learned a painful but important lesson about not being able to trust a particular person in your life.

That was a good fact,

Your own learning that emerged alongside a bad situation.

So I'll be quiet here to see if you can find some good facts in some bad situations.

Right.

And then the last one in this practice here,

Recognizing good facts in the lives of others.

Number eight,

Being aware right now of people in your life,

Friends,

Family,

Children,

Neighbors,

People you may not know well,

And it could be also people far away.

What are some of the good facts in their lives?

What are some of the good things that are happening for them that you can turn into some kind of beneficial experience for yourself,

Like being glad about that good news in the life of the other person?

Okay,

So we'll wrap up this little practice here in a moment.

I'll be quiet for a few more moments here first though,

As you just take a few more moments to think about or be aware of some of the ordinary jewels,

Some of the good facts that you can turn toward as opportunities,

Legitimate opportunities for those beneficial experiences that are the basis for lasting happiness.

Okay,

So we're going to do one more little practice here in which we'll use the first three steps of the heel practice of taking in the good,

And we'll start in our focus on having a beneficial experience in the first place with looking around or being aware of facts in your immediate situation that can legitimately give you the feeling that at least some things are going okay.

So I look around and see my stomach was growling,

But water is starting to calm the fires,

Or I notice,

Oh,

Electrical power,

Ongoing,

I can continue this recording.

So in your case,

What might you do when you look around to find things that would be reassuring or calming?

So you're trying to help yourself create a beneficial experience of reassurance or calm by recognizing some of the facts around you that would be reassuring or calming.

And once you start to help yourself have a good experience from recognizing a good fact,

Then moving into the installation phase,

See if you can stay with it.

The sense of reassurance or easing or gladness related to recognizing,

Huh,

Some things are going okay.

There can also be an absorbing of this experience of things going okay,

A kind of easing maybe spreading inside you,

Like water sinking into a sponge,

Or a certain relief spreading inside you,

Perhaps alongside a falling away of unnecessary anxiety.

Okay,

Good.

So that was the third little practice in this collection of practices here about having beneficial experiences.

And as we move to an end now,

I have a couple of comments.

The first is that a lot of what we're doing here is to turn good facts into good experiences.

Just recognizing the good fact alone is not enough.

We want to help it become an experience,

Something that we feel or something that we sense in our body.

So there are different ways to do this,

To turn good facts into good experiences,

Because sometimes we know it intellectually,

But we don't feel anything.

It doesn't move the needle.

In order to get as many neurons firing together as possible,

We want to move the needle.

We want to help the knowledge of the good fact become a good feeling.

All right?

So there are different ways to do that.

One is to tune into the body.

Another is to kind of soften and open.

You can also be pretty active in your mind,

You know,

Looking for aspects of the experience that would naturally evoke a more somatic or emotional response to it.

You could even imagine,

Gee,

How would other people feel if they had that good fact or they recognize that good fact?

You know,

They might feel calmer or happier or more loved or more loving.

Huh,

Well,

I could too.

And then last and far from least,

Have kindness for yourself.

You know,

You want to,

It's kind of like you want to help the good wind,

In a sense.

You want to help the good concept become some kind of beneficial experience.

And if you stick with it and continue to be on your own side,

It's natural to have good experiences from good facts.

You know,

Little children don't need to be taught,

Have a good experience when there's a good fact.

They know how to do that.

We know how to do this deep down.

That natural ability might be covered over by,

You know,

Numbing and feeling tired and kind of tuning out from ourselves,

Perhaps,

But it's a natural capacity.

All you're doing is reclaiming it.

In a sense,

It boils down to something really fundamental and kind of simple.

See it?

See some of those good facts,

Some of those ordinary jewels in the path of everyday life.

See it and then feel it.

Let the seeing become a feeling.

Let it move your needle.

And then third,

Once you see the good fact and you feel something as a result,

Really receive it.

Really,

Really,

Really let it sink in.

And if you do,

And if you do this again and again and again,

As Lao Tzu,

The founder of Taoism in China wrote many,

Many years ago,

Keep a green bow in your heart and a singing bird will come.

And what we've been exploring here is growing lots of green bows in the heart to create a whole forest of green bows so that whole flocks of singing birds will come.

And in the next part of the pillar of learning in this program,

We'll focus on how to enrich and absorb these beneficial experiences so they really,

Really,

Really sink into you.

So for the Foundations of Wellbeing program,

I'm Rick Hanson and I hope you're well.

Reviews

Very pleasant and a practice that heals my heart

Such a good practice. Thank you, Rick.

Practical, simple yet deep. It helped me ground and re-frame my present. Thank you!

I found this one even more helpful than others so far due to the extra explanation and instruction. Thanks so much!

Creating experiences are intimate, compassionate and kindness moments toward ourselves. Thank you, many blessings!

Beautiful, warm practice. The little things matter.

Really useful practice. ..I'm going to make this one of my regulars. Neuroplasticity is my friend!

Bookmarked this practice. Thank you 🙏

Thank you for this informative session. I got a lot out of of this that I realized I need badly.

Love the simplicity of his exercises for rewiring the brain. His course is excellent highly recommend it for growing capacities for a richer experience of life especially in difficult times or relationships.

Good explanation of how to create beneficial experiences.

Excellent. I really enjoyed this, thank you.

This was JUST what I needed today. To really allow and feel the good things around me. I will be practicing this often, and what a pleasure it will be! Thank you very much.

Very interesting and enlightening! Thank you! 🙏🏽

Thank you Rick. I found this valuable and I am grateful. Sending beneficial good wishes.

A good teaching but not a meditation.
I go off now into the day with a green bough in my heart. Thank you.

Extremely useful in helping me to appreciate the good things in my everyday life that I take for granted..and to experience them emotionally and hapticly rather than in my head. Thanks.

I've long stuggled to turn what I "know" into what I "feel". This is EXACTLY what I needed at a time when I needed it most! Thank you!

Thank you. Namaste 🙏❤️🙏

Very instructive on how to use facts to instill happiness in yourself