What’s Going Well
Our brain believes what we think
Optimism isn't pretending things are fine. When we let our brain register the positive that is also true, we become more resilient, more engaged, and more effective. We allow ourselves to take in evidence that things can and do get better.
Our nervous system needs reminders that good things are also true. Linger on each example for 1 to 2 minutes and add your own experiences as well.
One way to bring awareness of present moment safety is to look around and notice cues of safety. We connect with people who are safe - someone with you or perhaps a photo or by remembering. Our nervous systems co-regulate and we feel safer with people who are regulated and settled. Others feel safer with us when we are not in a survival response.
Bring to mind someone who experiences you as a regulating presence, who takes a breath and relaxes their grip a little when they see you. Use your senses - what they look like, the sound of their voice, scent, touch. Linger here for a minute or two.
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Healing moves across generations; our own personal work changes what the people in our circles carry into the world. Looking back at parents and grandparents, we often see their unhealed trauma still playing out. We are changing that thread.
Bring to mind someone in a future generation. How does your settled nervous system help them as they engage in relationships and the world? Visualize in detail. Breathe. Enjoy.
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Kindness research: people who give consistently underestimate how much a small gesture means to the receiver. What feels small to you often lands as significant. Welcoming someone into a space might be casual for us but meaningful for the other.
One caring adult is enough to change a child's life; many of us had a teacher, neighbor, friend's parent, an aunt or uncle. Many of us are already that person for someone, or could be.
Bring to mind someone who was caring when you were young. Savor the details. Then bring to mind someone you care for and about. How could you be that anchor for them?
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Good moods spread as do bad moods. They ripple out beyond the person we interact with. That person carries a shift in mood into their next interaction, and that person into theirs. Our way of showing up makes a difference.
Bring to mind a way you might become more aware of your effect. What are some ways to increase your beneficial reach?
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Place and belonging: we feel a familiar landscape in our body. Notice smells, the light, the feel of it. Bring it into visual memory. Traditional foods connect us to generations of people who ate the same things, on the same land, in celebration and in hardship. These sensory memories are a form of medicine, and our body recognizes them.
Bring to mind a place of belonging. You may be Indigenous or newer in the land you are on now and could work with a place of your ancestors. Let yourself feel into generations who have walked on the land and participated in traditional foods and rituals.
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Social change takes time. Legislation around intimate partner violence has gone from one country in 1970 to 127 today. When I waitressed in the 1970’s, sexual harassment was the norm and we didn’t have a name for it. Increasing awareness and community-wide, multifaceted approaches work to change beliefs and behavior.
Bring to mind the power of acknowledging injustice. People coming together changes our systems. Extend gratitude to people before you who have been working for justice.
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Environmental wins: whale populations are rebounding and ships are slowing down in key feeding areas to avoid collision; beavers reintroduced in the UK are reshaping wetlands; wolves reintroduced in Yellowstone in 1995 changed deer grazing patterns and reduced erosion. These interventions ripple through entire ecosystems.
Bring to mind the commitment of millions of people to acknowledging reality and healing the earth.
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Community caring: gardens on vacant lots in Detroit in food deserts; cities planting fruit trees; wildflower plantings on bus stop roofs, knitted canopies keeping city streets cooler in Italy. People are inventive and we care. We are already part of positive change.
Bring to mind inspirations you might have to benefit your community.
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Resilience grows when we hold both the hard things and the evidence that people, working together, can actually change our world.