Mindfulness, Meditation & Contemplation
Our antidotes to inner turbulence in times of complexity and uncertainty.
Dear Reader
If this is your first visit to The Sunny Optimist, ideas, information, and inspiration to brighten your day, and you like my writing, please subscribe below so that I can send this weekly newsletter direct to your mailbox.
Thank you,
Ann
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Greetings Sunny Optimist buddies,
I began this newsletter to help me cope with the impact of the challenges we are all experiencing. It was important not to withdraw into myself and find ways to stay in relationship with others.
It has turned out to be a great approach to be more engaged and playful in my life. I am loving the process of sitting down and writing. I am learning so much about technology and social media too. A tech-savvy elder no less!
My well-being is so much better for participating in this adventure. I love the re-connection with family and friends and the arrival of new subscribers as well. Now at 60 subscribers, which is well beyond my hopes and expectations for this.
Thank you so much for joining in.
Staying in Balance
Over the last few weeks, I have written about how our optimism is sustained through a healthy relationship with the people we love. In a sense, this is our outer world. This week I will look at how optimism is nourished within our inner world to help us stay resilient.
Fast and free-flowing ‘information’ can make discerning the truth rather tricky. It is easy for this complexity and ambiguity to lead us to uncertainty and then to feeling dispirited. We are in uncharted waters in many aspects of our lives (the pandemic, climate change, politics.....). It is not at all surprising that we can feel overwhelmed by this.
Optimism can be an antidote to feeling dispirited, and this is not just about our temperament. For me, it is a state of mind that we can cultivate. I like the metaphor of building my optimism muscles. The more I practice, the more skillful I become. The more skillful I become, the more I can respond to complexity and uncertainty.
My Personal Inner Practices
There are three personal inner world practices that I use to sustain and enhance my optimism. These practices interweave, and the boundaries between them are relatively permeable. There is a kind of flow across the three of them, and I can deploy them at different times and to different needs. I know that many of you already use them, but I thought a wee reminder would not go amiss.
I will briefly introduce them this week. Over the next three weeks, I will take each one in turn and go a bit deeper. Feel free to contribute to this exploration in the comments section at the end.
Practice 1. Being with my Thoughts and Feelings (Mindfulness)
It is important to pay attention to what I am thinking and feeling, whatever their complexion. Sometimes, I have an unsettledness that I miss. I find practising inner mindfulness helps me not ride over this. I often feel a delightful sense of release when I reveal what is under the surface, and my optimism is freed to rise once more.
Practice 2: Letting Silence be my Friend (Meditation)
I love how moving into silence can bring a spaciousness in my awareness. This centering then enables me to access a deep well of stillness. As I seek to calm the mind with meditation, I settle into a sense of presence and expansiveness where things within me feel in alignment. This spaciousness then allows my intuition to stir.
Practice 3. Communing with the Natural World (Contemplation)
Contemplation is probably my most favorite practice. Not comfortable at first, but over time it has become foundational to my wellbeing. I bring forward a question, and then I seek a place on the Earth to commune with nature. I have been wonderfully surprised by the insights I have gained from this practice.
Questions for this Week
Are there aspects of these practices that are particularly powerful for you?
Do you have other practices that enhance your optimism?
Is there a special place for you in the natural world that you love?
As always I look forward to hearing from you.
Ann
Hello Ann. Woodlands are always inspirational places for me. Almost magical with a mystical quality to them at times. I enjoy walking in Dalkeith country park ( as long as I don’t take the wrong turning as I did yesterday ending up walking 7 km!!). Seriously though there is such a lovely spiritual atmosphere in a forest which can be really beautiful especially if it’s been a long while since one has walked amongst its quietness. It helps me to find ideas for writing and once again there are lots of lovely pieces of music about woodland or which make me think of woodland. November woods by Sir Arnold Bax for example. Larch trees by Sir Malcolm Arnold.
Lovely always to find optimism and the trees and a feeling of oneness with nature is always conducive to providing me with greatest hopes for life.