Fifteen seconds can be a long time. Especially to be doing something counter-intuitive.
I was told recently that the human brain is naturally like teflon and like velcro. Like teflon in the way it handles positive, complimentary, affirming things we receive; and like velcro in the way it handles negative, critical, judgemental things that come our way.
And it's not just our psycho-social history that predisposes us in this way. This predisposition to remember and hang on deeply to the negative -- the things that threaten our sense of self, is hard-wired into our brain chemistry through evolutionary eons. It's how we survive.
But it's not how we thrive.
We thrive when we grow into a settled, grateful awareness of ourselves as good and blessed children of a good and loving God -- lovable, loved, and able to love.
But how do we undo or fight our way through the natural chemistry of our brain?
The other thing I was told is that it is possible to rewire our brain, and that this is what spiritual -- rather than natural, evolution is about.
One simple way of rewiring our naturally defensive brain, of growing beyond natural evolution to matured spiritual humanity, is a practice of 15 seconds of gratitude. At different times of the day -- when something happens, when someone crosses your path, when you see something that catches your attention, when you do something as simple as lift a cup of coffee to your lips ... instead of just noticing and moving on in good teflon fashion (or even not noticing at all!), take 15 seconds to become aware of the ways you feel gratitude for whatever it is.
A cup of coffee? Take 15 seconds to be aware of the gratitude you feel for its smell, its taste, its warmth -- including the warmth of the cup in your hand, the comfort it brings you, perhaps the kindness of the person who poured it for you, the memory maybe of a special time you shared a coffee with a friend, and who knows what else.
I've practiced a full 15 seconds only two or three times since I was told about it two days ago. And already I notice a new awareness of even momentary (2 or 3-second) gratitude for things that I would normally just slide by.
Like the mist I saw from the Skyway Bridge this morning on the lake in the winter cold, and my gratitude for its gentle and haunting beauty, for being able to be there at that moment, for the wonder of the world all around me, for the memory of mist just like it on Lake Superior that I saw years ago on a mid-winter train trip from Winnipeg to Toronto, for the family I had visited there and still am part of, for different relationships I have been blessed with in my life, for the fact that no part of my life is lost, that in spite of everything my whole life is still one blessed and graced journey.
In less than 5 or 6 seconds, I felt my self so graciously held and supported in such a deep matrix of love and beauty far greater than myself, that I continued my journey into the rest of my day with more faith, hope and love within me than is often the case. I felt alive and free.
And ... it's not just "the good stuff" that this practice can be used with. I notice in the past two days a new willingness in my mind to seek out reasons for gratitude in things that disturb, interrupt or annoy me as well. That I will leave for another time, though.
For now, enough for me to know that 15 seconds can be a long time to be doing something counter-intuitive, but that 15 seconds can change my life.
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