Mindful Mind Mapping

Mindful
by Mary Oliver
(I have not sought permission to retype this poem – but it’s too delightful not to!)

Every day
I see or I hear
something
that more or less

kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle

in the haystack
of light.
It is what I was born for –
to look, to listen,

to lose myself
inside this soft world-
to instruct myself
over and over

in joy,
and acclamation.
Nor am I talking
about the exceptional,

the fearful, the dreadful,
the very extravagant-
but of the ordinary,
the common, the very drab,

the daily presentations.
Oh, good scholar,
I say to myself,
how can you help

but grow wise
with such teachings
as these-
the untrimmable light

of the world,
the ocean’s shine,
the prayers that are made
out of grass?

I was touched that a spiritual mentor shared this poem with me because it made her think of me & thought it would resonate.  Perhaps she thinks of me because she knows this reflects an image is who I would love to be as opposed to who I consistently am, although my heart does incline itself to moments like this… often.  How blessed I feel to cultivate the eyes to see the every day delights in this world.

This poem mentions one key phrase that I want to focus on today:

“to instruct myself over and over in joy”

I recently read a book called The Happiness Advantage by Shawn Achor.  This book goes into the concepts behind & research to support the benefits of Positive Psychology.  If I were to choose to followup my Psych degree with a Masters, I would choose the emphasis on Positive Psychology.  It is fascinating and something I whole-heartedly believe in – and have even before I knew there was an actual school of thought based on it.

One of the principles of Positive Psychology is that your brain is malleable and you have the power to change it based on how you cultivate it.  A negative person who feels bound by their natural cynical personality can literally re-wire how his brain works.  The person with this natural negative inclination may require more energy to initiate the re-wiring than a naturally optimistic person, but there is a choice involved in at least trying to re-wire.  Nobody is bound by their personality in determining outlook.

So what are you feeding your mind?  What thoughts are you cultivating?  Shawn Achor indicates that research shows that writing 5 gratitudes each morning can change your happiness over the next 24 hours & if done 21 days straight it effects your happiness over the next 6 months.  Writing 3 minutes about a positive experience once a day for 30 days, you see a 50% drop in Dr. visits, you are found to be more social, and your immune system improves.
The Tetris Effect is used to demonstrate that the brain will adapt to how it is being fed.  People who play a lot of the video game tetris will find themselves looking at the world in terms of shapes & how things fit together.  They’ll scan a skyline & wonder if that building was  laid on its side, would it fit between those two buildings…  they’ll mentally rearrange the grocery aisles for how the shapes fit better together into patterns.  Their mind has temporarily re-mapped itself to adapt to how it has been trained.

So how is your mind being fed?  Or more specific, since this blog is “Starting with Me” –  how am I feeding MY mind?  According to Positive Psychology, my outlook, my smile, my joys & delights have the power to influence and even spread.   I have no good excuse not to map my brain in a way that will help my life & the world around me.

What can I find today that “kills me with delight.”

“This is what I was born for – to look, to listen, to lose myself inside this soft world – to instruct myself over and over in joy, and acclamation.”