With or Against the Current
On Gratitude
"It's so easy to see where we swim against the current and so much harder to see where we move with the current." Robin DiAngelo (On Being with Krista Tippett)
I love when I hear something that feels like a mini truth bomb. The line about currents sparkled in my hearing this week. I paused my podcast and jotted down a note so I wouldn't forget. When I heard the line, it felt like something deeper for me to unpack and pay attention to.
As I walked with this phrase, it brought me back to the idea that humans have a highly tuned ability to hang onto the negative. Like velcro, the slights, injustices, hurts, and wrongs done against us, big and small, become locked in our brains. It's so easy to focus on the difficult because our brain attaches quickly and firmly to the negative. Whereas the joys, delights, kindness, sacrifices happen at the same rate. Yet, we must actively work on imprinting them on our brains to be remembered! We must hold a positive thought for 15 seconds in our brain to imprint, the scientists say.
“Neuroscience can now demonstrate the brain indeed has a negative bias; the brain prefers to constellate around fearful, negative, or problematic situations. In fact, when a loving, positive, or unproblematic thing comes your way, you have to savor it consciously for at least fifteen seconds before it can harbor and store itself in your "implicit memory;" otherwise it doesn't stick. We must indeed savor the good in order to significantly change our regular attitudes and moods. And we need to strictly monitor all the "Velcro" negative thoughts.”
The idea that we see where we are swimming against the current and don't see where the current is gently caring us makes so much sense. It's a visual that I can understand.
According to the dictionary, a current is water or air flowing in a definite direction. Sometimes currents are subtle and cause a wee bit more work when we are walking through a stream. Sometimes the current is strong and overpowering, and we know we are being swept under. Other times it's strong but subtle; we look up and realize we have drifted far from shore without knowledge. The prevailing current carried us away from our center without our awareness.
It takes work to swim against the current. We know when we are going against the flow. It takes more energy to work against the flow. It takes more energy to walk into the wind than to have the wind at our back. The wind is the same; our energy output is different. (I know this from years of running long distances, a run into the wind takes more effort!)
It IS easy to know where we are struggling against the current. Name the current, a literal current in a stream, or the cultural, political, theological currents that are moving in a definite direction around us all day, every day.
We know where we are making counter-cultural choices. It does require just a bit more energy. Or sometimes it requires a lot more energy.
It isn't quite as easy to recognize how we move with the current, politically, culturally, or theologically.
It comes down to being willing to look for our blind spots. The quote caught my ears because it was so descriptive and resonated so deeply. Yes, I know where I'm going against the flow, but it's so much harder to see where I benefit from a flowing and moving current. For me, it might hold benefits; for others, that same current could be damaging.
Our human tendency for negative bias ensures we see our struggles and leaves us blind to how we are being swept along in another current that benefits us. We see the negative and overlook many blessings.
Smaller and deeper invites me to notice the tiny little phrases that catch my ears and consider the depth. When I notice then I can look for my blind spots, count my blessings, and remember that we are all flowing in some currents and fighting against others.
"Everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about. Be kind.Always." - Robin Williams.
Name three blessings at the start of your day and before bed.
Grab onto the blessings as they come. Savor a kind word, a sweet cantaloupe, an uplifting conversation for 15 seconds before you let it go.
"Gratitude is not about stuff. Gratitude is the emotional response to the surprise of our very existence, to sensing that inner light and realizing the astonishing sacred, social, and scientific events that brought each one of us into being. We cry out like the psalmist, "I am fearfully and wonderfully made!" (Ps. 139:14)."
― Diana Butler Bass, Grateful: The Transformative Power of Giving Thanks
Currently Reading:
Zen Golf: Mastering the Mental Game by Dr. Joseph Parent
This book is fantastic. Yes, it is about the mental game of golf, but every short chapter is a meditation on life. I'm reading this as bedtime reading with my kids. (As one does...) We've had the best conversation about beginner mind, changing perspective, power of thoughts, and so much more. One chapter is the parable of a king who wanted the roads in his kingdom to be soft on his feet so he asked for all the roads to be covered in leather. It was an old woman who thought outside of the box and suggested that perhaps it would be simpler to cover his feet with leather rather than all the roads. Sometimes we try to solve the wrong problem.
Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert
I love this book on creativity by Elizabeth Gilbert. It's a collection of short essays filled with pithy wisdom, challenges, and ideas for all manner of creativity. One-piece talks about fear. She said when we feel fear about a creative endeavor (say writing a newsletter each week...), we tell fear, you are invited along, you have gifts that I need, BUT you have to sit in the back seat. You can't change the radio station. I’ll let you know if I need you. I love that visual.
A practice from Praying with Jane Eyre that I’m incorporating is jotting down phrases that catch my eye as I’m reading in a notebook, one after the other. She shared about a man who wrote quotes down in a collection and then used the collected quotes as his own sacred, reflective text.
Savor each quote. Let the invitation unfold.
"It's a funny thing about life, once you begin to take note of the things you are grateful for, you begin to lose sight of the things that you lack."
― Germany Kent
"Your God would never punish you for being a human being: this life itself is your penance...But it is also more than that: it is a crucible for transformation. Each trial, every loss, is an opportunity for you to meet suffering with love and make of it an offering, a prayer. The minute you lift your pain like a candle, the darkness vanishes, and mercy comes rushing in to heal you."
― Mirabai Starr, The Showings of Julian of Norwich
"Self-care is never a selfish act - it is simply good stewardship of the only gift I have, the gift I was put on earth to offer others. Anytime we can listen to true self and give the care it requires, we do it not only for ourselves, but for the many others whose lives we touch."
― Parker Palmer, Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation
“Look closely and you will find that people are happy because they are grateful. The opposite of gratefulness is just taking everything for granted. ”
― David Steindl-Rast, Music of Silence: A Sacred Journey Through the Hours of the Day
