I have been very grateful for an unanticipated outcome of lockdowns and restrictions - the growth of supportive Chi Living groups on WhatsApp, Facebook, and YouTube. The Re-start project has been generating lots of comments, replies, and messages from people who are managing to maintain an attitude of positivity and hope through these difficult times.
This made me remember a book by Rick Hanson called Hardwiring Happiness. One of the principles of the book is that we have a inbuilt negativity bias that is designed to keep us safe by automatically looking for the dangerous and threatening. But we can counteract this by training our brains to recognise reasons to be happy. We can do this by being more aware of happy feelings and stretching out the feeling for as long as we can. In much the same way as we can use mindfulness to bring awareness back to the breath, we can consciously bring awareness back to happiness when the negativity bias tries to pull us down.
In these times when we cannot enjoy face to face interactions with people, the online community that has grown organically from the Chi Living classes and videos has helped me to stay relentlessly positive in spite of the massive challenges to my business.
So thank you to everyone who continues to support Chi Living.
Stay physically and mentally safe, and relentlessly positive.
Namaste
Stephen