How 'Focus on Positive' is a Mindfulness Practice

One thing I appreciate in this formulation of the five ways.

That you have honed is that in the years I've been studying with you. The role of what is now called focus on positive?

Was not emphasized?

A lot in retreat San when you formulated the five ways you made. This place for what you call focus on positive that includes it. We used to have some place for loving kindness. But this is this huge broad range of content that this covers an I wanted to know since you've been incorporating that is a.

One of the five ways that you're doing. I wondered if you've notice to shift or any change in your students in the teaching and then you know if.

How if that's been lubricating the experience in any kind of way or not?

And it's definitely made an improvement.

The idea was.

Or I guess the central insight behind it wants to realize that all over the world.

There is a FAQ vast range of.

Practice is that all have something in common.

What they have in common is they involve intentionally?

Creating and holding.

Positive content in your subjective world now by the subject in world I mean, mental image internal talk an emotional type body sensation.

So there's a traditional practice that goes with mindfulness.

Called Loving kindness.

Where you do that, but it's in a certain direction. There's certain set words typically that one uses there are certain set emotions that may or may not a company that in the body and so forth so typically People well. I don't say typically but a lot of People don't like doing it. It's just like I don't want to turn love on like a faucet kind of thing or doesn't work for them. It leaves some cold at that moment.

Or it brings up the opposite.

So it occurred to me that well.

That's a specific instance of a much broader.

More general phenom.

If you were to do cognitive behavioral therapy.

They would have you intentionally create certain kinds of talk that was more rational and he would try to hold that and pay attention to that, even though irrational talk might be coming up.

Some People are into the laws of attraction manifestation, the secret. Yeah, the power of positive thinking now. I don't comment on the validity or falseness of that belief system. But in fact that involves intentionally visualizing working with image space and so forth.

For that matter prayer as it's traditionally done certainly involves talk space in in the Catholic form.

If you're doing the rosary. You've got talk you're supposed to visualize certain scenes of the stations of the cross and so forth. You've got the pattern Oster. The Ave Maria and talk space, which is a Christian Mentre and you're supposed to have certain joy. Fuller sorrowful emotions in your body, so there working intentionally with field image talk.

Laundry on a practice same deal.

Athletes visualizing their perfect performance People visualizing desirable outcomes of success. People wishing Weld for other people in a general way.

People visualizing their own improved behavioral changes in personal behavior. There's this vast range of things that People do and they all have something in common they involve working with one two or all three of the subjective sensory elements, not in the sense of observe but in the sense of actively create.

And hold so it occurred to me why not just unify that.

Give People the choice to do it in whatever way they want.

And that way they are not limited and if they want to do a sort of gushy loving kindness. That's fine if they want to do a sort of a new age, magical thinking. That's fine if they want to do cold rational. Cognitive re framing that's fine do if they want to merge with an archetype. That's fine, too, however you want to do it. Just do it, but understand that in doing that.

You are actually doing a kind of mindfulness practice see I I'm calling it to get that freedom. Now, yeah, so that's helped in an answer to your question is People having that freedom to do that. Now they can get into it. Whatever it may be, but from my perspective. My main interest in having People do this is as a form of mindfulness now that's not traditional usually the loving kindness and whatever is in contrast to mindfulness.

But I see it as under the category of mindfulness because of the way I choose to define mindfulness. I define mindfulness as any practice that elevates concentration power sensory clarity and equanimity.

And I would claim that holding certain positive content in feel image dog do you have to have concentration to do it sure so it will build concentration?

You have to have equanimity with all the distractions of negative that will come up.

Because when I teach it. It's not a fight between positive and negative. It's a selective attention to positive and what the negative just run rampant if it wants you're not trying to reject the negative and identify with the positive you're just selectively focusing on the positive so you are having equanimity with the negative. You're not pushing it down. But you're not walking on to it, either. So the equanimity pieces there and probably most important you're developing sensory clarity because.

You're getting a familiarity with the 3:00 subjective space is not by observing them. But by actively creating with them. So it's A kind of active learning to become intimate with your subjective experience so from that perspective it false perfectly within the category of mindfulness practice. So it gives People an enormous freedom to do what's interesting and fun for them, while at the same time, developing the core skills that.

Are the defining feature of mindfulness?

So it's worked out very well.