Words: Clare Dwyer Hogg
Image: Barney Beech
I’ve been doing a lot of sneezing recently, so have received a lot of blessings. Which struck me as funny, because blessing is on my mind. Not about how blessed I am. Rather, how I can use the concept to free up my mind from negativity.
As I progress in years, I’ve increasingly discovered it is better to think the good of people. To start off imagining the best, and when I think they don’t act in the best way, to attempt a more sympathetic interpretation of their intent. I don’t always succeed, but am certainly kinder than I was a decade ago, I think. Probably something to do with experiencing more of my own fallibility, and understanding that if I’d like to be given the benefit of the doubt, other people would too. The 19th Century writer Ian MacLaren said it better: “Be kind. Everyone you meet is carrying a heavy burden.”
Yet I’ve also found that thinking the good of people doesn’t always completely cut it. It works in general. But not if there’s a specific little niggle that has got deep. Yes, it helps. It doesn’t stop the niggle scratching scratching scratching away, though. You know, an insecurity, or a hurt, or an envy. Thinking ‘the good’ works when a negative seed comes your way and you decide not to plant it. But when the feelings are rising up from within, it doesn’t dig down quite deep enough to get at the roots. And those negative feelings can be very pervasive.
So, I’ve realised that going a notch deeper in my thinking is what helps – and it’s to do with heaping blessing on the other person. Bear with me. This isn’t as strange as it sounds. For a start, the person will never know that you’re doing this. It is (initially) a process for you to redirect your thinking.
Here’s how it works: rather than staring at that internal niggle and following its small but destructive path within you (which leads into an emotional roundabout, going nowhere fast), turn the focus outwards. Just like saying ‘bless you!’ is a reflex when someone sneezes, this can become a reflex when the first initial thought (insecurity, worry, whatever) appears. Instead of following it, you override it. You do this by heaping mental good on the person at the centre of your discomfort. Believe me, this is not a happy clappy glaze of positive thinking. It really gets to the heart of things, because it requires some brutal honesty first.
The hard work is mostly about getting deep enough to see what the root is. After that, the thought processes simply starve the root of food and water
For instance, some questions: is part of your problem envy? Are your own insecurities the issue? Do you resent someone because of how they’ve behaved or how you have? Are you holding on to feelings you shouldn’t? This is about exhaling, not inhaling. Grasping on to negative things is, as we all know in theory, as good as swallowing a grenade. Let’s not. So, first, isolate the roots.
Say for example, that insecurity about a friendship is the niggle. Take everything you’re insecure about and wish them more of the goodness they have. I find it helpful to write it out, so I say the same thing each time. For instance: ‘let them have happiness in all their friendships. Let them be fulfilled in all they do. May they find deep happiness in everything they turn their hand to. Give them success in their career.’ It initially feels counterintuitive. Wishing someone success and happiness with other friends in a life that no longer seems to include you, might feel like you’re pushing yourself out of the equation all the more. What you’re actually doing is pushing out your insecurity. You’re denying insecurity a place in your thinking. You’re directing your thoughts in an active way towards very substantive ‘bless you!’ equivalents.
I thought of calling this a mantra, but mantra doesn’t seem quite right (I think of mantras as internal pep talks, while this process is about pushing the focus out.) The ‘bless you!’ trick is the pithy description I’ve settled on. Try it and you may find, like I did, that there is something uncanny about the effect the repetition of these conscious thoughts have. Even after doing it on three or four occasions, the power – and the sting – went out of the thoughts that used to be so adept at dragging me into a whirlpool.
The hard work is mostly about getting deep enough to see what the root is. After that, the thought processes simply starve the root of food and water. As long as you keep adjusting your thoughts towards active ‘bless you!’ thinking, for whatever your situation requires, the root will eventually wither and die. That means no carnivorous plant growing on the surface. Which in turn means less gashes from your own thoughts every time you pass by. ‘Bless you!’ indeed.
