"The best friend you will ever find is you." - Debasish Mridha Day 4: Attitude of Friendliness: Being our own best friend.
Tara: We've been talking about being present, relaxing, being awake to your senses.
TALK And you might be thinking, “Great. So, how can I do all this and get it right?” Maybe you’re even thinking, “I can see I’m not very good at this.” It’s valuable to look at why mindfulness practice becomes a rewarding experience for some people, while others struggle with it and become discouraged. Throughout our decades of teaching, we've found the key reason is attitude.
Those who experience great benefit from mindfulness practice are relating to whatever’s happening inside them with an attitude of friendliness. They regard their experience as one would regard a good friend - with interests, acceptance, compassion, warmth.
You might reflect for a moment and just sense, “What is your typical attitude towards yourself?” especially if you’re feeling anxious or angry, off-balance in some way.
For many of us, our attitude toward ourselves can be far from friendly. We have deep habits of judging ourselves as lacking, efficient, inadequate in pretty much everything. I call this the “trance of unworthiness.” It’s a chronic sense that we're somehow falling short. We're not always aware of it, but our judgments can affect every part of our life - our relationships, work, creativity. Feeling imperfect or not enough, it’s a common experience. There’s a cartoon I love with the dog lying on a couch, and he’s in a psychiatrist's office. And the dog’s saying, “It’s always, ‘Good dog,’ this, ‘Good dog,' that. Is it ever, ‘Great dog'”? We can carry our perfectionism into mindfulness training. And then mindfulness turns into yet another project where we're falling short. The good news is that there’s another way. You can learn to be a friend to yourself.
And maybe a good model to consider is how you might train a puppy. You don't wanna hit the puppy, rather, you’d be patient, friendly, warm. “Come back. Sit. Stay, stay. Yes, that’s it. Good dog,” or, “Great dog.” Why not? It helps to be playful. Now as we practice, all sorts of inner weather arises. It gets very, very calm at times, and other times it’s rainy or stormy. Everything happens. When we can relate to that inner weather with a genuine interest or respect or kindness, it doesn’t take over.
With an attitude of friendliness, we can witness what’s happening and develop a deeper understanding, a real sense of connectedness in our life. We see this in the work of field biologist George Schaller, who returned from the wilds with more intimate and compelling information about gorilla life than any scientist had ever presented before. When asked how he had learned so much about the details of their tribal structure or family life, he attributed it to one thing - he didn’t carry a gun. Previous generations of observers had assumed the wild gorillas were dangerous and arrived toting large rifles. But George Schaller went without a weapon and moved gently, slowly, and above all, respectfully among these amazing creatures.
We can approach our inner life with these same qualities of attention. It’s important to know that our habits of self-judgment and self-aversion can be persistent, but as you practice with kindness, you’ll begin to radically reduce the strength of the inner critic to more and more put aside the gun. Not only are you cultivating a healthy relationship with yourself, but you're also creating the groundwork for a friendlier, more compassionate, and accepting relationship with others as well.
PRACTICE The following guided practice, which uses the image and feel of a smile, will nourish your mindfulness by helping you create an attitude of friendliness.
Research has shown that smiling has a direct effect on the activities of the brain associated with happiness. And while putting on a smile can't cause happiness, it can tip you in that direction.
So, let's explore this together. Find a place to practice comfortably and close your eyes, bringing attention to the breath, relaxing with the inflow, relaxing with the outflow. Be aware of your whole body just sitting here, breathing. Now as if you were smiling into your eyes, let the sense of a smile spread through your eyes, feeling the outer corners of the eyes slightly uplifted and the flesh around the eyes softening. Let your brow be smooth. Feel a real, yet slight smile at the mouth and also sense the inside of the mouth smiling. Relaxing the jaw, notice the sensations that arise through the mouth and cheek area.
Let your intention be to notice changing experience with the benign interest and care of a grandparent watching the young ones at play. If you notice your attention has wandered, you can refresh the smile and the quality of friendliness and ease by simply softening the eyes again, feeling a smile there, a slight smile at the mouth, smiling into your heart. Again, resting in that atmosphere of ease and receptivity, just witnessing the changing dance of sensations, of feelings, of life. If you notice the attention's been distracted, in any moment you can arrive gently again in this aliveness of the body, sensing the experience being held with that warmth and ease of a smile.
Now visualize and feel a smile spreading through the heart and the chest, and sense how this creates space for whatever you might be feeling. See if you can allow the sensations and feelings in the heart area to just float in this tender space. Take a moment to again return to the eyes, softening and relaxing them. Feel a slight smile at the mouth and the openness of a smile at the heart and chest. And now imagine the sense and feel of a smile spreading through your whole body, filling the cells, the spaces between the cells, creating a relaxed, open atmosphere for the changing flow of sensations. Imagine and sense this atmosphere extending outward so the whole space of awareness is filled with the warmth and friendliness of a smile. Resting in that receptive openness, simply witness and feel whatever sensations or feelings arise over these next couple of minutes.
As you complete this mindfulness practice and move into your day, you might explore bringing a smile to the eyes, the mouth, the heart whenever you remember. Let it awaken a sense of ease-filled presence and wellbeing.
