FRIDAY PRACTICE CELEBRATE || A few years ago I heard a podcast where Richard Rohr quoted a neuroscientist who is also a therapist. He said, “We can now prove in neuroscience that anything negative, fearful or hateful, the mind attaches to like Velcro and you can feed it for days and weeks and months. But here’s the opposite, anything positive, happy, joyous, loving, grateful, those are like Teflon. If you have a grateful, positive, ‘isn’t that beautiful’ moment, you have to savor it for a minimum of 15 seconds, or it does not imprint on the brain.” Negativity is Velcro. Positivity is Teflon. Richard Rohr added, “If you don’t savor joy, it does not stay with you.”
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Celebrating as a practice is as simple as naming and honoring an accomplishment (your own or someone else’s), something that evokes joy, or progress toward a desired outcome or reality. Celebrating gives us time to savor the goodness of something so it imprints on the brain.⁣
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It is so easy to get caught up in what isn’t working, things that have gone wrong, or the ways we have let ourselves or others down. When we do that, we are often left with a distorted or incomplete picture of what is true. Celebrating helps us forge a fuller picture of what is real and life-giving in our world and daily lives.⁣
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🌱 What is something–big or small–that you would like to celebrate today?⁣
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Here are a few things on my list:⁣
+ Tillie’s teacher repeatedly describing her as kind⁣
+ I spoke at a conference for the first time last weekend and made some good connections⁣
+ I cleaned out our refrigerator so now when I open it I feel calm instead of frustrated⁣
+ The service of our veterans (and their families)–including my dad and my friend’s husband who recently deployed.⁣
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🌱 What is on your list?⁣
🌱 Who can you connect with savor this celebration with you?⁣
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https://robbell.podbean.com/e/episode-86-richard-rohr-and-the-alternative-orthodoxy/ (starting at 43:50) ⁣