Loving What is!

In January 2022 I sat down with my friend and colleague, Marilyn Poitras, to talk about goal setting for the year ahead. Somewhere in our dialogue she asked me to distill my ambitions to one discrete sentence. My response, “learning to love what is”.  

I find goals are interesting and nebulous creatures. Beings that once said out loud, operate in the shadow of our subconscious, rearing their heads and slowly inching us forward. As such, it comes as no surprise that as I rush through my 2022 ‘To Do’s’ in my default ‘modus operandi’ that life has offered a reminder.

It started in a session with a client who in a state of utter life dissatisfaction made the bold statement “You know Kim, I actually think I just need to change my attitude, not my circumstances.” They went on with their reflection as we talked about the emerging research on gratitude and how gratitude practices are shown to improve both happiness and health (Harvard Health Publishing, 2021).

Their final reflection ‘hit different’ (as the kids say) when they stated, “I am worried that if I practice gratitude that I will trick myself into liking a life I actual don’t!” They paused, reflecting on their own words before adding, “I guess in the end it doesn’t really matter, the outcome would still be joy.”

I left our session thinking “hmm, maybe my client is right? Who cares if learning to love your life is a trick, if it’s a trick that works!” I immediately began to wonder, what does the research say?

It turns out that our evolutionary survival already dupes us on the daily into believing, convincing us that our lives and circumstances are worse than they actual are. This phenomenon is called ‘the negativity bias’, which leads us to focus and attach more meaning to negative events while overlooking or discounting our positive circumstances. (Very Well Mind, 2020 Kendra Cherry). 

Now this doesn’t mean we don’t take the risks, the leaps, or the chances in life to move towards what we love. What it means in the words of David Steindl-Rast is that “we might not be able to be grateful for every one moment, but that there is something to be grateful for in every moment.” And perhaps in this lays the keys to a life where we ‘Learn to Love What Is’.

*Loving What Is – is a book written by Byron Katie