6. MENTAL SUBTRACTION OF POSITIVE EVENTS
TIME REQUIRED & WHY YOU SHOULD TRY IT
6 min.
Try to make time to do this practice once per week, focusing on a different positive event each week. It might help to do this practice at the same time each week—before bed each Sunday evening, perhaps, or at lunch every Friday.
It’s easy to take the good things in life for granted, but research suggests that the more we stop to appreciate what we have, the happier and healthier we are. This exercise is designed to help you increase feelings of gratitude for positive events in your life by visualizing what your life would be like without them. By getting a taste of their absence, you should be able to appreciate their presence in your life more deeply—without actually having to lose them for real.
Mental subtraction counteracts our tendency to take positive events in our lives as givens. When we consider the circumstances that led to an event, we may be surprised by how unlikely that event actually was, and how lucky we were that it happened as it did. While it can be painful to think about not having experienced an important positive event, this scenario provides a negative contrast against which our current situation can be favorably compared.
HOW TO DO:
Now open your Peace Starter Meditation app and go ‘Guided Mindfulness Meditation’ section, select ‘MENTAL SUBTRACTION OF POSITIVE EVENTS’ and start your session.
Otherwise you can use following video YouTube: https://youtu.be/2j7wFmY7G4c