Celebration of the Mundane
Cutting grandmothers toes and
Painting a sweet child's nose
Inspiration comes like bees
to pollinate the restless soul.
Pouring limitless, colored tea;
It cascades the cup forming a sea;
Lapping at my calves and hips.
The mystery seethes and breathes.
Sniffing the air like a muddy hound;
Precious moments are weighed by the pound.
Snowdrops with tiny green hearts
Herald this New Year with no sound.
Smothered in layers of clothing,
The winter still isn't foreboding
For crocuses peek under leaves
Whispering sonnets of hope.
I wrote this poem during graduate school at the end of winter and beginning of spring. For anyone who has ever been in graduate school knows, it is often not a calm, peaceful time of life. For third year clinical students, it can be even more trying because there is a clinical internship to be completed on top of course work. Sometimes when life feels a bit like a room where the walls are caving in and there seems to be no promise of things letting up, the only thing to do is to ground into the senses. For this blog I want to explore the benefits of leaning into the mundane as a way to reach peacefulness.
As I have mentioned in previous blogs, the human brain has a negativity bias. Due to our evolution, negativity became more important for us to pay attention to in order to avoid threats in our environment. Therefore, as we move through our everyday life, that nasty email you get from your boss will linger in your awareness way longer than a kind compliment from your partner in the morning. Unfortunately, being negative is so easy while thinking positively is seemingly more difficult and requires constant attention. It seems like in order for me to focus on the positive, more things need to go my way; I need more good in my life to be grateful for.
On the average day there are tiny moments of goodness and comfort that occur throughout. However, we tend to notice all the tiny bad things that occur and get hung up on those occurrences. On days where nothing good or bad happens, we tend to look for a puzzle to solve or find boredom in the mundane. The hedonic treadmill is the attribute of having new positive experiences happen which bring us temporary joy, then acclimatizing back to our baseline of happiness and allowing that joy to fade back into the background. Meeting new goals, getting As on tests and other accomplishments only seem to create happiness for fleeting moments. If we are to grab the happiness of the everyday, we have to make it our pet project and care for it daily. Adopting an attitude of “If nothing is going wrong, then things must be great” could move you away from this hedonic treadmill and towards savoring the small joys of life. Sometimes I have to take a moment to recognize all the small inconveniences (or larger) that could be happening in order to truly appreciate how an ordinary day actually has a lot of goodness going for it. It is actually amazing how many tiny things are going right for me right at this moment; I have a job that I enjoy, I am not sick, I have legs that work, my car got me to work and I have enough money to get Starbucks on the way home. That is a lot of good! That is not even considering the small moments of laughter between coworkers and the ability to have leisure time; a luxury that not all individuals in our culture are afforded.
What I want to advocate for is that these small joys of life can actually be amped up and seen as huge successes. Rather than focusing on those new brakes that I have to pay for at the end of this week, I can instead focus on how much love I have for a particular friend whose birthday is today. Turning up the volume on what is going right can make the mundane seem extraordinary. If I not only notice the beautiful buds that are timidly appearing on trees, but also spend time afterwards to savor a feeling of wonder at that feat, I can linger on these good feelings for longer. Lingering on these small, simple joys of life takes up mental space; therefore making less space for all the worry and frustration that might normally capitalize on your mental capacity.
Focusing on the mundane is very much an activity of mindfulness. Working at a residential treatment center, I notice that one of the psychological ‘skills’ that is the most omnipresent and implicated in any personal growth is this concept of mindfulness. Often mindfulness is useful to become aware of what exactly is happening with our mental and emotional attention. Attending to the mundane is a way of utilizing that mindfulness to notice momentary experiences that are positive. This could either be a positive human interaction, a creative thought that pops into your head or simply an embodied, five-senses experience. Even as I type this blog I can savor the mundane, being entertained by the sound of my fingers on the keyboard. I can appreciate the pleasant temperature in the room and soft lighting that is comforting.
Naturally if there really are challenges occurring in your life that are emotionally frustrating, it is not healthy to push them below the surface; it is good to give yourself the space to process and gain support around these issues. However, if you find yourself fabricating issues out of thin air, maybe it is time for a perspective shift. The mundane is beautiful, grounding and stable. You can choose to luxuriate in the ordinariness of carrying water and chopping wood; or more likely, writing emails and going to meetings. An ordinary life can flourish with extra-ordinariness with just a little mindful attention and gratitude.
