In the last blog I talked about the unseen connections in a forest floor; the mycelium, the invertebrates, the lichen, all working towards a flourishing.

The same happens for us we just don’t necessarily pay attention to it.

Wired to spot threat

Our brain has evolved to spot threats as part of our survival strategy. Far better that we walk along the road see something long and thin lying in it, assume it is a snake, and step back only to find it is a stick, than to approach it with impunity, thinking is a stick, only to find it to be a snake within striking distance.

We have a cognitive bias towards spotting threats and this can be heightened depending on a childhood experience, our life experience or indeed the environment that we grow up with.The intention of this adaptation is to keep us safe. It is useful.

However, this cognitive bias towards threats and problem might keep us safe, but it doesn’t always lead us to feeling well or content. It can make us anxious, full of doom and foreboding. When we are safe, but our brain tells us otherwise, life is hard.

Turning towards joy

But with practice we can re-direct out attention to what is going well. It takes practice to focus on what we appreciate, what we have enjoyed, what we find pleasure in. Brene Brown, famous for her work on vulnerability, talks about how we don’t like to experience too much joy, too much excitement, too much love because we feel that if we allow ourselves to have those experiences somehow, because we have been indulgent, because we have let our guard down, somehow this will mean it will be taken away from us and so given that it will be taken away from us, we ought to prepare for this loss by never really experiencing joy, contentment and/or in the first place.

Which of course is rubbish. Feelings of awe, joy, contentment are transitory, just as feelings of anger, fear and sadness are if we allow ourselves to fully experience them. Life changes and no emotional state stays long, all are transitory. So to erode our sense of joy and contentment by not allowing ourselves to fully experience it or notice it is like turning down our favourite treat or snubbing our favourite person so that they can’t be taken away from us.

Similarly because we are so busy looking out for what could go wrong, we don’t pay attention to what could go right, it takes awareness to spot an opportunity or to notice a connection that might be beneficial, which might be fun.

Synchronicity, coincidence, or life conspiring to be helpful

Exactly this happened to one of the participants on the course. I shared something about the Permaculture course and he saw it even though at that point we weren’t connected as friends on Facebook. However, we went to the same primary school, he was in the same year group is my sister, we vaguely knew the same friends when I lived down south. Something in the ether meant that I posted about the Permaculture course at the same time as someone must’ve mentioned it or shared it, at the same time as he saw it. He could have clicked past it, but he didn’t, he clicked on the link and so it was that we met this weekend on the Permaculture course.

Kent is a long way to come for a weekend course but the synchronicity of him seeing the post was that he and his partner are looking to move out of the south-east, looking to move towards the hills, valleys and the coasts and so this weekend, because he allowed himself to spot an opportunity, because he allowed himself to notice something that might be good, he and his partner spent a weekend making new friends in a place which I suspect will end up being their new home.

When times are hard it’s easy to believe that the world is against you, that life is too difficult, but just as weeds grow, so do daffodils and daisies. We just have to change where and how we focus and look out for the best. Louise Hay said, that life is conspiring to do us good, and it really felt like that being with our first cohort and I’m very grateful for that.

Play a game with yourself today to see how often life conspires to support you.

x

(Thank you Paul Legon for this photo…I love it x)

Farmotherlands is my award winning collection of poems about nature, farming, community and family. You can buy a copy here.

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Thanks for being here.
Julie

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