Recently, I wrote about how the "enemy" of being receptive isn't the opposite of receptivity, but a kind of "bad normal." It's not rejecting things, but being distracted. Similarly, the enemy of other virtues, like being grateful or generous or friendly or kind are also the "bad normal" of being unconcerned, oblivious, disengaged.
Normal, neutral is not good. I've been thinking about how we end up in that unresponsive state. Is it normal entropy? Is it learned protectiveness? To be neutral is to be safe, "self-focused,"
It takes energy and focus to be grateful, receptive, friendly, and kind; it takes vulnerability to be friendly. It definitely takes courage and energy to find new friends.
I recall that when I emerged from depression, I felt my heart unclench, literally. And I also had the sense that I could not love -- not even my children really - before that unclenching. It was as though I were emergy from a haze/fog of 'bad normal.'
Another way to think of this clenching and unclenching is to call it "open-heartedness" or "close-heartedness." Think of petals of a flower opening to the sun, or tightening into a fist. In one of Tara Brach's meditations on Insight Timer, she begins a meditation by imagining the breath coming from the heart.
Things to be aim towards in mindfulness - whether in meditation practice or as a normal check-in: Be where your body is, be engaged in the present moment, set intentions, unfist your heart.
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