Taking in the good is at the heart of this work. In simple terms, when you’re experiencing something that’s useful or enjoyable, it’s important to slow down, if only for a few seconds, to take in that experience so it can reshape your brain for the better. Taking in the good feels good in the moment, plus it has many additional benefits. When you stay with feelings of calm, that helps you grow greater resilience inside. When you stay with feeling cared about, you grow self-worth.
The process is the acronym H, E, A, L. It involves the two-step process of lasting change, activation and installation.
H: Have a Beneficial Experience
The first phase of lasting learning, activation, is summarized in the H of HEAL. Some kind of beneficial experience, something that’s useful or enjoyable. You have that song now playing in the inner iPod.
There are two ways to have one. Notice a beneficial experience that you are already having, or create one. Noticing is the main way, and basically it’s easy because you notice what’s already here.
E: Enrich It
Moving into the second phase of learning, installation, you turn on the recorder. That’s where enriching comes in, E for enriching. You’re staying with the experience, you’re making it bigger in your mind, you’re helping it last.
There are five ways to do that. Helping it last a little longer, turning up the volume, being aware of multiple aspects of the experience, particularly the sense of it in your body. Recognizing what’s fresh, what’s alive, what maybe is new about it, and then last, what is personally relevant about it. Any one of those five is good. The more the better.
A: Absorb It
And then absorbing, A for absorbing. You can sense it sinking in. You can sense it becoming a part of you. You’re sensitizing your brain to it. Enriching feels like helping the experience be big. Absorbing is getting a sense of receiving it, giving over to it, and letting yourself be changed a little by it.
There are three ways to do that. Intend to let the experience sink in. Choose to receive it. And enjoy it. Focus on what is rewarding about it, what is meaningful, or especially what is enjoyable about it.
L: Link, If You Want To
Then the fourth step, optional but important, L for linking. That’s in which we combine positive and negative material, keeping the positive bigger, so that the positive can soothe, bring wisdom to, heal, and even replace what is negative.
A Quick Taste of the First Three Steps
First, notice a good experience that you’re already having right now. Perhaps a very mild or subtle one, such as just a sense of breathing. As we exhale, for example, we naturally relax a little as the heart rate slows down a bit. Be aware of something that’s okay or good in the field of your experience right now.
Once you’re having it in the foreground of awareness, let’s enrich it. Stay with it. Keep resting attention in it. Feel it in your body. Maybe even help it become a little more intense.
Then let’s absorb it by imagining that it’s sinking into you. You could visualize this like water sifting into you, a gentle rain falling. You might sense it as a warmth spreading throughout your body, like water soaking into a sponge. And intend to receive this experience in yourself.
In life, we usually take in the good for just a few seconds or breaths at a time. Every time you take in the good like this, you strengthen circuits of calm, gratitude, love, or confidence.
Why the Fourth Step Comes Last
The first three steps of HEAL are very powerful on their own. Complete and adequate in their own right. Even if you never do the last step of linking, the first three will make a noticeable difference in your brain, your mind, and your life. But linking adds something extra, something I think is necessary for a full healing of painful and particularly traumatic life experiences.
When we do linking, we are aware of two things at the same time. We’re toggling back and forth pretty quickly between them. We are aware of that which is positive alongside that which is negative and matched to it.
I name it as an optional step because, number one, it’s not necessary for growing the good in your life. And second, it can be a little risky, because you’re dealing with negative material. I suggest you do it with mild to moderate negative material. Anything beyond that, you might want to do with other people who are professionals, like a coach or a therapist, especially if the negative material is potent and you’re especially vulnerable to it.
Below, I go step by step through Linking: how it works in the brain, three ways to start, and three guided practices for anxiety, disappointment and rejection.
