July 15, 2026

Blessed

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When I’m worried and I can’t sleep
I count my blessings instead of sheep
and I fall asleep counting my blessings.
-Bing Crosby, White Christmas

The precious hours of the night devoted to sleep seem like a brain and body restoration elixir and (sometimes) a mythic resource for dreams big and small. But even for an appreciator of this nighttime pastime, disruptions occur. The mind wide-awake at 3AM is often not the engrossed mind, the happy mind, the contented mind. In fact, it can be a muddled and muddied wanderer, a clock-peeker, and quite glum. For solution oriented folks, search the term, “sleep hygiene” or consult a local specialist.

Here we divert to explorations of the mind itself. To start, it seems we have a naturally selected bias toward negativities, diurnal or nocturnal. After all, there is nothing like rumination over a sideways glance from the boss, a kerfuffle with the next-door neighbor, not to mention war, famine or economic collapse. We seem to be so effective at dwelling on real and imagined negativities; and not so good at long-lasting chews on positive events. Trouble is most of us share that bias toward the negative; a predisposition toward identifying threats and responding to them. In modernity, the good news is that immediate, actual threats are fewer (no saber-toothed tiger around the corner)…but imagined threats seem to proliferate these days. Somehow, we must change these self-defeating habits of mind.

In a theory of brain malleability, a Canadian Psychologist once observed connections between the brain and experience/behavior. Summed up poetically (mneumonically), this is some crucial reportage:

Neurons that fire together
Wire together.

Called neuroplasticity, our extraordinary cerebrum actually changes, rewires, with our experience-for worse or for better! Thus, the more negative we think and behave the better we get at that, but the more positively, the better we get at that too.

So what about the counsel of Der Bingle cited at the introduction? For some and at times, counting blessings may retrain an anxious mind into equanimous sleep, or at dawn, toward a positive start for the new day. But for many of us, more preparatory exertion is required. Why not invoke the gratitude practices of the Positive Psychologists? Write down “three good things” everyday or in some other form keep a gratitude journal-never on your phone, always handwritten, please.

Identify blessings across the people, places and situations of everyday life. Don’t just name them; describe them in detail. Try making each blessing event-specific: not just a “friend” but a specific moment with a specific friend: the time they rescued you from a flat tire on a rain-soaked day, or whispered that your fly was down in a crowded room. Gratitudes that are event-specific carry remembrance impact. As we recall them, there may be a slight lifting of the mouth corners and cheeks (the levator anguli oris), a warming of extremities or a deepening of the breath. It is the body and specifically, the brain holding the blessing. Night or day, this is the potent mind medicine we need to displace our ruminations.

We all know that mastering golf swings and pickleball strokes takes practice. Likewise, Bridge, Go and (people say) The Campaign for North Africa require concerted effort and learning. Why would we expect changing the mind to require anything less?

Night or day, counting blessings could be a high yield exercise for the earnest practitioner. But don’t expect instant results from just watching White Christmas over the Holidays this year. Handwrite a paragraph on an event-specific blessing right now. And beware, your levator anguli oris might be showing!

 

June 19, 2024

Write. Right. Rite

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We scribble in our first efforts to express the basic need to lay pencil or crayon to surfaces of all kinds. We mark on paper and coloring books as well as on floors and walls and sometimes across the pages of hardcover classics (sorry, mom).


These child-arts foreshadow drawing and painting and symbol making and alphabet. We write.
And for some of us, writing may become more than a requirement of school or the workplace. For some of us, it channels an expressive need innate to our character. Some with exceptional talent create and publish poems and works of non-fiction and fiction. For others, less talented, but wholly committed, the journal beckons.


There is in the Buddhist Tradition a Path, with 8 overlapping divisions (no claims of expertise here). These are sometimes called “Right” as in “Right Understanding”. Not right in the sense of right-wrong so much as right in the sense of wise. To write is right in the latter sense; it is wise to make this effort (Another of the Eight, “Right Effort”). Sometimes words flow in the journaling process and sometimes they are painfully stuck, yet we stay with it.


These words, flowing or stuck, reflect and express our Thought (another of the Eight, “Right Thought”). And so it goes in this thought-to-word written process. Akin to effort, there is a discipline to it all beginning with the intention (“Right Intention”) to write, a vow to write. In a very real sense, writing could then become a ritual, a Rite. This is a practice that supports and is supported by concentration and mindfulness (two others of the Eight).


Write. Right. Rite.


Perhaps for the talented few mentioned earlier, it all could become “Right Livelihood” and a vocation. For the rest of us, a practice like journaling is its own magic. Digging deep, thought transformed by reframing negativities and underscoring our basic goodness brings a more honest and accurate quality to our never-ending storylines. We face and write down those oh so automatic negative thoughts… thoughts that feature our flaws, shames and traumas could be bravely confronted and released instead of repeated over and over again. And as we write, all the forgotten gifts, large or small, the hugs and winks and even the tiniest acts of kindness, given or received, could move to the foreground.

Thought slowly transformed has effects. It informs what we say and choose not to say (“Right Speech”). It informs what we do and choose not to do (“Right Action”). Unending, this practice is revelatory and timeless, unearthing joys and challenges in the ever-changing story of our past, present and future: The deep blessing of our one and only life.


Write. Right. Rite