Exercise «Good»: the ability to enjoy life

​​​​​​​Exercise «Good» is one of the Distance exercises, more broadly — the direction of the Distance, which helps to strengthen (or return) the state of the inner Good and the joy of life. The task is to learn to keep yourself always in the “All is well” state and the “World is friendly” position. The solution is not to suppress the internal Bad, but to create the internal Good.

What needs to be done in this exercise? The wording of the “Good” exercise for students of the University of Practical Psychology is as follows:

• Usually everything is fine with me, I can easily extinguish minor minuses with a confident positive. I know and use my mood enhancers, my piggy bank of positive energy is full!
• Even if problems come, I don’t make problems out of it and I know how to scoop out pluses in any situation. In a regular situation, if necessary, I get out of the negative in “…” minutes, I can turn on “Good” without any justification.
• I don’t have enemies, I have creative situations. When they object to me or make comments, I do not run into an answer, but at first I think.
• If you shoot me on video, on my face and in my speech, the ratio of positive and negative is one hundred to one. In the advanced version, I begin to live in the Sunshine mode.

​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​The state of “Good” is created and maintained by a smile, a general mental program, utility programs, beliefs and other means of controlling the mental attitude, as well as by real deeds , improvement of life and control of circumstances. Auxiliary tasks for practicing this exercise:

1. «Let’s learn the word Good.» In any regular situation, no matter what happens, we say to ourselves with an inner smile: “Good!”. They shout at us — «Good.» We shout — also «Good.» Consider it just a reminder that life is worth appreciating! Many people like to sing songs on the theme Good: songs can be anything, from “Come on, sing a song to us, cheerful wind” to amateur “The world is beautiful, yes, yes, yes, good!”
   
2. We use self-hypnosis and affirmations. There is no task to inspire ourselves with something that is not there, but why live with negative suggestions that we have learned as a result of education?
3. Getting used to using Mood Boosters. It’s really funny, but many people in a bad mood somehow forget that the mood can be simply raised. Let’s learn, let’s remember!
4. «Breaking out the benefits». We work out the justifications for “Good”, we learn to see the bright side in any event. A mug fell — well, it fell, but it did not break. They hit the car — well, they hit it a little, but they didn’t completely smash it. Did you completely wreck your car? — good, but they didn’t hit a person, but simply smashed the car. You can buy a new car.
   
5. «Wealth of the World» We learn to see beauty, hear the music of the surrounding world, feel tastes and smells. We learn to live and do things with heartfelt pleasure, to thank life for every gift from it.
6. We make ourselves a more positive body. To do this, we remove obvious clamps from the face, it is useful to pay attention to the usual muzzles such as insults or “oh, I’m upset!”, It is useful to work out Hands of greeting.

Mastering the state of «Good» occurs through several stages, and at first this state is not quite natural, rather artificial. We are accustomed to call natural what you do not need to spend energy on, what is familiar.

When a child learned to walk, and it was natural for him to crawl, he stood up on two legs and stubbornly took two or three steps, this was also artificial for him. When a child picked up a fork, instead of naturally raking food with his hands, the fork was alien to him, and eating with a fork was completely artificial. Over time, with repetition, with getting used to, the former «artificial» becomes natural.

“Good”, like any other skill, at first it turns out difficult and “artificial”, that is, unusual. However, this is only a matter of time, you just need to practice, and after a while, “Good!” become a habit, a natural state. For most distance runners, this exercise takes anywhere from two weeks to two months, working half an hour a day.

There are two main difficulties in this exercise: the state of the body and ideological protests. When it comes to the body, you really need to take care of the body: get enough sleep, lead a healthy lifestyle and follow a functional body positivity. If you have internal ideological protests, see the Five Chairs exercise.

What is the criterion that the exercise «Good!» did you master? Here you can use the following metaphor: a healthy, vigorous and normally developed person walks beautifully and does not fall, and if he accidentally stumbles, he rises immediately and without difficulty. Similarly, the inner is good: it always accompanies you through life and without difficulty, and if suddenly a failure occurs or life strikes, then your well is restored almost immediately and without difficulty. Yes?

Environmentally friendly exercise

The “Good” exercise is a great exercise, it will bring you ease. joy and a sense of inner comfort, but it requires a certain counterbalance. Indeed, we are not satisfied with indifference when an energetic man masters the “Good” exercise, after which he lies down on the sofa and then does not get up from it anymore … But what? Now he does not need much, he is always good, even when his wife is already yelling at him — he is still good … The “Good” exercise must be supplemented by 1) the habit of approaching everything constructively and 2) a philosophy of high life values. At a Distance, these are the exercises “Translating a Problem into a Problem” and “If I Loved”.

The task of “living with the inner Good” is set by distance people, and not only distance people — many wise people throughout the life of mankind. Here are different illustrations on this topic.

I have an inner warm space

Xenia V. writes: Today is a great day again, and I want to boast about my success in the “Good” exercise. Now I manage, lo and behold, to maintain an elevated mood throughout the day! And even and calm condition!

Previously, I did not understand how it is possible to keep one state inside, and something else will happen outside. And now I have a certain space inside me, in which I begin to manage to maintain my own mood. It’s like building a room in the middle of a clearing and learning to maintain a different temperature inside it than outside! Put a small fireplace and look at the street minus from the inside! Of course, the drafts are still blowing out, but not at all as terrible as the old hurricanes. And they leave the room under the watchful eye now most often themselves. For the New Year I plan to start a full-fledged fireplace and put up a Christmas tree 🙂

Today, for example, the mood was 5 out of 10. And I raised it to 7 in 9 minutes! I just consciously chose a different state!

And it works with Lesha too! There were already 4 situations today that initially upset me and caused helplessness. I didn’t know how best to proceed. I immediately realized that it was upsetting me, I realized that now I don’t know what to do with it, I wrote it down and went to think about something else, more pleasant, and also about Lesha. I understand that he did not want to upset me. I just have not yet learned to 100% understand and accept it. This is not a reason to spoil yourself and him in the mood. Moreover, this is all fleeting, like a draft.

I’m done!

Which hand is more convenient to break?

Characters: mother Tanya Kachalova and six-year-old son Yura Kachalov (names and surnames have not been changed). So, Yura falls from the Swedish wall in kindergarten and breaks his arm hard. Ambulance, flasher, siren, hospital, x-ray, cast. Mom is notified by phone. Mom in tears rushes in a taxi to the other end of the city. It’s spinning in my head, how at the age of 6 she herself fell from the roof of the barn, and her mother, who came running, could only say one thing: “Tanya, how are you like that?”. Breaks into the surgical department. He sees his son at the end of the corridor. She runs to him and understands that now she can also say only one thing: “Yurochka, how are you like that?”. Runs up. The child raises his eyes, looks at his mother and calmly says: “Mom, such happiness, can you imagine! I broke my left arm, not my right! Very comfortably!». The phrase about «how so» gets stuck in my mother’s throat. “Yes, son, you are great!”

Good Mood Fair

“I was fascinated by an ordinary bag with an unusual inscription: “Everything will be fine, I found out …” Or how do you like this inscription on a mug: “Never stop smiling, even when you are sad, someone can fall in love with your smile” and a sea of ​​​​others «lovely heart» gizmos. And where else can you find an “individual fear remover” or anti-conflict matches?

Dragging a canoe is our entertainment!

Looking unbiasedly at what is happening below, I saw an interesting picture. Several people seemed to be engaged in a common task — they dragged the boat. But two of them, the Italians, were tense, sullen, irritable; they were constantly cursing, as befits a real Tuscan. The rest, the Indians, seemed to have a good time and even found entertainment in it. They were relaxed, making fun of the clumsy canoe and their bruises, but the pirogue that fell on one of the tribesmen was especially joyful. Surprisingly, the latter, pressed with his bare back against the hot granite, invariably laughed the loudest with relief, of course, after he was pulled out from under the boat and he could breathe freely. Continue reading Jean Ledloff →

My calm, confident “Good” is very dear to me.

​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​The first results appeared in a couple of weeks. Desperate situations disappeared from my life, a feeling of joy in life appeared, a desire to live, and not to be an observer, to begin to manage my life and enjoy this process.

I learned to switch to the “Good” state in 7-10 seconds, and choose which “Good” I need now and use it.

Learned to accept all events positively. Not some thoughtless “Yes, everything is fine!”, But this is such a “calm Good”, which can be decoded as:

• yeah, it happened — good;
  
• I don’t know what to do right away — then now I will think about it, discuss it;
  
• I will find pluses for myself in the situation;
  
• I will find possible difficult moments that may arise, calculate the solutions and be ready for them.