Alternative Endings, aka Worst Case Scenario Trains of Thought

During a recent sitting session, I tried to create a joyful space, following the directions of a meditation article I had received in the mail. The article instructed me to remember a joyful feeling that I had once had and use this memory to change my present emotion. For me, choosing a situation to recreate was easy. In 1999, I traveled to Venezuela with friends and on a boat ride down the Paria Peninsula, we found ourselves in the middle of a huge pod of dolphins.

I had not wanted to go on the boat excursion, citing my fear of being in the middle of the ocean as the reason. My friends reassured me that we would skirt the coastline for the entire trip. Thirty minutes after departing, the "captain" of the small fishing boat consulted with his "crew" (ha, ha - it was a 16 foot boat) and turned the stern STRAIGHT out to sea. As the coastline moved further away, my stomach sank and I looked dreadfully out to sea. It was then that I noticed the first one cresting the water, then another. Soon there were pairs of dolphins jumping all around the boat. At one point, I counted close to 100 of them swimming in a giant circle all around. The experience was absolutely magical.

Initially, my left brain tried to control the situation: "Take pictures", "Capture the moment", "Click faster!", "Remember everything so you can tell your friends..." I fumbled with my camera, trying and failing to capture the dolphins mid-jump. Eventually I realized that with my face behind the lens, I was missing the experience. So I dropped the camera, turned my face into the ocean breeze and reached out into the ocean spray, surrendering to the sensations of the experience.

My right brain took over from here and my consciousness expanded. Being utterly present in this amazing moment, I felt my heart crack open and joy bubble into my throat. The tiny boat no longer contained the experience for me - gratitude spilled from my open heart, out of the boat and into the water. I felt utterly at peace. My left brain had quieted and was no longer trying to artificically capture the moment. I had given myself over to the blissfulness of the right brain.

As I sat in my house almost ten years later and meditated on the sheer beauty of this experience, it was relatively easy to reawaken these feelings. The difficulty proved in sustaining the joyful emotions for any length of time. At one point during my recollection, I jumped on a "Worst Case Scenario" train of thought. My imagination added an alternative ending, compliments of my pessimistic, anxiety ridden counter-self.

I imagined myself bouncing out of the boat as it hit an extra high wave. I saw a group of aggressive dolphins begin ramming me with their snouts, causing some major bruising before the boat could pull back around to rescue me. Once the boat did reach my brutalized body, I tried to heave myself in, causing the boat to capsize...

I got all this way before I realized that, instead of joy, I was creating anxiety. And even more disturbing, I was literally creating it from scratch, as these events never even happened! This self sabotage was amusing and disturbing at the same time. Creating a joyful space made me realize that I often do quite the opposite, out of shear habit.