Affirmation · “The Subconscious Says Yes”
Taking in the Good
To deliberately convert passing positive experiences into lasting inner resources by staying with a good experience long enough for it to register in implicit memory — offsetting the brain’s negativity bias.
HEAL in 5 lines: H — notice or create a good experience right now. E — stay with it 10+ seconds; let it grow fuller and felt in the body. A — sense it sinking in and becoming part of you. L (optional) — while it’s vivid, let it gently soothe an old hurt held in the background; drop the link if the negative takes over. Repeat many small times a day.
What it is
Rick Hanson’s “Taking in the Good” is a brief, repeatable practice for installing positive experiences so they leave a lasting trace, rather than passing through unregistered.
Hanson’s premise is that the brain has a negativity bias — it is “Velcro for bad experiences and Teflon for good ones,” evolved to over-learn from threats — so good moments, though frequent, rarely stick.
The remedy is not to have more positive experiences but to stay with the ones you already have long enough and richly enough for them to consolidate into implicit memory as inner strengths (calm, worth, gratitude, feeling cared about).
The four steps spell HEAL: Have, Enrich, Absorb, Link. It sits in affirmation autosuggestion because, like autosuggestion, it deliberately impresses a chosen inner state on the mind through repetition and felt absorption — but its “message” is a real lived experience rather than a verbal formula.
The Method
A faithful summary of the HEAL sequence as taught in Hardwiring Happiness:
- H — Have a positive experience. Either notice a good experience already present (the warmth of sun, a task done, a friend’s kindness, a sense of basic okayness) or create one (call up a pleasant memory, look at something you appreciate, do a small kind act). The point is to actually feel something good right now, however mild.
- E — Enrich it. Stay with the experience for five to ten seconds or longer. Let it become more intense, fuller in the body, fresher; open to it. Heighten it by focusing on what’s enjoyable or meaningful about it, and by sensing it physically. Duration, intensity, and embodiment all deepen the trace.
- A — Absorb it. Intend and sense the experience sinking into you — like a sponge soaking up water, or a warm glow spreading and being received. Feel it becoming part of you, a resource you can carry. (Steps E and A are what actually “install” what step H activated.)
- L — Link positive and negative material (optional). While the positive experience is vivid and in the foreground, you may gently hold some related negative material (an old hurt, an anxiety) in the background, letting the positive soothe, ease, and gradually replace it. If the negative starts to take over, drop the link and return to the positive alone. Hanson stresses the positive must stay larger and dominant. (Sourcing note: HEAL, the Velcro/Teflon metaphor, and the optional Link step are Hanson’s own, from Hardwiring Happiness; the protocol above faithfully describes his published instructions rather than reproducing them.)
Source & Lineage
Rick Hanson (b. 1952) is an American psychologist and Senior Fellow at UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center. He developed “Taking in the Good” across Buddha’s Brain (2009, with Richard Mendius) and gave it the HEAL structure in Hardwiring Happiness (2013).
The practice synthesizes three lineages: Buddhist contemplative training (especially cultivating wholesome states), affective neuroscience (memory consolidation, the negativity bias documented by Baumeister, Rozin and others), and positive psychology (savoring, gratitude).
It is the applied, “self-directed neuroplasticity” expression of those streams. → (Hanson; contemplative-science teachers).
Common refinements
Too brief. A one-second “that’s nice” doesn’t install anything. The work is in Enrich + Absorb — stay 10–30 seconds, let it fill the body.
- Staying purely cognitive. Noticing a good thing intellectually without feeling it limits the effect; bring in body sensation and emotional tone.
- Forcing big experiences. Small, ordinary “good-enoughs” repeated many times a day beat waiting for peak moments. Frequency compounds.
- Mishandling Link. Letting the negative material dominate re-grooves the bad. Keep the positive in the foreground and larger; if it slips, drop Link and just absorb the good.
- Refinement: tie installations to daily cues (each meal, each green light) so the habit runs without effort.