How I Discovered This Practice:
I don’t remember exactly. I’m often deep down the rabbit hole, researching change strategies, and sometimes, the right things find me at just the right time. This was one of those.
What Drew Me In:
The neuroscience behind it caught my attention — the idea that our brains are wired to register pain and threat much more easily than joy or connection.
But what stayed with me was the simplicity of the practice itself:
Catching small positive moments — and using breath, attention, and visualization to intentionally encode them so they don’t just wash away unnoticed.
How It Impacted Me:
This work confirmed something I have repeatedly seen: it’s not the big peak experiences that change us — it’s the tiny, ordinary moments we fully receive.
Through Hanson’s method, I began helping myself — and my clients — savor these moments more deliberately.
Ordinary moments — the ones we usually rush past — become the doorway to real change.
A warm conversation. The taste of coffee. The way sunlight hits your face just right.
Instead of letting them pass, you breathe them in, anchor them, and let the body and mind integrate them.
How I Use It Now:
I weave this practice into my work regularly, especially when clients feel overwhelmed or numb.
It’s not complicated: pause, notice, and breathe it in. Let the experience stay long enough to become part of you.
Over time, these small, sustained moments create real shifts — not because you’re chasing change, but because you’re finally letting life land inside you.
How This Practice Can Help You
The HEAL Method — developed by Dr. Rick Hanson — is a simple, practical way to help your mind and body register positive experiences more deeply.
Instead of letting small good moments slip away, HEAL teaches you four simple steps you can use anytime:
- Hold the positive experience in your awareness.
- Enrich it by deepening the sensations and emotions it brings.
- Absorb it by letting it sink fully into your body and mind.
- Link it to old pain if appropriate — gradually weaving positive experiences into old patterns.
You don’t need a huge life event to create real change.
In fact, these four steps are designed to strengthen your internal wiring for resilience, connection, and real happiness.
With practice, you increasinly recognize the ordinary, positive moments happening around you — and absorb them in a way that rewires your brain toward greater stability and emotional well-being.
Small daily practices → Big long-term shifts.
If you’ve ever felt like joy slips through your fingers, this gives you a way to hold onto it — and build more of it from the inside out.
If you want to dive deeper into Rick Hanson’s work →
The About Page is a great place to start: https://rickhanson.com/about-dr-rick-hanson/.
It’s a one-stop hub for his books, research papers, courses, and professional affiliations.
He also shares the teachers and organizations that influenced him — it’s easy to get happily lost exploring if you have time.
Plus there’s a huge amount of free material available, including articles, events, podcasts, and guided meditations.
I highly recommend joining his email list — I’m on it myself and find it consistently valuable.
If you want a quick introduction to the actual HEAL method, you can watch Rick explain it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCOZ1TG1Vj0.
You can also subscribe to his YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@RickHanson