As Alec Bings told Milo, “It’s all in how you look at things.”
Back to the joke about the pessimist and the optimist, it really is all about perspective. Think about taking photographs. You need a bit of distance in order to see the thing you’re taking a picture of. And you get to decide how you want to look at the thing to get the view you like the best. And then you take the picture from that angle.
Consider the glass again. Half-full? Half-empty? Yes.
So these mindfulness skills you’ve begun practicing are about developing an ability to get some perspective on your own perspective and also to consider cultivating the skills and practices for changing it if you don’t like what you see. They’re a kind of witches’ brew more than a cookbook recipe or set of directions in the sense that they’re more intuitive than objective (this is what made the Half-Blood Prince a better potioneer than Libacious Borage).
Only you can find what works for you, and the only way to find out is to practice.
If you practice, over time you will come to know, with increasing confidence and self-trust, what works best and feels best to you. So, in the mix so far we have breath-awareness as the basis of the overall practice; we have body-awareness; we have acceptance and non-judgmentalness; and now we are working on awareness of what we tell ourselves about ourselves and about our lives. Consider upping the ante, so to speak, on your personal practice. It only takes a moment. What are you doing right now?