Benefits of "Mental Noting" during positive events? I've been using Mental Noting to improve my handling of anxious thoughts and emotions but I ran into a strange situation today. Most of my thoughts have been neutral or negative, and mentally noting such thoughts has allowed me to disassociate myself with any such passing clouds in my mind so that I can continue about my day.

However, after a physically gloomy day today I saw the sun come out and light up the city. I initially felt very happy seeing the sun shine across the buildings but then my habit of noting came in the picture and I felt a distance between me and the emotion (just as I would an anxious emotion). From what I understand, this is what the practice calls for me to do in any type of event.

Is there something I'm doing wrong or missing here? It seems that long-term noting will cause me to put a distance between pleasurable moments just as it would with negative ones? Why would I want this? I enjoy such emotions and whatever pain I experience from them being so fleeting is worth it. I'd rather maintain the duration by which I experience such moments, not shorten it with noting. I'm not sure what perspective to have in such cases and whether there is some greater benefit to continuing to do this for all situations?
I spoke before about the power of narratives. Narratives is how our mental world is shaped, narratives is one of the main ways to control the sukha/dukha mechanism described in the Four Noble Truths.

In this case, mental noting is a special case of narrative. By looking at thoughts and emotions in a certain way ("in and off themselves" as Buddha said in Satipatthana) we create a special philosophical narrative in which the thoughts are things of a different order than they are in our regular everyday context. We look at them neutrally, philosophically. Hence the dissociation effect.

However, mental noting is just one way to do narrative. The idea is to be the master of your thoughts (via control of the context / frame of reference) instead of being driven by your thoughts (being locked in a certain context). So don't fall in the same trap with your positive experiences, you don't have to shape it in a way that does not induce positive states of mind. You are totally free to create any sort of narrative (assuming it is true, not harmful, and does not go contrary to Dharma) - as long as it drives you up. In fact the whole point of the First Jhana is to learn to control your mood via narratives (and then directly, in the Second Jhana).