When I was about 4 years old, my parents and I packed into the red Pontiac Grand Prix with the white pleather interior in New Jersey and drove to Disneyworld in Florida.
I was so excited.
Rather than loving it though, I’ll never forget the traumatic encounter I had with the park staffer dressed in a Goofy costume. While I was happy meeting Minnie and Mickey, for whatever reason, that dog freaked the hell out of me.
I burst into tears sobbing uncontrollably, which made for some very awkward Polaroids of me looking terrified.
I’ve had to learn to focus on the good stuff that happened on that trip, but the inexplicable terror of the Goofy moment (along with the celluloid reminder) is something I doubt I’ll ever forget.
Have you ever noticed that it’s far easier to remember the times you got scared, rejected, hurt or fired, than all the many times that things went well for you?
Why exactly is that?
In this 3 part blog series over the coming months, I’ll lay the groundwork for you to create more resilience to stress, anxiety and trauma by helping you understand this and how you work more broadly:
Understanding the Mind and Brain (Part I)
Understanding Your Spirit (Part III)
How the Brain Works
Let’s say you’re anxious and stressed - a reasonable assumption for most people in 2021.
What you might notice is that you are pretty much always focusing on what might go wrong. You have a decent day at work, but in bed at night, all you can do is obsess about that one comment in your boss’ email. Even though you’ve promised yourself again and again to put your phone away and to finally get to the stack of books by your bedside, you can’t stop reading and rereading his email worried if this means you’re going to lose your job and will have to move back in with your parents.
That’s because of how the brain works to keep you alive.
From an evolutionary biology perspective, this is a great idea.
If your ancestors were out on the open savannah in the wild thousands of years ago and thought there might be a lion nearby, assuming it was true and getting to safety was far smarter than risking it and taking your chances. In other words, your ancestor who was sensitive to those cues was the most likely to pass down her genes and survive.
The ancestor who ignored the signal and sat around sunning himself, however, might not have made it long enough to pass on his genes to you.
The Negativity Bias: It’s Not Just You
Think back to your day yesterday.
What was the worst thing that happened to you?
An argument with your partner? Your phone died and you had to spend hours replacing it? Did you get yelled at by somebody in the grocery store parking lot?
Or perhaps it was something far worse, like a cancer diagnosis, getting sexually harassed or the death of a loved one.
Regardless of what it is, I’d be willing to bet that, without too much effort, you can quickly and easily recall that worst thing that happened to you in the last 24 hours.
That’s because of a built in negativity bias in our brains. When negative experiences occur, chemicals are produced in the body and brain that seem to almost “stain” what has happened into our memory. That’s because it’s a survival mechanism to keep us alive.
Think about it from an evolutionary perspective.
If you remember the worst thing that happened to you, at some level, you are going to be most likely to do whatever possible to avoid something like that happening again. It’s like when you’re a little kid and put your hands on the stove. It just takes one time for most kids to get the message: Play with fire? You’re gonna get hurt.
How Your Brain is Like Velcro
That’s why Rick Hanson, in his book, Buddha’s Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love and Wisdom (with Rick Mendius, M.D.; foreword by Dan Siegel, M.D.; preface by Jack Kornfield, Ph.D.) gives us a clear mnemonic that can help us understand how the brain works.
The brain is like velcro to negative experiences, so we hold on to them as if for dear life.
It’s why you remember how painful it was when the guy you dated after college hit on your best friend: so that the next time you meet someone like him (the subject of a whole other blog post), you don’t give him your number. Not necessarily a bad thing, right?
Why Your Brain is Also Like Teflon
Knowing that the brain has a negativity bias and is like velcro to negative experiences, how does the brain respond to positive experiences, you might ask?
Think of positive events or experiences as being like Teflon to your brain. The events will land on your brain, but very easily slide off, like the scrambled eggs my honey makes Sunday mornings while listening to the Baroque program on the local classical station. It’s the reason why so many things probably go right in your life and you don’t even notice them. Without conscious attention and focus, they slip right away.
So if you wonder why you remember more of the bad stuff and less of the good stuff, don’t worry. There’s nothing inherently wrong with you. You’re in exactly the right place with the right kind of human brain.
And if you are breathing, as Jon Kabat-Zinn says, there is more right with you than is wrong with you.
Neuroplasticity, the Triune Brain and Potato Chips
Understanding about how we interpret positive and negative experiences, it might be easy to feel hopeless. After all, if we are wired to focus more on the negative than the positive, and it helps us stay alive, what can we do?
The good news, in fact, is that there’s a lot we can do.
In the past, conventional wisdom was that the structures of the brain were fixed and relatively immutable once we reach adulthood. Yet research in recent years has demonstrated that the brain is plastic and changeable throughout life.
It also means that it can be strengthened in a number of ways that lead to positive outcomes (like less stress, better relationships, and more impulse control) especially when we understand the structure of the brain.
One metaphor that’s helpful for thinking about the brain is the notion of a triune brain.
The reptilian brain controls our autonomic nervous system functions. It’s the most primitive part of the brain and where the brain’s sentinel (the amygdala) alerts us to danger. It’s the fastest (but least accurate) part of the brain. The mammalian brain is the home of the limbic system, where our emotions and attachment behaviors are based. The newest part of the brain, or the cortex, is where our uniquely human functions are centered, where we appreciate art, justice, music, poetry, compassion, patience and other such qualities.
When our brain is integrated, life goes more smoothly. For example, maybe you want to watch your salt intake because your blood pressure is a little high and you don’t want to take medication. Your rational brain is in favor of skipping the bag of salt and vinegar Kettle chips. But if you’re feeling anxious or afraid it’s going to be much harder to keep your hands out of the salty goodness.
This you’ve seen a thousand times in yourself and others.
I know I have.
How the Brain and Mind Influence Each Other
So how do we cultivate a more integrated brain? Is that even possible?
Yes, it absolutely is.
One way is through mindfulness meditation, yoga and other activities which help strengthen the frontal cortex. Jon Kabat-Zinn, the founder of the University of Massachusetts Medical Center’s Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, describes mindfulness as “paying attention, in the present moment, without judgment”. Many years ago I had the privilege of assisting him at a workshop he was leading on mindfulness in education at the Omega Institute for Holistic Studies, a deeply moving experience. It was inspiring how he was able to translate the practices described in classical Buddhist texts, and make them accessible to anyone anywhere who wanted to feel less stress and pain, particularly heroic teachers and educators.
When we cultivate mindfulness, and train the mind, we also have an impact on the physical structures of the brain. In other words, simply by intentionally bringing your awareness over and over again back to the present moment, in functional MRIs you can see greater activity in those parts of the brain associated with better impulse control and emotional regulation.
The result?
Fewer unnecessary salty chips you never really wanted to eat to begin with.
The Bottom Line? Shift Happens.
In Rick Hanson’s words:
“The mind and brain interact with each other so profoundly that they’re best understood as a single, co-dependent, mind/brain system.”
So when your mind changes, your brain changes, too. That is very good news indeed.
In an upcoming blog post, I’ll share with you specific simple practices you can do to begin the process of feeling and being more self-regulated.
Mastering resilience to stress, anxiety and trauma to have a more meaningful impact in the world is possible. Understanding how your mind and brain work can be hugely helpful on your path to doing so.
