Understanding the Mind and Brain (Part I)

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 the Body and Trauma (Part II)

• 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. 

Want to create your most resilient and intentional year yet in 2021? Get the motivation, accountability and support you need. Check out the Mastering Resilience Small Group Coaching Program with social justice pricing. Applications are now being accepted. 

Death, Money and Sex: The Open Secret

A beautiful, passionate, soulful artist and mother reached out to me to coach her recently. She was eagerly wanting something and sensed that it might be found in the connection her intuition told her to follow.

But by the time was approaching for her scheduled session, she was in an entirely different place than she had expected to be.

A beloved person in her life unexpectedly and tragically died.

She cancelled her session, wanting to howl and grieve and be alone instead.

I could relate.

Boy could I relate.

This week, in fact, is the one year anniversary since my own mother passed away.

There have been so many hours of howling and grieving. Even some, yes, this very morning.

Like animals who run off to the cave to lick their wounds, we humans, too, have a wisdom and knowing that draws us inward in times of deep pain and sadness.It is part of the human experience: the allegorical archetype of diving into pain and loss and tragedy like Persephone and then, by some miraculous resiliency that’s part of the human spirit, coming back to life.

But this depth of common experience can only be revealed when we are willing to go down deep into our own psyches. And for many, the conflict between wanting to look good and put together on the surface can raise a deep conflict with the inner yearning and desire to howl like an animal at times.

Isn’t that what wild animals do, after all?

Howl and hide in caves and then, eventually, come back to circle into the pack of other animals?

What I wanted so much was to deeply honor my artist friend who wanted to take the time to howl and grieve and experience the deep loss. To know that that depth of being is what makes us most deeply human.

Week after week, I see clients who want richer, fuller, more meaningful lives. They - we - want more joy, more peace, more fulfillment in our lives.

And the ones who get those lives I have seen again and again, are the ones with the courage to both wail like a wild wounded animal or a puppy that’s been taken from it’s momma … and show up to the pack of animals again.

There is a paradox that, while there is a time to be alone in the cave to lick one’s wounds, in our culture especially, that is where the story ends.

We lose a child, a friend, a partner or a beloved pet.

A relationship fails.

Our political leadership goes mad, making choices that look insane.

We face the reality of our childish and inauthentic relationship with money.

In all these instances, our habitual tendency is to hide out alone, and then start to cope alone.

We turn to compulsive busyness, to keep the pain of loneliness from seeping in.

We turn to fixing ourselves to hopefully avoid the pain of ever feeling vulnerable to loss again.

We numb out on empty carbs, one too many glasses of wine after the kids are in bed, or sexual misadventures.

All these things we try to cope with alone. 

Death. Money. Sex.

Rather than pretending they don’t cause us all pain, we can try something different.

We can try to accept what the poet Rumi referred to as the Open Secret, that I first heard about from one of my mentors at the Omega Institute for Holistic Learning, author Elizabeth Lesser. 

You know that thing when your friends ask how it’s going and you say, “Great!” with a big smile on your face while you are secretly freaking out about the fact that your new husband won’t have sex with you?

Or when your boss asks if you need some time off to deal with health issues and you say, “No, no, I’m FINE!” because you're secretly terrified of losing your health insurance, job and financial security if you tell the truth?

Or when your friend who is a little more outwardly successful, more organized and well-spoken asks you to support a cause she’s involved in and you say yes but secretly think, “Shit, she has it all together and I am going to look so stupid next to her. What’s the hell is wrong with me?”

What Rumi invites us to do, way back from the 13th century, is to stop pretending it’s all fine and cop to the open secret. Because we are all pretending and that's partially what causes the suffering and isolation. 

To reveal your hurt and your truth to another, safely and appropriately, is where authentic connection is made.

And this is where mindfulness comes in.

By developing a practice of “paying attention on purpose in the present moment without judgment” (in the words of mindfulness pioneer Jon Kabat-Zinn) you begin to watch your thoughts, feelings and beliefs and not take them so seriously.

You can watch them rise and fall in your mind and body, and let them go without telling such a long involved story about what a loser you are, how everybody else is better at life than you, and how lonely you are.

Or how it is always going to hurt like it does now.

With a regular mindfulness practice of even a few minutes a day, you learn to rest in compassionate presence with yourself. And when you can cultivate self-compassion towards the parts of yourself you judge the most, you can begin to open up to the compassion in others.

Let me be honest here: I have in no way mastered this.

But I am nowhere near where I once was in terms of vicious self-judgment.

The open secret is that we all have pain.

Death, money and sex cause every human alive to have challenges at some point or another in life. It’s the human condition, not a personal failure.

And when we can accept it, and accept the loving kindness available to us, both within our skin and in others, we come back to life and light.