This weekend at yoga school I learned so much about the brain, not sure if I'd learned it before in school and forgot or if I'd never heard it before. But your brain is biologically wired to remember stressful situations far more vividly than pleasurable memories.
In your brain, the Amygdala, responsible for the basic emotions like fear, anxiety, and desire, is nestled closely to the Hippocampus, which is responsible for memory and turning short-term memories into long-term memories. This was clearly developed for survival, back when we used to have to run from lions and bears. So, the first time we encountered a bear and it lunged at us, the senses activated in the moment are immediately seared into the memory (so next time this happens, we know whether to run away or stay and fight): the smells of the trees, the sight of the shiny sharp teeth and claws, the sound of the bear roaring (what to bears do...lions roar...bears...yell?? I don't know they are so scary yet they look so huggable), the feeling of the rocks and leaves under our feet running as fast as we can away from this life-or-death, fight-or-flight situation. You can feel the fear in your chest, and your heart pumping wildly inside it...the stress response is super-intense for a really good reason. But, now that we don't have to run from bears anymore, and modern life is all sorts of complicated crazy, this mechanism is actually destroying some people, leaving them stuck living and making decisions based in fear and darkness.
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| Love yer brain...even if it is a Negative Nancy by design! |
This explains that depressing statistic that when someone has a good experience they'll only tell 1-3 people, if they had a bad experience, they'll tell 9 people (I don't know the numbers, I actually got that statistic from The Office (UK) point is, people love to talk shit, it feels great...in the moment.) It's why it's so hard for people to "take the good with the bad" because, the mind is programmed to remember the bad stuff more deeply than the good stuff.
We know the mind is powerful beyond comprehension though, and can be controlled and transformed, if the will is strong and the work is done to make it happen.
Knowing this now, how can we train the mind to be as alert, and accepting to commit all the sensations of a positive situation to memory, as vividly as we commit a negative experience to memory? Is it even possible if this mechanism to remember stress is hard-wired in our physical brain?
I personally do not know the answer to this question, but I'm going to begin doing work on myself to see what happens and will most definitely share the results here. I know I have a very easy time taking myself back to a past negative experience and nearly re-living it, I can feel the pain in my chest and/or stomach the moment I think of it. Once something triggers a bad memory, and it can be as innocuous as a commercial on TV, my brain and body take me back almost immediately. I don't think this is something I will live with forever, because I know why my mind goes to a dark place. I understand and have forgiven loved ones that have hurt me in the past and have a great relationship with those people now. I know they didn't mean any harm to me, but I also know there's nothing they can do to take the residual pain away, clearly the forgetting part is harder than forgiving, and that has to come from me.
I'm going to try my own meditation "experiment" on myself to see if I can train my mind to feel positive memories as viscerally, if not more so, than negative ones. I've already done Biofeedback Therapy and I know the mind is completely trainable, it just takes time and practice. It's about finding a practical "exercise(s)" to re-train the mind. The other thing I learned in Biofeedback about myself was a little alarming: One day the therapist tried to teach me this technique called "The Heart Exercise", where you concentrate on your heart and feeling the warmth there, which is supposed to soothe. But, I found when I concentrated on my heart, all I wanted to do was cry, because I just felt sadness there. The therapist just told me not to do that exercise, she surmised I must have things I need to work on, but she didn't recommend continuing to practice that exercise, but to continue to manage stress in other ways.
This weekend though, I told one of my Yoga teachers (and the owner of Revolution Yoga) Amanda, about it, and she thinks (and I agree) that there's a blockage in my Heart chakra. My emotional pain in stressful situations goes right to my heart. I feel a deflating, crushing ache there, and I know most other people are familiar with that pain in their chest (which I believe maybe has something to do with the Vagus Nerve in the heart which is associated with the parasympathetic nervous system; just an educated guess based on what I've learned about that nerve this weekend.) I store all the bad feelings there, that's why memories bring that same sensation in my chest as much as something bad happening in-the-moment.
Amanda explained Samskaras (impressions/memories) and their effect on the subconscious mind by pressing chalk into a piece of smoothed out Play-Doh. Mom yelled in your face when you were 5: that leaves a permanent imprint; your first kiss, that leaves an imprint; losing a loved one, that leaves an imprint; seeing a violent movie, that leaves an imprint.
Long story short: a consistent meditation practice can help to "smooth out" and erase those impressions. One reaches Samadhi and finds peace when the Samskaras are removed completely.
I've come up with three things I can do every day to help cultivate lasting positivity in my mind; I think this could be applied for many people, so if you try it, please leave a comment and let us all know how things went for you! Here goes:
1 - Touch/See/Taste/Hear/Smell Memory. As soon as I'm aware (because we take a lot of little things for granted) that I'm having a positive experience, even if it's just listening to my favorite song while riding on the train and taking in a beautiful day, (if possible) I'll close my eyes, and focus my attention on each of my 5 senses one at a time. Feeling the warmth of the sun on my skin, the taste in my mouth at the time, the feeling of the headphones in my ears and the seat supporting the weight of my body, my breath traveling in and out of my nose and lungs, the sound of the music, the way it makes me feel, the colors of the train seats, etc. I'll then imagine these positive sensations as some kind of stream of light, wrapping around my heart and warming it from the inside out, really feeling the lovingkindness swelling in my chest, viscerally and emotionally.
If I can employ this in mundane situations, I could eventually do this with all kinds of positive experiences without even thinking about it or concentrating on it. Eventually, my hope/inference as to what the result will be is that when something good happens, my "heart" feels uplifted and warm, as intensely as it feels pain when faced with negative stimuli; and also when this positive memory is recalled, the lightness/warmth I felt in the heart at the time can be immediately felt again days, months, years later; the way my heart can feel a depressing feeling when I recall a negative experience. Which brings me to the second part of my practice:
2 - "Tar Melting" (visualization) When faced with a stressful situation, I need to find a way to protect my heart. I know shit's going to happen and my heart's going to hurt at one point or another no matter what I do, that's life. I'm most definitely of the mind that one doesn't appreciate goodness in life if they haven't experienced pain; and that the bigger you love the deeper the pain is felt when the heart has empathy for another or is hurt by another. Here's where it's tough because it's hard to do visualization meditation when you're in the thick of an argument or something. As soon as I feel the sensation of pain there, I have to remember that the situation is transient, and more than likely is a bazallion times less scary or upsetting than I assume it will be. As soon as I can get a moment to myself, I'm going to try visualizing the pain I'm feeling as black tar around my heart. With each inhale, I'd imagine my heart beginning to swell and glow underneath the tar, and with each exhale, the tar begins to melt and drip away. I think by continuing my first exercise, I can use the physical sensations I've recalled from my positive experiences to help myself really fell the positive-warmth from the inside of my heart that's temporarily being blocked out by this "tar" of negativity.
3 - Nadi Shodhana, or alternate nostril breathing. This isn't my own idea, obviously, but the practice I think will physiologically help create balance in my mind/brain and body. Well, I don't think, I know it will create balance physiologically because that's what Nadi Shodhana does. Science says so. Your Right and Left nostrils are connected to your Right (creativity, spatial perception) and Left (reading, writing, speaking) brain. Quoted from the linked article:
EEG-measurements of participants on the three month courses (1986-91) showed the same improvement of the R/L ratio. The measurements then, however, were not done in connection to any meditation practice, but during ordinary rest, before and after the course. This result indicated a permanent long-term effect (see Bindu no. 5).
These positive changes were found in all instances in regions of the brain that are closely linked to the limbic system, which is the seat of our emotions.
On the basis of our results we therefore conclude that Nadi Shodana, if it is done regularly over a longer period of time, has a favourable influence on the balance between the brain halves and thereby an emotionally stabilising effect on the individual.
Pretty cool, huh? You can learn how to practice Nadi Shodhana properly/safely in this video:
Check out this video for the energetic/philosophic explanation as to how Nadi Shodhana works:
If you try any of these techniques for yourself, or have your own methods that work for you, please share them in the comments below, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. Everyone experiences things differently, not every technique works for everyone, so the more unique ideas shared, the better it is for everyone :)
Namasté!
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