Brain’s Chains

Our wild and complex brains have no way of telling the conscious and unconscious mind don’t or stop.

• When you run through worst-case scenarios involving the ones you love, does saying don’t think about that provide a solution?

• When you sit down to meditate and tell yourself stop thinking, does it work?

• When you’ve watched something gruesome and can’t stop seeing it and your friend keeps torturing you with the description, does your friend or brain adhere to the order no more?
  

Our brains have done a fantastic job when faced with nature’s indifference.
Survival has provided the brain with problems to solve. And the brain evolves.
Your brain will continue to focus on the ideas that appeal to survival.
These ideas will probably be negative.

This beautiful evolutionary tool is our negativity bias.

Decision-making tends to focus on AVOIDING bad results, rather than ACCOMPLISHING good ones.
Your amygdala, the fight-or-flight part of your brain system, is majority negative detectors (2/3 negative vs 1/3 positive).
Humans spotlight negative thoughts. It has insured our survival.

Imagine having an all-positive-amygdala and seeing a mother-bear with her cubs.
Your thoughts may focus on how soft her fur appears, the playful ways she interacts with her cubs, and the adorable noises cubs make.
And then momma-bear notices you — not your heart-shaped eyes — and you’re living the grizzly scene from The Revenant.

It is much more useful to assume a threat and be proven wrong than assume no threat and be surprised.

Threats are still all around us, but they’re much more elusive. It’s not as clear cut as spotting an animal or prepping for a storm.
The privilege of living in a technologically-focused society is ease of survival. And our brains continue adjusting to understand this state of being and the new dangers that come with it.

Next time you spill some inner darkness and your optimistic friend suggests Just Be Positive, conceal the intense urge to strangle them and, instead, explain the evolutionary benefit of focusing on the negative.

Then mention how useless and simplistic their advice is — people need to hear this.

But all is not lost in the struggle against evolutionary wiring.

Before information can make it to your brain it travels through a nerve bundle in the brain stem — the Reticular Activating System (RAS).
The RAS places a filter on the insane amount of sensory information coming into the brain. That way you can exist without experiencing debilitating information-overwhelm every second of the day.

This filter really shines when it comes to something threatening you.
Only information pertaining to surviving the threat will filter through: escape routes, weapons, enemy weaknesses, etc.
But we live cushy lives compared to our nature-dwelling ancestors, so what use is this RAS?

Ever been in a room full of random chatting but distinctly heard your name mentioned?
Heard a baby’s soft cry over the distorted guitar you’re playing?
Said you hate a song and now it’s the only song anyone ever plays? (suggestion: stop lying, you love that song)

The RAS connects the conscious with the unconscious.
Your name, the baby crying, and that song you “hate” have been deemed important by your conscious mind.
The filtered information allows name, baby cry, and song to come through every single time, unconsciously.

Try this.

You’re prompted to focus your attention on how many times the players wearing white shirts pass the ball.
So your RAS does exactly as it’s told: watch the white shirts, count the number of passes.
You perceive everything that is happening in the video, but your brain becomes aware of the chosen foci (white shirts, ball passing).
In order to stay focused on the task, all other information is filtered out.

Looking isn’t the same as seeing.

Essentially, the RAS finds the proof you’re looking for in order to validate a belief.
You experience arousal every time you see, hear, or feel what you’re looking for.
And the small price you pay is limited attention.

Dr. Andrew Huberman gives a valuable explanation of the RAS and its many different roles.
In the interview he talks about how reticular nerves operate our emotional facial expressions.
This may be why smiling is suggested during meditation or breathing exercises — the smile is the belief being validated.

Unfamiliar with Huberman?? Say his name three (3) times and let your RAS do the rest.
Or just succumb to the algorithm. They’re both filters.

We have this filter sifting through information headed for the brain.
It’s rarely being used as a survival mechanism in our mostly unthreatened lives.
And sometimes it just makes things more annoying (like that song you deny loving).

But it’s also an opportunity to focus your attention on what you want.

Focus on intent.

If you don’t focus your brain on something, it will find things that arouse reaction.
This is why so many people enjoy focusing on politics, but so few try to engage in any sort of discourse.
The arousal is addictive and the intent attached to it is typically very negative (think: intent to…).

Intent is your aim or purpose. It’s what you tell your brain to focus on.

If I tell my brain to focus on a group of people as my enemy, it will find evidence for this belief.
If I tell my brain to focus on my failures and inabilities, it will find evidence for this belief.
And if I tell my brain to stop thinking about these two examples, it will continue finding evidence proving these beliefs.

If you can’t order your brain to do something, then what is there to do?

Focus on intent.
Intend to be grateful.

One of the best ways to help your mind focus on positive things is to spend time in a state of gratitude.
For some this is writing in a gratitude journal. Others prefer prayer. Still others act out their gratitude by sharing.
Everyone has a way to gratitude. Paying attention to gratitude will help filter negativity and focus positivity.

A few weeks ago I started telling the water I drink I love you.
This was influenced by the ideas of Dr. Masaru Emoto, who claimed that the way you speak to water impacts its shape and structure.
He also tested cooked rice.
The rice receiving I love you fermented, while the rice receiving I hate you rotted.

Learn how to say Je t’aime and share it with someone. Hearing I love you in another language may arouse something…

This experiment has been replicated in so many different ways and, as you may have expected, with mixed results.
But I’m not really interested in the validity of parapsychology (in this case transferring my emotional energy to water).

Whether or not the water receives your intention isn’t important.
What’s important is the personal result of the expressed intention.

Gratitude isn’t an important practice because of its effect on other people or things (although that may be a byproduct).

It’s important because of what YOU experience practicing gratitude.

Just the same, when I thank the water entering my body I’m not focused on how the water may be reacting to my appreciation.

I visualize the water diffusing throughout my body.
I think about the many bodily processes that rely on movement of water.
The moment it touches my parched tongue I appreciate the ease with which I can find water and that my experience of thirst is near-nonexistent.

I know that without this molecule I will not survive.
I am humbled by water. So I express appreciation for it.

Appreciating water brings me back into myself and cuts out all the noise of daily life.
Our automated actions like drinking water or eating food become individual experiences.
I am not simply drinking for hydration. I am drinking to feel the water give me life.
I am not eating to avoid hunger. I am eating to nurture my body.

These habits lead me into valuing each moment with appreciation.

I breathe more deeply throughout the day because I am thankful for the breath.
I devote my attention to a conversation because I am grateful for the connection. 

These habits are invaluable and may, at most, cost a moment of time. 

There is a catch phrase that goes with many different movements — If you’re not angry, you’re not paying attention.

But there is a serious flaw with this logic.
When you are angry you have chosen a specific filter for the information coming in.
The information that makes it to your brain will be focused on validating your angry belief.

Sounds unproductive.

I offer a revision of the phrase — If you’re grateful, you’re paying attention.

Connect the conscious & unconscious mind by focusing on gratitude.
Your brain will begin to seek out information to validate your belief in gratitude.

From this place of gratitude, set your intentions.

Your intent can change day-to-day depending on what you’re working to accomplish or how you’d like to see yourself.
It may be focused on a long-term goal (career, family) or something more immediate (interaction with partner).

Navigating your goals through the filter of gratitude will focus your brain on the positive.

Your need for a negativity bias may diminish.
Your experience of fight-or-flight may become rare and tailored to extremes.
And the inspiration to accomplish your goals will come as people and potential.

Know your power.

Intend to be grateful.