grapplings and giving-ups as I retrain my brain

The question that drove this post: “is your brain the missing link to your training?”

…

I ran a very body-based approach for many, many years.

From the time of my first big depression I’d say—when I discovered the magic of yoga and meditation, I assigned all healing power to the soma (body). The head was too painful a package to address. I figured, the mind is the enemy and—like any human wanting an escape, oversimplified the process in a binary way. Body, good. Brain, bad.

This is a mental heuristic we all use, subconsciously, when needing mental homeostasis.

Examples:

We try two jams—one blueberry and one strawberry. When we eat the blueberry one, we close a sale. When we eat the strawberry one, we are rejected. The blueberry one must be good, and the strawberry one bad.

We take two paths to the top of the same mountain. When we take the east-going path, we get up to the top unscathed. When we take the west-going path, we fall and scrape a knee. The east-path must be good, and the west-path bad.

We listen to two songs—one rap and one jazz. When we bop to the rap, we finally get a response to an email we’ve been waiting on for a while. When we groove to the jazz, our message goes unanswered. Rap must be good, jazz bad.

The initial benefit of categorizing experiences as good v. bad is it gives us a sense of comfort in understanding how things work. We all have that drive to understand how things work. However, using the same mental trick that provided comfort for a time being for your whole life is a dangerous, slippery slope into false thinking.

For instance, the first time you tried the jams, hiked the mountain, and listened to the two genres of music, you noticed a pattern. But just because it happened once does not mean it will happen that way forever. Likewise, just because one method of training worked for you once does not mean it will work for you forever.

As good as it can feel to get that initial hit of dopamine during the “aha!” moment or phase of feeling like you’ve mastered something, it is always important to be aware that the lesson is always changing.

This can be unsettling for many—and I’ve been there.

To think you know exactly how it works—whatever “it” is, and then learn that you have to scratch your previous knowingness and become a beginner once again with a fresh mind open to learning new truths is initially a very very frightening place to be. It can feel cold, dark, lonely and never-ending. To not go back to old habits that provided a sense of comfort or confidence.

But here is the thing: if they weren’t working for you, or dare I say—they were making things worse for you—are you really giving up anything meaningful?

On the flip, what are you gaining? Your life. Your peace of mind. Your energy. Your whole world.

That’s how destructive limited thinking and rule-setting can be, if it is not rooted in evidence of the present moment.

This is something we see in anyone who has experienced a trauma that gets “lodged in the brain.” The limbic system sends out alarm signals that “something needs to be fixed” or “there is an emergency” when there the threat is not there. Big distinguishing factor: it’s not that your brain isn’t perceiving a threat, it’s that it is so sensitized and afraid of a certain stimuli/category of stimuli that it sets off its bells when a micro-measure of a previous threat…as stored in the memory, is perceived.

It can feel hopeless, powerless, and completely unfair to live in a brain like this.

What you need to know and need to remember is this: YOU CAN ALWAYS CHANGE YOUR BRAIN, AND IN DOING SO, YOU CAN ALWAYS CHANGE YOUR LIFE.

Just like you can groove negative patterns into the brain: patterns of fear, self-abuse, self-aggression, rage, and a general sense of helplessness, you can choose to groove positive patterns into the brain: patterns of love, self-kindness, self-compassion, peace, and a general sense of capableness across all situations of life.

Here is the juice (drink it up): the choice of who to become is yours, again and again.

Much like skiing down a mountain graced with a fresh sky-celebration of pow pow, every thought you practice and every action you take blazes a unique trail. With every thought you give your attention to and every action you take, you are either strengthening a brain pathway or weakening a brain pathway.

And, guess what? IT IS NEVER TOO LATE.

The brain is a regenerative, resilient, and endlessly creative organ. Feed it positive input, and it will grow a positive garden of thoughts, beliefs, ideas, and values. Feed it negative input, and it will be overgrown with weeds that take over any flowers or fruits in sight.

It’s a pretty metta thing to say, but I am learning a lot about the brain these days.

And I am a believer that, if you train your brain the right way—no matter how much grappling and giving-up it might be preceded by, everything you want to be will follow.