Time traveling

 Time traveling is one of the superpowers of being human. 

    This is not science fiction. It's fact. We do it all the time! 

    When you recall something wonderful, or something traumatic, so vividly that you even feel the same emotions you had at that time... When you worry about what might happen tomorrow, or some other time, at some future event, or if something bad might occur, or when you imagine how great it will be when say, you and your fiancee are finally married, or you finish a school project you are excited about... You are, essentially, as far as your brain knows, time traveling.

    The human brain does not differentiate between something that is happening right now in the present moment and something you are remembering that happened in the past, or envisioning happening in the future. The emotional triggering in your brain of such things will initiate the same neurobiological reactions as if these were happening in the present moment, preparing your body for battle, or relaxing it for pleasure. This can even happen when you are just watching an emotion-evoking drama (or comedy) on a screen.

    For example,  if you had a bad car accident, or a bad argument with someone, and you find your thoughts going back to that incident, ruminating on what happened, playing it over and over in your mind, your body will have the same neurophysiological responses. Your heart rate speeds up, your breathing become shallow. Your attention narrows so that you are focused just on that memory, unable to think about other things. Your stomach may clench up along with your muscles, and you may get colder, as blood retreats from your hands and feet to fuel larger muscles (part of the mind-body fight or flight reaction), or a dry mouth. Emotionally you will feel those same emotions--fear, anger, frustration, regret or sadness. Even though you are not really, right now, driving, not having a car accident, or not with the person you had that argument with.

    Robert Sapolsky used a humorous example to illustrate what our minds do in his book, Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers. Imagine zebras roaming around on the plains of Africa, and a lion comes and attacks. The zebras all run to get away, but the lion takes one down. If zebras were like people, they might regroup at the waterhole and talk about what just happened--how horrible it was, how awful that Zebra Zed got his throat ripped out, and gosh, what if the lion comes back? Who will get eaten next? And on and on, day after day... 

   Of course, they don't do that. They are animals, not people! Once the lion has claimed its victim, the zebras, after running off, begin to calm back down. The threat has passed, so their brain sends signals to shut down all that excitement and physiological changes that the threat caused. They can stop running, they can go back to eating, even procreating if that is on the agenda. Life goes on,

    Only people would keep revisiting the horror of the attack over and over, worrying about what they could have done to help Zed, or about when the next one might happen... That's why, in a nutshell, it's not wild zebras that get the stress illnesses we humans do in such great numbers! Cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, anxiety issues, COPD, et cetera.

    When people remember or imagine bad things happening, even though such things are not actually happening at that time, we have the same neurophysiological responses as if they were, even as if the bad thing were really life threatening (which they rarely are). What if...? Or, What will I do if...?

 What if I lose my job? 

What if I am late and the boss notices? 

What if I don't know what I am doing and make a huge mistake? 

What if my wife doesn't love me anymore? 

What if that person is mad at me? 

What if I get nervous and make a fool of myself?

   What if..., which people can do because we have a larger, more complex and highly developed brain than other animals, is one of the sources of great human suffering!

    On the other hand, What if... is also a source of tremendous invention, creativity, imagination, problem-solving, compassion, unity and healing, to name a few things. 

    Reflecting on past mistakes or tragedies can also be instructive and helpful, when done in a certain way, that is, with our powers of analysis and problem solving, our ability to imagine cause and effects, with compassion toward self and others, with our curiosity and adventurous spirit to try something new or different. Harnessing such powers, people have come up with some great ideas, like vaccines and cures for illnesses, designs for new technologies, or really cool story lines for their next book.

    While we can't physically travel back in time and change what happened, we can learn from it so that we can avoid making the same kind of mistake in the future, or learn something about ourselves that we need to work on, if we approach it with, again, curiosity and other positive emotions like determination, or excitement, which allow us to engaged that human-unique brain's powers of pattern-finding, ingenuity, and creativity.

 Here's a challenge: for the next day or so, try to notice when your thoughts are taking you into the past or into the future. Trust me, it happens a lot. Unless you have a regular meditation routine or other activity that keeps you in the present moment, your mind will be wandering, traveling in time, back and forth. No need to criticize yourself for doing it! Just notice. 

    Then as you get better at noticing this time traveling, whenever you do so, also make note of whether you are thinking about positive or negative things. If you find these are mostly negative, you are not alone. Many, if not most, people lean this way. And if you are one of them, you can increase your wellbeing, health, and overall enjoyment of life if you work on learning methods for decreasing stress and increasing positivity in your life.

If you find your thoughts are going mostly to positive things, on the other hand, take a moment to pat yourself on the back and bask in the knowledge that you are living well, and you are preparing your body and mind for healthy, resilient responses to whatever comes your way.

If you want help managing stress, anxiety, or getting over past traumas, losses, or phobias, I offer mind-body instruction in stress management and resilience for individuals and groups, and soon, Havening treatment. Contact me at managemystress@gmail.com. 

Loving-kindness Meditation--for this time of uncertainty, loss, and unprecedented change

May you be happy

May you be healthy

May you be safe

May your mind be at ease

 

This is a meditation called metta, a Pali word translated as loving-kindness. It is often incorporated with mindfulness meditation, a practice that is increasingly well-known and used, among other things, as a stress management tool. (More on that another time.)

 

Today I offer loving-kindness meditation for your self-care & well-being toolkit to use in this time of Covid19—and whatever else may be going on for you, those you care about, and those in your community.

 

You can do this valuable, fairly simple meditation anywhere, for a few minutes, or for longer. It is meant to help people struggling with difficult emotions, help us overcome feelings of self-doubt or negativity, change habitual negative thought patterns, and bring positive changes in attitude as we develop loving acceptance. Give it a try, whether you mediate, do mindfulness practice or not!

 

You can tweak the precise wording of the above phrases for a later meditation. For now, say these a few times in your head now to help you remember them. Change the pronouns to I/my and repeat, as you will do this in your meditation process as well. Better yet, write these phrases down on a piece of paper. If you forget while meditating, just look at the list. No points lost for opening your eyes, promise. 

Next, select 4 people to direct the metta phrases toward, according to the instructions below. List these names as well, putting yourself first. Having the names chosen and listed in advance will help you stay focused.

 

These are the suggested categories in a typical loving-kindness meditation:

 

1.     Yourself

     Cultivating loving acceptance toward yourself is the jumping off point. You may experience resistance initially, such as feeling unworthy, undeserving. If so, simply return your attention to the repetition in progress. This is not a practice where you denigrate yourself in order to uphold the happiness of others. All people want to be happy. This includes you, me, and everyone else. Directing metta toward yourself is the basis for cultivating your ability to genuinely love others.

 

2.     Someone you respect a lot. Alive, please.

 

3.     A friend or dearly loved person. If you wish to have a few here, I think that’s just fine. However, for your first time, see if you can just pick one, so as to ensure an experience where each ‘receives metta’ in equal amounts.

 

4.     A neutral person--someone you don’t dislike or like, who you see around, but have no strong feelings about one way or the other. 

 

5.     Someone you are having difficulty with. (Just one person…)

 

Again, some can struggle with #1 above initially. When you focus on yourself, you may feel uncomfortable, embarrassed, even selfish. You may be more skilled at thinking about yourself in terms of past mistakes, regrets, bad things we did to others or that happened to us. Habituated negativity, wherever it is directed, is not healthy for mind, body or spirit. 

 

Ever heard this one?

Holding on to anger is like drinking poison and hoping 

the other person will die.

 

Metta can be a tool to help you manage such negative feelings. (Note: We all get them. You Are Not Alone.) Loving-kindness meditation isn’t designed to increase selfishness or conceit; rather, it is a commitment to your own happiness and self-respect. It can have far-reaching effects, from turning off that pesky mind-body stress response to improving your physical health and the way you engage with others.

 

Often people find #2 and #3 above easiest. Your struggle may even be with whittling down to just one! Remember that YOU are the person benefitting directly from this meditation, so it’s not as if someone you don’t pick will miss out. For now, don’t worry the matter to death. Just pick one.

 

And #4 can seem challenging at first, especially now, when maybe you aren’t seeing many people, especially ones you don’t know. What about the person who checks you out most at the grocery, or who delivers your mail? Or the guy that walks by your house every day, getting his exercise? Relax. Pick one.

 

For #5, choose someone you’ve had conflict with, evokes in you fear, anger, or a resistance to forgive. Maybe don’t start with a person you are having the biggest interpersonal conflict with this first time. (If you are a trauma survivor, for right now pick someone less triggering than your current/past abuser.) Again, just pick one!

 

OK. You have your metta phrases. And you have your name list. 

 

Next, to set your first meditation, decide how many repetitions of the 4 phrases to do for each person. For instance, "I will repeat the 4 phrases 2 times for myself, and 2 times for each person on the list." If you have enough time, you can also go back to the top (yourself), and repeat the process once through, or more!

 

Eyes blink, birds sing, minds wander. That is the nature of minds, especially stressed or negative ones. Getting all these decisions out of the way before starting means less need / temptation to let your thinking mind (aka monkey mind) take over, fumbling around to remember people, evaluate them, choose who will be in slots 2-5, and then inevitably drift off into the jungle of who knows what sort of thinking, thereby interrupting your meditation.

 

As with mindfulness meditation, just notice when your mind wanders, without judging, and bring your attention back to this mantra-like repetition. If you forget where you left off, start over from the last person you remember you had in mind, or go back to the beginning, yourself, and start all over. Do this every time your mind wanders. 

No points off for starting over.

 

There will not be a test.

 

Ready to meditate?

Get into a comfortable position with your lists handy, in case you need reminders.

 

Take a few deep in-breaths, letting each out slowly, letting your body relax a bit more each time. Allow your breathing to  

s l o w   d o w n  

to a peaceful pace. Close your eyes if that is comfortable; otherwise, lower your gaze and let your eyes soften their focus.

 

Say to yourself, silently, one phrase per breath:

 

May I be happy

(breathe)

May I be healthy

(breath)

May I be safe

(breathe)

 

May my mind be at ease

 

(breathe)

 

Move on to the next person on your list. If you find it helpful, you can hold an image of that person in your mind, but this is not necessary. Change the pronouns of the 4 phrases above (from I to You, My to Your) and repeat the process, one phrase per breath.

 

After doing this for the last person on your list, repeat the process, if time.

 

And that is it!

 

By the way, the above 4 phrases are not set in stone. Google’ “metta phrases” for variations. Some substitute for the last one, “May you have peace,” or “May you live in peace” for instance. Choose/tweak for what rings best for you. Just keep it consistent through any given meditation to help you stay focused/return to focus. 

 

May you be happy. May you be healthy. May you be safe. May your mind be at ease….

A special gratitude to Dr. Gillian Galen of McLean Hospital, who presented a wonderful 3-part series, Meditation and Mindfulness for interested staff about 5 years ago, when I still worked there. I’ve drawn extensively from her presentations in this post.

Boosting Your Resilience Factor

Change is a tremendous source of stress and good or bad, change increase demands on your resilience. Whether it's relocating, buying a home, or selling one, a promotion, or losing a job, marrying, divorcing, a new baby, getting ill, or being the caregiver of someone with chronic illness—each stressor places demands on your brain and body’s complex, interwoven system. An overload reveals itself in physical and emotional aches, pains and illnesses, and can even trigger genetic expression of disease. Your ability to bounce back depends on how much resilience you have, and what tools are at your disposal to bolster it.

Advances in scientific understanding about the interactive body/brain /mind functioning continue to validate common, even ancient human wisdom for dealing with stress. Yet in our 21^st century society, we are biased toward new solutions, new medications, new interventions for whatever ails us. We want a pill, not a daily prayer and exercise routine! But new is not always best, nor necessary.

To build resilience, you need basically two things. 

First is a way to consistently, repeatedly, turn off your body’s stress response while turning on the opposite, known as the relaxation response. 

Then you need to also cultivate positive beliefs, emotions, and expectations. Together these will increase not just your well being, but also your resilience factor, and ensure you have the tools on hand, polished and ready to use, when needed.

You may already be aware of activities and beliefs that can strengthen stress management and resilience. Silly little expressions, like "Look on the bright side,” “Every cloud has a silver lining,” “Don't worry, be happy,” and even “Fake it till you make it” embody the cognitive tools required for resilience. Many spiritual teachings as well are affirmed by the findings of positive psychology research (a 21^st century field) and have actual neurophysiological manifestations. The more you learn about the science behind them, the more confidence you can have that they will work for you.

            

Exercise, of course, is widely recommended for managing stress and related conditions like anxiety and depression. But did you know that exercise is the fastest method for neurogenesis (brain neuron growth) of your human mission control center, the prefrontal cortex (PFC)? When you turn on the relaxation response, you are moving mission control from the threat/stress brain area (your amygdala) to the PFC, allowing you access to better planning, reasoning, emotional control and other higher executive functions, as well as to learning, memories, creativity, hope, love and all positive emotions. A thicker PFC and a less engaged amygdala correlate with greater resilience for bouncing back from life’s challenges, for creating value from whatever comes your way.

           

Other important stress-deactivating activities you can choose from include yoga, taichi, meditation, mindfulness practices, even prayer. Or weaving, or weight-lifting! In all cases, you just need to apply the basic components for evoking the body's relaxation response while engaged in the activity. It is a mind-body engagement, not a wandering mind opportunity. Maintain a single, nonthinking focus combined with a non-judging attitude, and  return to that focus when your mind wanders without beating yourself up about it. Focus, return to focus, return to focus.   

There are books, research, online tools, and classes to get your started. The Stress Management and Resilience Training (SMART) program at the Benson Henry Institute of Mind Body Medicine, an MGH affiliate, presents the research and opportunities to try out the most variety of methods. Class participation, versus trying to go it on your own, tends to elicit better results due to the mutual support and accountability of classmates and instructor. Whatever you choose, choose something. Reducing stress will provide you a greater sense of well being, improved relationships, and protect your short and long-term health.

Elisabeth Carter Ed.M., MFA, completed the training to provide SMART at the Benson Henry Institute in 2015. For information about her Metro-West (Boston) based program, visit www.managemystress.net or her blog at ECarterEdM.blogspot.com.

            

Positivity—It’s Not What You Think!

     When you hear "positivity," maybe you think of people who tout lines from songs, like “Don't worry, be happy” or “Always look on the bright side of things…” Or the somewhat pejorative expression in sentences like, “She’s such a Pollyanna!”

      Positivity doesn't refer simply to happiness or cheerfulness. It's much more complex—and interesting—than just say, having a positive attitude.

       Consider the opposite, negativity. Things that bring you down, that sap your energy, that make you angry or depressed, feel defeated or inferior, jealous, or critical of self or others—these are expressions, and sources, of negativity.

       Researcher Barbara L. Fredrickson offers 10 main sources of positivity (though there are more). Some of these may surprise you.
       As you read this list, think of occasions when you felt these emotions.

1. Gratitude. This emotion has been posited as the gateway to all the other positive emotions and is most worth cultivating for that reason. As Fredrickson explains in her book, Positivity*.  Gratitude opens your heart and carries the urge to give back—to do something good in return, either for the person who helped you or for someone else.” Paying it forward, in other words.
2. Joy: In this emotion, you are feeling safe and things are going much better than anticipated. “[T]he situations requires little effort on your part.”
3. Serenity: This is an emotion that arises on its own, not requiring you to make an effort to evoke. It "enters when your surroundings are safe and familiar... But unlike joy, serenity is much more low key.... a mindful state that carries the urge to savor your current circumstances and... integrate them into your life more often." 
4. Interest: OK, you say, really? Interest is positivity? Yes. When you are engaged, fascinated, urged to immerse yourself in something that has captured your attention, you are activating a positive-emotion part of the brain. You become more open, begin to learn, to make connections in new ways.
5. Hope: Another wonderful feeling, right? Fredrickson describes it as fundamentally “the belief that things can change. … Possibilities exist. … It motivates you to tap into your own capabilities and inventiveness to turn things around. It inspires you to plan for a better future.” Having positive plans and goals for the future is an important key to quieting negativity.
6. Pride: Wait, isn't this is a bad thing? “Pride goeth before a fall,” right?  This is not referring to the self-glorifying, chest-pounding, haughty sort of pride. Rather, it is the one that comes from a sense of accomplishment, of socially valued achievement. Having done the best you can in a socially contributive activity. It is tempered with appropriate humility. “[P]ride fuels the motivation to achieve.” Experiments show that “when people feel pride, they are more likely to persist on difficult tasks,” Fredrickson reports.
7. Amusement: This refers to a kinds of humor. It’s typically a surprise, makes you want to laugh, and is, by definition, “nonserious.” Caution: Sarcasm or making fun of someone else is not encompassed by the positivity sense of amusement. The underlying emotions of those activities are negative.
8. Inspiration: It may be spiritual, creative, intellectual. When you feel inspired, you are experiencing positivity.
9. Awe: How you feel when something takes your breath away—like seeing the Grand Canyon for the first time. The face of your child for the first time. The view at the top of the mountain before you ski down. An incredible piece of art. Also, amazement at what another person has done—without going to a place of jealousy or self-deprecation, of course.
10. Love: This one's obvious, right? The deep feeling of giving or receiving love is positive. It makes us feel safe, connected. Fredrickson goes even further, pointing out that it can encompass all of the other nine emotions listed above.

      Were you able to pause at any of the above to reflect on a time that you felt that emotion?

       If you paused long enough to savor that memory, chances are you evoked that same positivity again. In just such moments, you increase your positivity. You may even feel positive right now, having focused on (been interested by, engaged with) this subject.     

       We encounter negativity constantly—on the news, in the workplace, in our relationships, and in our own thoughts of self-doubt, worry, complaint, and so forth. Increasing our positivity is possible, though, and has numerous concrete benefits for our health, relationships and future circumstances.

       While the negative emotions have long been the sole focus of psychology, the newer field of positive psychology is interested in why we have positive emotions, why we developed them, and how to cultivate them.

        In her “broaden and build” theory, Fredrickson explains that positive emotions are future oriented, connecting, and protecting, while negative emotions are backwards looking, or at best, focused on the now (survival, getting through a difficult time). Positive ones “broaden our mind and expand our range of vision.”

       “At a fundamental level," she says, "…positivity alters your brain and changes the way you interact with the world.” Her research and various experiments validate her theory.

       The more positivity you have and the more you cultivate, the more positivity comes into your life. When you can achieve a ratio of about three positive emotional experience for every negative one, positivity begins to increase in an upward spiral, overtaking negativity, leading to an increasingly positive life.

       Want this?

       You can begin by employing behavior, thoughts, and attitudes such as practicing kindness, looking for value and constructive lessons even in the struggles and challenges that come your way, being sincere, and counting your blessings. Fight off the negative thoughts and worries by taking time to savor good memories and current positive circumstances often, instead of ruminating on the negative. Also, share your positive experiences (instead of, say, complaints)—relive them in the telling, re-experience the good emotions. This is a way to multiply their positive impact, and a fun way to increase your own positivity.

            As we learn from mind-body medicine and research, the body’s stress and relaxation responses—from your brain to your cells and even genes—positivity has real impact on the structure and functioning of your brain, on what your cells are doing, and hence on your health.

            For more detailed and encouraging discussion of her research and the cultivation of positivity, read Fredrickson's book, including its toolkit for raising your positivity and lowering negativity. And tune in here for other discussions. 

* Positivity: Top Notch Research Reveals the 3 to 1 Ratio that will Change Your Life

Visit ed.ted.com for several Fredrickson talks, starting with Barbara Fredrickson: Positive Emotions Open Our Mind.

Elisabeth Carter Ed.M., MFA, completed the training to provide SMART at the Benson Henry Institute in 2015. For information about her Metro-West (Boston) based program, visit www.managemystress.net.