Neuron tangles
Image credit: Anthony Mattox’s series Neuron Fractal, made with computer script
Originally published on Medium on Dec 11, 2016
The following is a bit free-range, in response to a conversation I had with a friend on how to overcome rage and anxiety responses. He asked for my thoughts, and it turned into this missive.
Let me start by saying that there is no way of talking about this stuff without sounding self-helpy; since our culture doesn’t really have a good framework for talking about self-actualization and feeling at home in and resonant with the world, we flail around a lot and use dorky metaphors and vague terms. That’s OK. It’s what we have to work with. Context is the key to not using a shallow sound bite.
Over the past few months I have been trying to formulate some kind of structure for my thoughts on how to live a life that feels good to live, and it’s been elusive. There were so many things this year that I examined and experimented with to try to define an approach, and maybe even to define a system that works. I don’t think I have anything coherent yet, but each one of these conversations I have helps my understanding emerge a little more. I thank you for this opportunity to mull it over some more.
I began with looking at my rage response, which is a result of too many concussions. I read books, I looked at the physiological aspects, and at the ways pathways are formed in the brain. I wanted a *system*, damn it.
What I discovered is yes, there’s a biological piece, but there’s a cultural context as well. In our current media landscape there is much made of negative and scary events because they’re sensational and headline-grabbing, and “feel-good” stories are given much less weight. We learn that happiness and positivity is frivolous and not to be taken seriously. I would argue the exact opposite. Without those positive narratives, we feel overwhelmed and bleak.
In my case, biological response + cultural malaise = some pretty dark times. Given my history of punk rock and at times flat-out nihilism, being semiconscious for whole years of my life as a result of overindulgence of various substances, and other madcap avoidance schemes, I realized that I had to look bigger than just my rage, and start actually rewriting the stories that I tell myself.
We don’t have strong social fabric, we don’t have much in the way of religion, and if we fuck up, we can fall pretty hard. I keep wondering how people can self-actualize when they have to keep going back to square one: feeding their families, paying for wellness and health care, making the rent or mortgage so they have a place to live. It’s hard, and I don’t have an answer to this except that we need to have better stories as a society.
Stories are the oldest form of human communication, and they shape our reality. If we don’t pick good stories, the ones we end up with are probably going to be suboptimal. These days, we have a lot of societal stories of division, of us-vs-them, and of no-one-will-take-care-of-me-but-myself. That’s anxiety-producing, and activates the primitive angry part of the brain. The capacity to emphasize the negative rather than the positive most likely is an evolutionary phenomenon; from our earliest beginnings being aware of and avoiding danger has been a critical survival skill.
In our brains, there are two different systems for negative and positive stimuli. The amygdala (responsible for anger, anxiety, and other “base” reactive emotions) uses approximately 2/3 of its neurons to detect negative experiences, and once the brain starts looking for bad news, it is stored into long-term memory quickly. Positive experiences have to be held in our awareness for more than twelve seconds in order for the transfer from short-term to long-term memory. Rick Hanson, author of Buddha’s Brain, says: “The brain is like Velcro for negative experiences but Teflon for positive ones.”
This means that happiness is not a destination. it’s not something you attain. Happiness is something you teach yourself to notice, it’s part of the story that you tell yourself to contextualize your life. You have to rewire your brain for happiness.
When something shitty happens, get yourself to see if there’s anything also good about the situation, even if it’s just: “Hey, I got out of bed and put on my clothes and had an adequate day.” Sometimes, I joke: “Hey, at least I still got my liver” (believe me, that’s a minor miracle, given my previous selves). Eventually, you will start to focus more on the stuff that worked and to tell yourself better stories.
Also, linear time is an external construct, and therefore when reprogramming your neurons to find better pathways, you can do it after the initial reaction. When I first started reading the neuroscience-of-anger books, I was very dismayed because I felt like I could never get out in front of the amygdala. Then I realized that you could find a new perspective after the fact.
When you feel your anxiety response triggered, say “I notice that”; recognize your response, so that part of your brain feels heard and can relax somewhat. Then ask yourself if you can tell a different story to yourself about what just happened. Recontextualize the event, as soon after you notice the anxiety reaction. Eventually, your brain will start to have a larger response than just flat anxiety, and it won’t be so stark. And in those places comes the relief from anger and anxiety — there’s a little more space for things to happen.
It’s a practice. It’s not unicorns and blowing sunshine up your own ass, but it is teaching yourself to look for the good in things, however small. Some days I’m still raged out, and I have to let that be it’s thing. Usually, I haven’t had enough sleep or there are external factors. Trying to deny these times is not looking at the truth of the situation, and when you move away from truth, a lot of unwanted stuff can creep in.
Say the word “and” a lot. Allow for more than one truth. Like, “fuck this, I hate today, and hey… that’s a really gorgeous tree.” (that’s my rage voice, *and* me noticing something good). Stop saying the word “but” — it’s defensive and it negates whatever came before it in the sentence. Say “and” instead. Allow for more than just the binary, the zero-sum game.
The other thing that helped me was to give myself a place for my spiritual nature. This is an uncomfortable topic for us Americans, and I think that our loss of spirituality has caused much angst and disconnect. We don’t have a good way of orienting to ourselves, each other, or our society. We have lost most of our ways of marking and celebrating the seasons, of recognizing and celebrating milestones, and even just recognizing each other and getting recognized. I think that’s why social media is so addictive. We get tangible recognition for our posts, but it fades pretty quickly because there is no larger structure of values to hold it.
I think it’s a whole nutha post about what I’ve learned in my Northern European shamanic practices classes, but suffice to say, I recommend everyone find a spiritual practice. A lot of people meditate, or do tai chi, and some even have found great experiences in more formal congregations. Heck, John Muir’s spiritual practice was nature. Anyone who says stuff like: “Keep close to Nature’s heart and break clear away once in awhile and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods Wash your spirit clean.” and “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.” is a spiritual person. Find yours.
As a user experience designer, I believe that all systems can be optimized, even within ourselves. I think it’s important to create a system for our own lives, some sort of compass to help us triage all of the stuff we have to deal with, a sort of shorthand for deciding what’s in or what’s out, what is truly important, or what can be put aside. We can find better stories to tell ourselves, and each other. We can learn to be happy, more and more.
