Category: Psychology

Choosing and Unchoosing

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This weekend I have been reflecting on two different aspects of choice.

The first comes from my work with people who are wrestling with difficulties in their life. One area which I focus on is helping them with decisions. What is sometimes hard to accept is that when we choose something, it means that we un-choose something else. The root meaning of the word decision comes from the latin decisio meaning to cut or split. Inevitably something is cut out or let go of. What we work towards is that the person makes the choice and is able to stand over that choice. In other words, we are on this planet for a lifetime, and we wish to arrive at our final days with a realization that our choices have not led to regrets.

However there is a second reflection on choice. Sometimes people arrive at a stage in their life having let go of something or made choices for one aspect of their life over another. They have neglected deep aspects of themeselves or not developed all of their potential, out of fear or by following normal conventions. In these cases, the unchosen parts of their lives, if not fully processed, become the problem, by going underground and reappearing later to cause difficulties. What we need to realize is that true fulfillment only comes by integrating all the aspects of our selves into our choices, not by neglecting them.

Permission

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Was noticing yesterday how we can often give others a lot of control over how we act and change our normal behaviour because of our anticipation as to how they may react or think about us. In other words, we have an internalized thought or belief as to what others or our peers or society would approve of and modify what we do because of that. Often these changes are fear-driven and limit our freedom to do what we would normally do. The speed of this reflex to “check in” with others is astonishing and most times we do it even without noticing. However, because as humans we always have a need to be consistent, we find ourselves commenting to ourselves in order to justify this change in behaviour. We make excuses for our inconsistency. During my years of training to be a therapist one experienced therapist said to me in Supervision “Always watch the excuses“. And when we notice the excuses in ourselves we often see that we are seeking permission from or consulting with scripts or models in our heads and measuring our behaviour against those models, and then making up a story to justify the gap.

One of the reasons why we practice meditation and other forms of mental training is to see the models which exist in our minds – the stories we tell ourselves – and to reduce their power over us. What mindfulness focuses on is increasing our inner freedom in order to reduce the sources of inconsistency and suffering. We try to be able to stop and ask “Who am I in this moment” and “what do I actually want“. In this way we drop more into the present and notice the reflexive asking of permission. We make our choices based on ourselves not on looking to others. If we can do this, we increasingly act out of love not fear, regradless of the consequences or what people think.

How to grow

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We become whole
through relationships
and through letting go
of relationships

Freud

Richard Davidson on how the brain can change

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An excerpt from Dr. Richard Davidson’s keynote address on contemplative neuroscience at the Center for Mindfulness 7th Annual International Conference, March 2009

Healthy Minds

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I have already written about the work of Richard Davidson Ph.D on the effects of meditation on the shape and function of the brain. He is now the Director of the Laboratory for Affective Neuroscience at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he is learning that the brain can be trained and shaped to be more positive and resilient.

On May 16th, the Dalai Lama will inaugurate there the Centre for Investigating Healthy Minds, which has as its focus contempklative neuroscience – “the study of healthy qualities of mind“. It aims to study how meditation practices can play a role in changing the mind in a positive manner.

Learning to understand how positive qualities such as attention, concentration, clarity, cooperation and kindness can affect the brain will allow scientists to develop interventions to nurture these capacities in children and adults so that they can be more attentive, focused, loving, forgiving and compassionate.

Check out their website: http://www.investigatinghealthyminds.org/index.html

To belong

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Consciousness begins when brains acquire the power,
the simple power I must add,
of telling a story.

Antonio Damasio

We construct our personal identity out of the experiences which we have had in our lives. As I have written before, we begin to put these experiences into a narrative from teenage years onward and this narrative guides our behaviour in every moment. It provides a frame for how we see the past and, even more importantly, how we see the future developing. We use this as a means of providing some degree of coherence and purpose to our everyday lives. Part of our story comes from where we feel we belong, our family and place. As I was in the concert the other evening I heard melodies which evoked feelings of home, memories of places and a sense of belonging.

This need to belong is a very strong part of each one of us. It is linked with our sense of identity, of who we are. The music reminded me of the roots of my identity. However, I notice as we grow older, we tend to link that identity much more to relationships and get our sense of belonging there. We still want to find our place, yes, but much more we seek it in the lives of others. We seek to be remembered, to leave a mark. Growing as adults does not cancel that fundamental need. We are always looking for that mirroring or holding which shows that our own deepest self, our full story, is being heard.