WHEN
“MAKE ME FEEL-BETTER” IS NOT ENOUGH…..
I have just got back from a wonderful
long holiday break when, for most of May, my husband and I undertook a trip in
the South-west of the USA visiting many new and wonderful places in our
travels. We got back a few days ago and I woke this morning with a feeling of
“ugghhh” – a feeling I have experienced before when I have returned from
holiday and am back to “reality”, or as some might put it, “the same-old
same-old”.
The
Big Sur, California
So I took some time to just sit with this
“ugghhh” and noticed first it had various qualities – of being stuck, of being
boring and yet perversely also stressed; and that this was coming from my body being
hyper-aroused and the stuck boring bit was a sense of in some way being closed down .
So I decided to use the combination of two body-based approaches I have been
experimenting with, whilst away travelling, to go deeper into what my body was
trying to tell me.
The two approaches are those of using tapping
as described by Jessica Ortner (1) and cultivating my ability to listen to my IGS,
or Inner Guidance System a process of connecting with one’s life purpose
identified by Zen DeBrucke (2)
So this morning I first acknowledged
(using Zen DeBrucke’s IGS approach) that something in me was closed - I could
so feel this in my body which felt flat, stuck and somehow shut down place. And
following Zen’s protocol I was able to recognise that in myself that I was
believing something that was not true for me.
At this point I had no idea what this was
but I knew my body was stuck in hyper –arousal – that condition where one’s
body feels stressed, there is muscle tension in the jaw, neck and shoulders etc.
I also find that when I am stuck in hyper-arousal my thinking is often going
fast but also stuck – I call this hamster-wheel thinking. This is exactly where
I was at and I knew thinking would not get this place to shift as it is a
sub-cortical brain process what was needed was a way to help my body shift out
of this place of tension.
So I then started using the tapping
protocol of Jessica Ortner; this uses a series of using your fingers to tap on
certain acupressure/meridian points in the body and at the same time focusing
on a phrase that clearly states how I was feeling. So I started by working with
the initial statement that “I feel stuck, shutdown, bored and stressed – and I
love and accept myself”, as I worked through a series of tapping rounds, I
found, as in previous tapping experiences, that my body was able to calm down and
start to relax.
As the hyperarousal in my body diminished
I found that the statement was spontaneously changing (as I had discovered
whilst away) and what came was an awareness of yearning for something new,
exciting and different, a real craving for the excitement of novelty… and then
an ah-ha moment. I recalled reading something, a few weeks ago, about the
brain’s constant seeking for the new and novel – an evolutionary adaptation
which led has man to constantly explore and make new discoveries.
So I googled the brain and its desire for
the new and novel and amongst a range of information I found an article
published in the Huffington Post by Russell Poldrack, a neuroscientist from the
University of Texas in Austin (3) which
really gripped my attention. In essence what
Poldrack explains is that it’s all about dopamine, a neurotransmitter in the
brain, which has long been seen as the “feel-good” neurotransmitter but Russell
Poldrack has a slightly different name for it which, to me and my experiences,
fits much better: he calls it the “gimme more” transmitter. Dopamine is
involved with so many “gimme more” experiences such as eating chocolate,
shopping, sex, winning, - any new and “exciting” pleasure. In short dopamine
seems to be a key neurotransmitter that is released in the brain when we have a
hedonistic experience.
Hedonism is all about pleasure and the enjoyable
– that first wonderful taste of a melt-in-the-mouth dessert, the wow of an
unexpected gift that is just what one wanted. What gives us the “I love this …gimme
more” is the dopamine that is released in the brain. And then I realised that I
had had a lot of dopamine experiences on my travelling.
One experience, in particular, stood out for
me from our trip, and it was the moment I looked out of my hotel window
situated plum in the middle of Monument Valley Colorado and saw this:
It was so amazing it literally took my
breath away and I felt tears come to my eyes – it was truly awesome. It is a
moment I will never forget, a memory I will always hold. And yet, here is the
thing – within a few hours it no longer had the same impact, I looked out the
window at this amazing natural phenomenon and still found it very beautiful but
that initial “wow” in me had gone. It was no longer novel and new, if was
familiar. And that’s how hedonism is – very transitory. So you buy this perfect
brand new car or new top you have so wanted and yet within a short time it is
no longer “special” and the pull for another dopamine-hit is back…
My work as a wellbeing practitioner is
about teaching people how to connect with and cultivate a body-based feel-good
supportive inner resource and what I realised this morning, as I sat with my
new awareness of dopamine and the “gimme more” syndrome was that, to me, the
gimme more feeling is not the same thing as the “feel-good” I aim to help my
clients discover within themselves. Rather to me the “gimme more” feeling is
actually more a quick-fix to make me “feel better”, often a way of blocking
more uncomfortable feelings that something in me does not want to face. And a
dopamine-hit experience can do this - in
that moment of biting into that piece of chocolate I can feel so much better: but
as soon as the chocolate is swallowed and its sensory impact is fading, the
pull for more can kick in, as the unwanted feelings start to resurface, and this
is the down-side. “Feel-better” based on a dopamine hit is very transitory affair
and we are so often left just wanting more and more….
Additionally I realised that over the
course of our driving trip we had covered over 2600 miles and that this had
been a series of dopamine moments – of new places and novel experiences and
that my brain was now suffering a little from dopamine withdrawal as there is
little new or novel about doing the post-holiday laundry, particularly when you
have been away for over 3 weeks…
Once I had been able to recognise this
dopamine withdrawal effect in me I then was able to connect with the useful
learning I have gained from the Positive Psychology movement to find a way to
let go of the “ugghhh” place I had been in and to replace it with a much more
positive inner state of enjoyment and contentment.
Positive psychology recognises the
important role of making life enjoyable that hedonistic pleasures can give us
and they are an important part of engaging with life positively. However there are
two other ways we can cultivate positivity and feel-good in our lives that are
less transient and have a deeper more long-term positive impact on us. They
describe these two ways as a eudaimonic experience in which one achieves that a
contented state of being happy and healthy and prosperous in a gentler and more
internal way than that which we get from hedonistic pleasures.
These two other experiences are those of achieving
“flow“ and, secondly, being able to find meaning and purpose for one’s self from
an experience or activity. And so, knowing this, I was able to recognise that
actually what I was needing was not yet more new and novel experiences, giving
me yet another transient dopamine hit, but something else entirely: to find a
way to create flow and also a deeper meaning for myself out of my travelling
experiences.
Flow is that state we can find ourselves in when we are really
absorbed in doing something we enjoy such as gardening, painting, sailing etc and,
for me, one way of being in flow is engaging in creative writing – so putting
this blog together very much offers me a chance to derive a deeper level of
positivity from my recent travel experiences. Flow is a place which has a very
subtle emotional quality – to me this is a deep sense of contentment and
expansion – very different to the “hit” of the dopamine-inducing hedonistic
pleasure. I find it has a far longer impact on me – a sense of real
satisfaction and fulfilment afterwards that I can reconnect with often years
later as I recall the experience.
So as I engaged in the tapping protocol I found that my thinking
shifted and expanded to be far more open and creative as my body moved out of
hyperarousal into a far more relaxed state and my thinking was no longer
blinkered and negative, as I had experienced earlier when stuck in “ugghhh”
mode.. As my body calmed I was able to recognise that what I really needed was
not another dopamine-hit but an experience of flow and ideally also that of
creating a deeper sense of meaning from my travel experiences. In recognising I
would benefit from finding an activity that felt positive and which would
absorb me I immediately knew I would like to create this post. And putting it together has indeed achieved a
positive shift in my internal experiencing.
I also recognised that some of what I had
seen and experienced on my travelling also could offer me an opportunity to
explore, at a deeper level, an archetypal meaning to be found in the amazing
power and tenacity of Nature that is pertinent both to myself and other living
creatures but also about the universe to which we all belong.
During our travelling we spent quite a
bit of time in the desert areas of SW USA and one of the things that really
struck me about the desert, which is particularly arid at the moment due to
this region suffering a major drought for several years, is just how determined
Mother Nature is to find a way to create growth where ever possible. Even in
the most dry and desiccated places where one would not have thought any life
form could survive at all I could see tiny little plants thrusting through the
rocks and sand.. There is a determination and persistence about those scrubby
plants of the desert which, I found, very beautiful and they offer a symbol of
how, even in the most inhospitable of terrains, it is possible find the
nutrients to grow if we seek them out as these plants do.
On our last full day in the USA we were staying in Austin, Texas
and we went to the Botanical gardens. Here I discovered a beautiful Japanese
garden, full of Acers – a tree I really love but then I discovered something
especially poignant – this garden had been created by one man, a Mr Taniguchi.
His story and how he came to make this garden touched me deeply and to end this
blog I would like to share it.
The Austin History Center tells his story:
“Isamu Taniguchi was born in Osaka, Japan .He migrated to
Stockton, California in 1915 where he continued to farm for many years during
which time he returned to Japan only once--to marry his childhood sweetheart. During
World War II, he and his family were placed in a detainment camp for Japanese
Americans. After the war he moved his family to the Rio Grande Valley where he
continued to raise vegetables and cotton, but always made room for some
flowers. He sent his two sons, Alan and Isumu, to the University of Texas at
Austin. It was Alan who convinced his father to move to Austin upon his
retirement in 1967.
Taniguchi wanted to give the city of Austin a gift of an
oriental garden. It would be his gesture of gratitude to the city that had
provided an education for his two sons. The Parks and Recreation Department in
conjunction with the Austin Area Garden Council agreed that such a generous
gift could not be ignored. There was no contract, no design, and no blueprints
of any kind because--as Taniguchi explains--gardens are not created by such
methods. Instead, the plans for the Oriental Gardens existed only in
Taniguchi's mind, in his soul and in his heart. He died in 1992.”
But for me the most poignant part of this
garden was the teahouse, constructed of bamboo and cedar, and it bears a plaque
inscribed with an essay written by Taniguchi--"The Spirit of the
Garden"--which describes the garden and the man who created it:
"When a man, with such pure appreciation in his peaceful
mind, tries to compose with stones, grass, and water in order to create one
unified beauty--the formation is called a 'garden'. In this context, the garden
is the embodiment of the peaceful coexistence of all the elements of nature.
It has been my wish that through the construction of this
visible garden, I might provide a symbol of universal peace. By observing the
genuine peaceful nature of the garden, I believe that we should be able to
knock on the door of our conscience, which once was obliged to be the slave of
the animal nature in man rather than of the humanity which resides on the other
side of his heart. It is my desire for the peace of mankind which has endowed
this man of old age the physical health and stamina to pile stone upon stone
without a day's absence from the work for the last 18 months. It is my desire
for peace of mankind which encouraged me in my voluntary labor to complete this
long-dreamed gift for the city of Austin--this 'Oriental Garden'. It is my wish that you
have pleasant communion with the spirit of the garden."
For me, Mr Taniguchi exemplifies
wellbeing – there is an enormous sense of flow about the garden and the plaque
clearly describes how he found a way to create positive meaning to the
suffering he and his family experienced due to being Japanese living the USA
during WW2. But Mr Taniguchi also created a space which offers many sensory
delights – dopamine hits as we all need our dopamine moments of pleasure too.
REFERENCES
1. “The Tapping Solution for
Weight Loss and Body Confidence: A Woman's Guide to Stressing Less, Weighing
Less and Loving More” Jessica Ortner http://jessica-ortner.com/
3.
Russell Poldrack -
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