Roads Untraveled

I am constantly reminded of the struggle of existence. The ego fights for survival. There is so much we are unaware of?happening in our mind?if?left?to its own devices. The mind is so incredibly powerful and fascinating! I listened to?Sam Harris |?#320 - Constructing Self and World over the Memorial Day weekend and the podcast explained how the mind constructs the world we see in terms of mathematical theory, specifically using Bayesian inference and hierarchical predictive processing. Dr. Chandaria explained that we "see" light waves that get transformed into a visual scene of shadows, light, color and shapes. We only can start naming these objects for what we think they are once we have "learned" how to interpret the patterns of light, shadow, shape and color as this thing. And this learned interpretation can be explained by a combination of?mathematical theories. Basically, when we think we see a tree, our brains pull up mental imagery from the past that are similar to what we currently "see" and then predicts whether or not it is reasonable to assume that what?we see is in fact a tree. In other words, we infer it is a tree (Bayesian inference) and then use hierarchical predictive processing to assess whether or not it makes sense to interpret the object?in front of us as a tree.

It is?fascinating to think that we are at a stage of enlightenment that can use mathematical frameworks and theories to explain how we interpret the world of sense perception. And the sheer fact that we have to reconstruct the world that we see every day is perhaps more interesting because it gives credence to this idea that we humans always bias our perceptions with some facet of experience that has taken hold and shaped our way of looking at the world. There is no straightforward visual or any other sense perception - there is always some sort of bias that we put on what we perceive, and that bias can come from many sources.

I think B. F. Skinner was the first to really popularize this idea - that we are conditioned by our experiences. In this case, Skinner demonstrated how animals can become trained over time through a stimulus, response repetitive process (called operant conditioning). If a dog gets a treat whenever he pushes the red button and nothing when he pushes the blue button, then it will start to only push the red button over time in order to get the reward (this is probably a poor example,?I?believe dogs are actually color blind!). This same process can be applied to mental states in that we can be conditioned to think in certain ways because of what we've experienced in our past.

What's really strange though is that we don't know it - all of the biases we have happen?subconsciously. We are very efficient beings and the more we repeat certain activities, they become ingrained and require less brain power to do. We don't think about driving a car, for example. Similarly, when I start to feel bad about myself because of something that happened "to me", I don't necessarily realize it until after the negative feeling has become so pervasive that it manifests itself through my behavior and I see the outcome on my?husband’s?face.

Reflecting back on those emotions,?and the subsequent events leading up to it,?demonstrated to me that the angry reaction to my husband for not responding to my text has absolutely nothing to do with him. It is all me. It is my baggage that biased the interpretation of the event. Instead of him just being busy or his phone was out of reach, it felt more like a betrayal of trust and full-on rejection. That line of inquiry runs deep. My sense of rejection from lack of attention can be traced back to my formative years and the distance that was between myself and my parents (both physical and emotional). That sense of loneliness and longing to belong and feel loved is still there. But now I recognize it for what it is and am able to be open and honest with this part of me and it no longer haunts me. What is crazy though is that my poor husband knows nothing of the mental struggle - he just saw me as getting irrationally upset over something silly. Two different worlds of interpretation. Knowing how we think and what makes us react in certain ways is so critical to a healthy relationship and it is fundamental to growth and being the best versions of ourselves.

Just like what I did to myself over a text, we cause our own suffering so much. I made it about me when it had absolutely nothing to do with me. Thank you EGO! It goes without saying that unless we understand our ego fully, we can live our lives for years destroying ourselves and others?without even knowing we are doing it. Or we may know we are doing it, recognize it, but then feel powerless to change anything. The great thing is that we really can make the change we want to see in ourselves. There is a way to find freedom, peace, and love - of ourselves and others - in such a meaningful way. We know the ego loves to make everything about itself and it strives to stay in control and looks for food so that it can get fed and grow. It may be that eating is the ego's sole purpose, I'm really not sure, but I see it time and time again. We feel great when the ego is being fed, but it can get dismantled so quickly,?too. This fleeting sense of excitement is not something sustainable and won't provide the answer to lasting happiness.

It may seem obvious that we are oblivious?as?to how interacting with other people has anything to do with our past unless we really unpack our reactions to events. We need to first be aware of a misalignment happening and then this will open up a line of inquiry into these emotional responses to our environments. Our past is deeply embedded in our current way of thinking and viewing the world.

Brene Brown is another person who also understands that external forces impact how we think and see the world. In the first couple of chapters of her book, "Atlas of the Heart", she said things that reminded me of my journey and then expanded way beyond! She gives a brilliant explanation of the various emotional states and traits and talks about how our past colors the mind's perceptions of the social world, and we use that lens to evaluate our emotional reactions in our bodies. An example she notes is of the emotion's "fear" and "excitement". Both emotions are the result of the same bodily response (fight or flight); but how we experience that emotion differs based on our mental state at the time. If we are thinking that we will die on the roller coaster because we've had a friend that died on one,?or?if?we are afraid of heights, then the experience of riding a roller coaster would produce an emotion of fear. Now if we love going fast, taking risks, and jumping out of airplanes, then the experience of riding a roller coaster would produce an emotion of excitement. How fascinating is that our past experiences really and truly shape how we see and interpret the world?

Brene makes another interesting point when she says, "people would do almost anything not to feel pain, including causing pain, ignoring pain and abusing power and there are very few people who can handle being held accountable for causing hurt without rationalizing, blaming, or shutting down..." This statement could explain so much in my world. I don't know about you, but my default is to go do things to help me ignore the pain I feel. I was so scared to feel the pain, the sadness, the guilt, the hurt, the "downs" of life that I would escape away through a novel, movie, or something worse! It was through therapy that I realized these negative emotional states were reactions to my world because of a negative core belief permeating my existence and it was this belief about myself that I was running from. This core belief said that I was not worthy of love. And because I fundamentally felt unworthy, I was in a constant state of anxiety, always trying to please others or prove myself as worthy.?The pain from rejection and loneliness as a child?that?manifests itself as self-doubt and skepticism as an adult.

My therapist helped me question that belief by asking questions that led?me to?understand that the belief was irrational and not actually true. Once I was free from that negative core belief, I started listening to various healing meditations at night before bed and found one called?Let Go of Anxiety, Fear & Worries: Guided Meditations for Harmony, Healing & Inner Peace - Album by PowerThoughts Meditation Club | Spotify. It was a deep dive into my psyche. Little Karen was alone again, rejected, sad, and lonely. I held her for a long time that night and told her she wasn't alone anymore and that I loved her. Cried with her. Stayed with her. And when she told me she was?“ok”?and she knew that I loved her, I went to sleep and when I woke up it was the beginning of a new world. Truly like a butterfly escaping from a cocoon, wings drying from the sun, and getting to open them up wide for the first time. That first breath was amazing. New life and lightness began to grow inside me. I could look back and see that the bottom was right there behind me and there was nothing but wide-open space in front of me: uncharted, raw and beautiful.

I never really understood until recently that how we feel and what we know about ourselves plays an important part in how well we can connect with others. Brene Brown also touched on this?and stated that our current approach to connectedness falls short. Interestingly, she notes, "It's surprising...how little other people seem to understand or even think about the connection between feelings, thinking and behavior...Everyone seems so desperate to be connected to their own lives and to one?another, but no one was looking in the right places. No one was thinking about how it all works together. Everyone seemed disembodied from their own inner world and d?the connection between feelings, thinking, and behavior inside yourself is the key to feeling connected to others. Once again, I have the Oracle at Delphi chanting in my ears, "know thyself". You have to know yourself before you can truly connect with others and in this case, knowing yourself means understanding the relationship our thoughts have on our emotions (and in CBT how our emotions can affect our thoughts) and how these impact the way we act in the world and with other people.

I have to make a bit of a tangential comment here because I am so fascinated by the ego. When I say "ego", I'm talking about the thing to whom we ascribe our thoughts and feelings to or in other words what we typically think of as the common thread holding our narrative together. The homunculus in the head that directs your thoughts and movements. This can also be understood largely as the "self".

I've noticed that in a lot of cases, my first inclination is to be mean to myself. Beat myself up about something I did or tell myself that I don't deserve whatever I've been working towards. When I notice myself?go on?this path, I have to remind myself that the thoughts that are currently floating around in my head are not actually helpful, nor are they realistic. Ruminating about the past in a negative manner has no possible positive outcome. Whatever lesson you are teaching yourself has already been learned by this time in your life,?so reliving the pain and misery of whatever it was that happened doesn't serve you in any way to help shape your life for the positive any more than it already has.

Another thing I used to love to do was to spend time thinking about all the possible ways the future could turn out and what that could mean for me. When in a negative emotional state, this could turn ugly?quickly. I can start dreaming up all kinds of horrible things and get myself in such a tizzy. It sometimes seems harder to come back from these almost-realities because I've spent so much time painting such a clear picture that it is hard for me to remember that it hasn't happened yet and most likely won't happen. I have to really look at the thoughts and whether or not they are truly realistic, but even then, they fundamentally can't be real because they don't actually exist - today or in the future. So instead of enjoying the beauty of the current moment, I'm wasting it dreaming about something that actually can make me anxious or sad - and again, doesn't serve me in any positive way.

There are definitely times when processing the past and thinking through possibilities in the future are important, but it seems like these actions should be done with specific goals in mind. For instance, if I need to make a decision about?“x”, it is necessary for me to think about the factors that will influence the decision or outcome. Or if I need to learn something from an event that happened then I need to process that event and?glean?whatever meaning from it that I had intended. The meditation teacher Joseph Goldstein helps explain this by differentiating between skillful and unskillful thoughts. Any thought we spend time with can either be skillful or unskillful depending on our current mental state (i.e., what meaning we take from those thoughts). An unskillful thought doesn't help you in life, it harms you in some way and our ego constantly pushes these unskillful thoughts on us unknowingly.

Recently a friend said something to me, and I actually noticed myself get very excited and eager to hear what the friend was alluding to because it was something that would "feed my ego" in the traditional sense. It was crazy to see my mind go there and just eat this stuff up. I had to stop myself and ask why "I" thought I needed this external validation when none of it really matters. Then I just laughed (hopefully I'm not sounding too crazy laughing at myself here) because "I" was getting to know how my ego works (my "self") and that knowledge will help me learn how to put up sensible and successful boundaries. Honestly, boundaries are something that don't make much sense to me right now but I'm trying to learn about them by listening to?Beyond Bitchy: Mastering the Art of Boundaries on Apple Podcasts. I had no idea how important boundaries are or even how to set them. The prerequisite is to know yourself first so you can set the right boundaries, ones that keep you and others safe.

According to Vicki Palmer, boundaries create space. She talks about it like putting a fence up around your property. Once the physical barrier is up, we feel safe. People do this all the time when they retreat into themselves when things external to them become overwhelming. It is a means to limit the destruction life can have on us and knowing when to take care of us versus when?it’s ok to not. This "self"-knowledge is critical to living a healthy life. Perhaps it's better coined "ego-knowledge" to avoid any misconceptions. When we talk about the "self" or when we think of the "self", we think of it as the person - the singularity, the owner of the thoughts - the thing?to?whom we can attribute our experience of the world. When we are living in the world without noticing our thoughts, we are basically reducing who we are to a fragmented, temporary sensation. Sam Harris explains this best in his lecture series on "The Illusory Self" in the app?Waking Up.

When we can create a demarcation for ourselves that outlines?what we need to maintain in order to feel safe, we can then have space to focus on what really exists in the moment and that self-care is inevitably an act of love for oneself. There is nothing lost and everything to be gained by creating space for being and this can be done by setting expectations or limits. Boundaries, space, and?“self”?- such interesting, interrelated concepts. Almost seems like some sort of formula. Being mindful of our "selves" enables us to create healthy boundaries which opens up a space for metta (loving-kindness). It is in the spaces where "you" begin.

Bringing it back to Brene Brown and this journey of life that we are all on, she talks about her sobriety in that "when we stop numbing and start feeling and learning again, we have to reevaluate everything especially how we choose loving ourselves over making other people comfortable." This would include setting boundaries. Strong and amazing words. Knowing yourself isn't easy. It is a hard road of introspection and if we are lucky, we are always open to learning as much as we can so that we can consistently strive to be the best version of ourselves. Why does this matter? Why put some extra effort into something that seems to be working fine on top of an already busy existence? I guess that question can only be answered by understanding what is playing as priority in your life. I say "playing" because if you aren't intentional about it, you may be laboring under a false understanding about what is important. What is the priority in your life?