Science and Good Intentions: the Brain, Impulse, and Choice

The word emotion comes from roots that say “move .” The experience of emotion has an element of the involuntary. Feelings such as anger or fear can move us urgently to fight or flight. Feelings such as fondness and enthusiasm guide us toward cooperation and productive effort.

Our feelings can surge, wild and impulsive, on their own. In Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman describes impulse as “feeling waiting to burst into action." Emotional intelligence includes the capacity to separate impulse from action and to insert reflective choice. Emotional intelligence is an important skill for the wellness journey.

Many of our least helpful habits are engrained and reinforced by emotional patterns. We eat when we are angry or bored or anxious. We abuse caffeine when we feel tired and alcohol when we feel shy. Loneliness can lead to mindless channel- or net- surfing. Healthier lifestyles call for learning new ways to work with emotions, attaching different responses to familiar stimuli. Our success in doing so can make the difference between good intentions and lasting change.

When the senses receive a stimulus, that stimulus is transmitted immediately to the amgydala, which reacts--and more slowly to the neocortex, which thinks. A reaction can become established in “emotional memory” and continue to function for a lifetime without passing through the reflective mind. Some paths are helpful, such as stepping on the brake when a bike darts into the street. Others are less helpful, such as reaching for a cookie when our partner makes a critical remark.

The process of building new habits entails re-wiring the brain, connecting key emotional stimuli with new responses. We bring the power of the neocortex into play, and make intentional changes to automatic patterns. We can learn to defuse anger with a workout, fatigue with a nap, anxiety with deep breathing, loneliness with a phone call instead of the unhealthy alternatives.

Where in your life do emotions hijack the brain on its way to thoughtful choice? Which responses would be healthier if you were not on auto-pilot? Pick one and lock in “manual controls” for a week. Keep notes that help you remember to stop, think, and choose differently. Watch the results and observe that new patterns become easier with repetition. While emotional behaviors may feel involuntary, they respond surprisingly well when confronted and re-directed until a new habit forms.

Until the next time, go well.

Pam

Sparks and Smooth Edges

My generation is engaged in mass exodus from the world of work into the promised land of retirement. The journey is filled with joys and challenges (much like the rest of life). We all seem to enjoy the freedom to wake up when we are ready. We like to choose our priorities, which often translate into more play and less drudgery. My friend Olleke describes her experience as “more Being, less Doing.”

While the joy of more freedom is one recurring theme; another, on the "challenge" side of the ledger, is at least as common. We wonder how to share time and space, 24-7, with our life partners after 30-or-more years of coming and going from separate worlds. I have come to think about that transition in terms of rough edges.

Like rocks and minerals, we develop an irregular shape over the course of our lives. Our psyches have hardened through habit, and we identify deeply with our preferences and opinions, values and schedules. Early to rise or late to bed, to air-dry or wipe the dishes, many projects or few, more play or more work, social life vs solitude, travel or not and (if so) where and for how long? Some couples sail through the transition to these new daily choices on a wave of unconditional of love and mutual consideration. I don’t happen to know those couples. The rest of us have rough edges.

Like the demons and dead ends we explored last week, rough edges provide us with a choice. We can insist and resist. Rough edges—when for example, they are embodied in flint and steel—generate sparks, heat, and fire. Most fires are small and go out on their own. Others expand and overcome the commitment of years: divorce among the recently retired is a growing trend.

An alternative choice is to see rough edges as smooth stones in the making. As we rub against one another’s bumps and points, we can choose to re-frame our absolutes in relative terms. Maybe there is space in this household for more than one opinion, or more than one approach to scheduling the day. Perhaps we can learn to enjoy something we never tried before. Maybe it is OK for my partner to pursue separate interests while I pursue mine, comparing notes at the end of the day.

Rough edges do not wait for retirement to emerge, and they are not unique to couples. We rub against differences with others all the time: at home, at work, in the neighborhood, on the freeway. We are faced hour-to-hour with the choice between insisting on our way, accommodating the demands of another, or seeking a solution that works for us both.

Where in your life do the rough edges rub? How do you work with the heat and light that result?

Until the next time, go well.

Pam

Of Demons and Dead Ends

A recent message from my buddy Wes occupies an honored place in the sticky-gallery on my computer: “How we deal with failure is far more defining than how we deal with success.” Like all of us some of the time, he had come through a tough week. Good intentions had evaporated in the heat of reality; the effort to meet everyone’s needs had fallen short of meeting them well. The story is universal; it is the human condition. How, then do we define our response?

Setbacks and challenges come from all directions. Some originate within; they are traits and habits that trip us up and prevent our progress. I call them demons. Years ago, I read the Tibetan Book of the Dead. As I recall, the spirit journeys through death on its way to rebirth. The path is guarded by demons, described in terrifying detail. The only way out is to engage the demons and move forward into the next life. Likewise, our personal demons demand attention. Failure, while painful and intimidating, shows us much about ourselves. Those insights allow us to engage our demons, to disarm them, and to be transformed into a better self.

Other challenges arise as external circumstances; they block our path. I call them dead ends. Given the season, envision a corn maze. The maze is laid out as a game with paths that work and those that don’t. Only by trial and error do we find the route that is open from end to end. If we walk the maze repeatedly, we learn from experience and navigate the intersections with confidence; we bump into fewer dead ends and complete the journey with ease. Likewise, setbacks on our life journey provide critical information about the route and the knowledge we need to navigate more smoothly in the future.

Setbacks do not feel good at the time. We are goal oriented and want to make the trip from beginning to end without a hitch. We may get frustrated and angry--with ourselves and with our circumstances. We may be tempted to give up. Or, we may choose to engage, and to celebrate the chance to learn once again from experience.

Name the demons and dead ends you have recently encountered. How have you responded? How might you re-frame failure as learning? Which personal traits have given you trouble, and what are strategies to engage and disarm those traits the next time? What are the environmental realities, and how might you design a route that finds the open way?

Our choices in the face of failure define the depth of our character, the quality of our journey, and the likelihood of our reaching the destination we desire.

Until the next time, go well.

Pam

Science and Growth: Building on Success

We in the US have generated a multi-billion dollar industry in our search for a healthy lifestyle. We buy exercise equipment, join health clubs, keep publishers in business with our love of diet books. We employ personal trainers (and coaches) and attend weight loss seminars.

Yet, we remain stuck in the land of good intentions, and we beat up on ourselves. Underlying the desire to change is a haunting fear that we can’t really do it. We recall past failures and dwell on the barriers to change. We will not be ready to take action until we can envision success with confidence in our capacity to grow.

David Cooperrider, at Case Western Reserve University, found a parallel dynamic in his work with organizational change. When organizations face a challenge, they typically focus on the problem, seek its root cause, and set out to fix what is broken. Cooperrider has tested an alternative approach. He begins with what is working well, and guides the organization to identify its unique strengths. His process, “Appreciative Inquiry,” encourages people to tell their success stories and to re-create the energy, excitement, and creativity associated with efforts that bear fruit. Organizations using this approach have realized remarkable outcomes.

Appreciative Inquiry has also proven effective in working with individual change. The following assumptions, tested first in an organizational setting, are also powerful when you are working with your desire for healthier life habits:

· In every organization (or individual), something works well.
· What we focus on becomes our reality.
· People have more confidence in the future if they bring something familiar from the past
· When we carry forward parts of the past, they should be the best parts.
· The language we use becomes our reality.

What works well in your life? What would your life look and feel like if you focused only on your strengths? What will you bring forward from past success in the area you want to improve now? Do energy and excitement grow as you bring forward the best of the past? How will you talk about the change you want to make—as a problem to be solved or a vision to be pursued?

Peter Drucker, a management guru at the Claremont Graduate University, once remarked that “leading change is about aligning people’s strengths so that their weaknesses become irrelevant.” Making lasting personal change is about aligning your strengths with your vision so that weaknesses fade into the background.

Until the next time, go well.

Pam