My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey (22 page)

I have also found that when I am least expecting it -feeling either physically tired or emotionally vulnerable -those negative circuits have a tendency to raise their hurtful heads. The more aware I remain about what my brain is saying and how those thoughts feel inside my body, the more I own my power in choosing what I want to spend my time thinking about and how I want to feel. If I want to retain my inner peace, I must be willing to consistently and persistently
tend the garden of my mind
moment by moment, and be willing to make the decision a thousand times a day.

Our patterns of thought are grounded in rich multidimensional circuitry that we can learn to scrutinize. First, each thought pattern has a subject - something that I am cognitively thinking about. For example, let's say I am thinking about my little dog Nia, who spent a good share of her last eight years sitting on my lap, helping me write this book. Thinking about Nia is a specific circuit in my brain. Second, each thought pattern may or may not be accompanied by an adjoining emotional circuit of which I am cognizant. In the case of Nia, I generally experience great joy when I think of her because she was a marvelously loving creature. In my brain, the subject circuitry of Nia and the emotional circuitry of joy are intimately linked. Finally, these specific circuits of thought and emotion may also be linked with some of my more complex physiological circuitry, which upon stimulation would result in predictable behavior.

For example: when I think about Nia (thought circuitry) I experience the feeling of joy (emotional circuitry) and more often than not, I experience great excitement (physiological circuitry) and engage in puppy-like behavior (multidimensional circuitry). I instantly revert to a childlike voice and my eyes dilate. My joy becomes palpable, and I spontaneously waggle my body as if I were wagging my tail! Yet, in addition to this circuitry of excitement and animation, on other occasions I am also inclined to respond to the thought of Nia with consuming sadness - as I mourn the loss of my beloved four-legged friend. In the instant of a shifted thought, and its underlying emotional and physiological circuitry, my eyes might well up with tears. Caught in the loop of deep grief, my chest tightens, my breathing becomes shallow, and emotionally I feel depressed. Feeling weak in the knees, my energy wanes and I succumb to loops of darkness.

These passionate thoughts and feelings have the potential to jump instantly into my mind, but again, after their 90 seconds have come and gone, I have the power to consciously choose which emotional and physiological loops I want to hook into. I believe it is vital to our health that we pay very close attention to how much time we spend hooked into the circuitry of anger, or the depths of despair. Getting caught up in these emotionally charged loops for long periods of time can have devastating consequences on our physical and mental well-being because of the power they have over our emotional and physiological circuitry. However, with that said, it is equally important that we honor these emotions when they surge through us. When I am moved by my automatic circuitry, I thank my cells for their capacity to experience that emotion, and then I make the choice to return my thoughts to the present moment.

Finding the balance between
observing
our circuitry and
engaging
with our circuitry is essential for our healing. Although I celebrate my brain's ability to experience all of my emotions, I am cautious about how long I remain hooked into running any particular loop. The healthiest way I know how to move through an emotion effectively is to surrender completely to that emotion when its loop of physiology comes over me. I simply resign to the loop and let it run its course for 90 seconds. Just like children, emotions heal when they are heard and validated. Over time, the intensity and frequency of these circuits usually abate.

Really powerful thoughts are perceived as powerful because they simultaneously run multiple circuits of emotion and physiology. Thoughts that we would define as neutral are perceived as neutral because they are not stimulating complex circuitry. Paying attention to which array of circuits we are concurrently running provides us with tremendous insight into how our minds are fundamentally wired, and consequentially, how we can more effectively tend our garden.

In addition to spending a lot of time conversing with my brain cells, I'm having a big love-fest with the fifty trillion molecular geniuses making up my body. I am so grateful that they are alive and working together in perfect harmony that I implicitly trust them to bring me health. The first thing every morning and the last thing every night, I faithfully hug my pillow, wrap one hand in the other, and consciously thank my cells for another great day. I care enough to say it out loud. "Thank you girls. Thanks for another great day!," and I say it with an intense feeling of gratitude in my heart. I then implore my cells,
Please, heal me,
and I visualize my immune cells responding.

I unconditionally love my cells with an open heart and grateful mind. Spontaneously throughout the day, I acknowledge their existence and enthusiastically cheer them on. I am a wonderful living being capable of beaming my energy into the world, only because of them. When my bowels move, I cheer my cells for clearing that waste out of my body. When my urine flows, I admire the volume my bladder cells are capable of storing. When I'm having hunger pangs and can't get to food, I remind my cells that I have fuel (fat) stored on my hips. When I feel threatened, I thank my cells for their ability to fight, flee, or play dead.

At the same time, I listen to my body when it speaks to me. If I feel tired, I give my cells sleep. When I'm feeling sloth-like, I give my cells movement. When I'm in pain, I become quiet, coddle the wound, and consciously surrender into the pain, which helps it dissipate. Pain is the tool our cells use to communicate to our brain that there is trauma somewhere in our body. Our cells stimulate our pain receptors in order to get our brain to focus and pay attention. Once my brain acknowledges the existence of the pain, then it has served its purpose and either lightens up in intensity, or goes away.

From my perspective, the focused human mind is the most powerful instrument in the universe, and through the use of language, our left brain is capable of directing (or impeding) our physical healing and recovery. My verbal left ego mind functions as the head-cheerleader of my fifty trillion molecular geniuses, and when I periodically encourage my cells with
You go girls!,
I can't help but think this induces some sort of vibration within my body that promotes a healing environment. I'm a believer that when my cells are healthy and happy, I am healthy and happy.

None of this is to say that people with true mental illness have the capacity to choose completely what is going on inside their brains. However, I do believe that all symptoms of severe mental illness stem from a biological basis: which cells are communicating with which cells, with which chemicals and in what quantities of those chemicals. Brain research is on the cutting edge of understanding the neurocircuitry underlying mental illness, and as our knowledge grows, there will be a greater understanding about how we can help people more effectively monitor and tend to the health of their minds.

For treatment options, we have the capacity to influence our brain cells chemically through the use of medication, electrically via electrical stimulation, and cognitively through psychotherapy. In my opinion, the purpose of medical treatment is to increase our ability to share a common reality. I am in favor of people exploring what resources might help them more readily connect with others. Unfortunately, 60% of people diagnosed with schizophrenia do not recognize that they are ill. As a result, they do not seek or value treatment and often engage in selfmedication through the abuse of drugs or alcohol. Even the recreational use of these substances (by anyone) decreases our ability to share a common reality, and can thus be counterproductive to one's health.

Although some individuals advocate for the right to be insane, I am of the opinion that it is everyone's civil right to experience sanity and share in a common reality - whatever the cause of their brain illness or trauma.

This stroke of insight has given me the priceless gift of knowing that deep inner peace is just a thought/feeling away. To experience peace does not mean that your life is always blissful. It means that you are capable of tapping into a blissful state of mind amidst the normal chaos of a hectic life. I realize that for many of us, the distance between our thinking mind and our compassionate heart sometimes feels miles apart. Some of us traverse this distance on command. Others of us are so committed to our hopelessness, anger, and misery that the mere concept of a peaceful heart feels foreign and unsafe.

Based upon my experience with losing my left mind, I whole-heartedly believe that the feeling of deep inner peace is neurological circuitry located in our right brain. This circuitry is constantly running and always available for us to hook into. The feeling of peace is something that happens in the present moment. It's not something that we bring with us from the past or project into the future. Step one to experiencing inner peace is the willingness to be present in the right here, right now.

The more aware we are of when we run our loop of deep inner peace, the easier it is for us to purposely choose to hook into that circuitry. Some of us struggle in our attempts to recognize when we are running this circuitry only because our minds are distracted by other thoughts. This makes sense since our western society honors and rewards the skills of our "doing" left brain much more than our "being" right brain. Thus, if you are having difficulty accessing the consciousness of your right mind circuitry, then it is probably because you have done a stupendous job learning exactly what you were taught while growing up. Congratulate your cells for their successes, and as my good friend Dr. Kat Domingo proclaims, "Enlightenment is not a process of learning, it is a process of unlearning."

Since both of our hemispheres work together to generate our perception of reality on a moment-by-moment basis, we are exercising our right mind all the time. Once you learn to recognize the subtle feelings (and physiology) running through your body when you are connected to the circuitry of the present moment, you can then train yourself to reactivate that circuitry on demand. I'm going to share with you a variety of ways I
re-mind
myself back into the consciousness and personality of my right here, right now, peaceful right brain.

The first thing I do to experience my inner peace is to remember that I am part of a greater structure - an eternal flow of energy and molecules from which I cannot be separated (see Chapter Two). Knowing that I am a part of the cosmic flow makes me feel innately safe and experience my life as heaven on earth. How can I feel vulnerable when I cannot be separated from the greater whole? My left mind thinks of me as a fragile individual capable of losing my life. My right mind realizes that the essence of my being has eternal life. Although I may lose these cells and my ability to perceive this three-dimensional world, my energy will merely absorb back into the tranquil sea of euphoria. Knowing this leaves me grateful for the time I have here as well as enthusiastically committed to the well-being of the cells that constitute my life.

In order to come back to the present moment, we must consciously slow down our minds. To do this, first decide you are not in a hurry. Your left mind may be rushing, thinking, deliberating, and analyzing, but your right mind is very m-e-l-l-o-w.

Right now, besides reading this book, what are you doing? Are you running any cognitive loops in addition to your reading? Are you watching the clock or sitting in a busy place? Become aware of your extraneous thoughts, thank them for their service, and ask them to be silent for a little while. We're not asking them to go away, just to push the
pause button
for a few minutes. Rest assured, they're not going anywhere. When you are ready to reengage with your story-teller again, it will jump right back online.

When we are hooked into cognitive thoughts and running mental loops, technically we are not in the present moment. We can be thinking about something that has already occurred or about something that has not yet happened, and although our body is right here, right now, our mind is somewhere else. In order to come back to the experience of the present moment, allow your consciousness to shift away from those cognitive loops that distract you away from what is happening right now.

If you will, think about your breathing. Since you are reading this book, then you are probably sitting in a relaxed state. Draw in a big deep breath. Go ahead, it's okay. Pull air deep into your chest and watch your belly swell. What's going on inside your body? Is it in a comfortable position? Is your stomach feeling calm or queasy? Are you hungry? How full is your bladder? Do you have a dry mouth? Do your cells feel tired or refreshed? How is your neck? Just take a pause from any distracting thoughts and observe your life for a moment. Where are you sitting? How's the lighting? How do you feel about where you are sitting? Take another deep breath, and now another. Relax into your body - soften your jaw and that furrow in your brow. Revel in the fact that in this moment, you are a living, thriving human being! Let that feeling of celebration and gratitude flood your consciousness.