emotional maturity

Mind Over Matter III: Mind Over Brain

Ron Johnson emotional maturity, Feelings, happiness, mindfulness, Positive psychology, relationships, Self-Awareness, social esteem

This is the third blog in the Mind over Matter series. Previously, we discussed the theory involved in understanding the different functions of the mind and the brain. We discussed in Mind over Matter II how the brain creates anger, anxiety, and depression in order to provide safety for people. In this discussion we want to suggest practical ways of fully using both mind and brain.

The brain is doing its job: maximizing safety and pleasure

The first thing we need to keep in mind is that the brain isn’t doing something wrong. The brain is always, and only, working to provide safety and pleasure as we previously discussed. When the brain creates depression, anger, and anxiety, it is doing what it is designed to do: create safety and maximize pleasure. It is easy to see how the brain creates safety with anxiety and anger, but it is a challenge to see how creating these things “maximizes pleasure” with depression.

Recall how we discussed that “anhedonia,” commonly thought of as lack of energy or interest, is the primary symptom of depression. The brain (not the mind) actually creates anhedonia, i.e. it decreases one’s energy, so that the person can do as little as possible. Why would the brain do that? The brain creates anhedonia because the mind has so many feelings, and so many thoughts that the brain isn’t able to get these thoughts and feelings resolved. Quite literally, because the mind is thinking and feeling so many things, the brain is overloaded with information and is not readily able to think through and feel through all this stuff. The brain does what it knows to do: it shuts down the person’s interest in doing anything so it can focus on this overload of thoughts and feelings. The brain does what it can do to create safety and pleasure: shut down activity by decreasing energy.

The brain protects us by creating anhedonia and other symptoms of depression, like sleep disturbance and appetite disturbance. Additionally, the brain operates on a “flight or fight” mode creating fear or anger as means of dealing with real or possible threats. The brain creates anger when the mind has experienced some harm or hurt and creates anxiety when the mind experiences some worry about possible loss in the future. Simply put, anger is about hurt in the past and anxiety is about hurt in the future. But the brain, remember, doesn’t know future or past, but only the present. So the brain creates anger and anxiety in order to deal with perceived danger in the present.

We will never be successful in overriding the brain’s natural functioning. We can’t just push through depression with some kind of will power. On the other hand, we don’t want to simply yield to it. So, what can we do to use the brain’s power more effectively without violating the brain’s interest in our safety and pleasure? We will not be successful in challenging the brain’s procedures for maintaining safety and maximizing pleasure. We have to find ways to use our minds to effectively manage our brains. Managing the brain is more effective than controlling the brain.

The centrality of your feelings

Your mind has three tools that you can use to manage the power of the brain’s desire for your safety and pleasure: feeling, thinking, and doing. The most basic and by far the most important tool is feeling. To be able to manage the brain, effectively use it…not control it…you have to know what you feel emotionally. The brain creates feelings in order to maximize pleasure and minimize danger in your life. (Consider reading Feelings I and Feelings II blogs where we discussed the four basic feelings: joy and sadness having to do with love, and anger and fear having to do with defense.) When you feel anger, for instance, you have been thinking about something that you lost in the past. When you feel fear (or anxiety), you are usually thinking about something that you might lose in the future. So, when you think about a former loss of some kind, your brain translates that former loss into the present and churns up anger to deal with your attacker. When you think about something that you might lose in the future, your brain churns up anxiety in order to deal with this threat of danger. In both cases the brain perceives the danger as in the present, not in the past or the future.

You can’t change your brain’s natural operation for protection. You can’t change your brain’s tendency to churn up anger and anxiety when you think of past hurts or potential future hurts. You can, however, more effectively use your mind power to more effectively use your brain power. The key is to more fully recognize all of your emotions, especially those that precede anger and anxiety. When you recognize what you really feel, you will be able to appreciate these feelings, all of them, and then be able to allow these feelings to run their natural course. When you recognize what you feel you are better able to allow all of your feelings to exist without having certain feelings, like fear and anxiety. You can’t think away your feelings; you can only notice them and recognize that they have been created by your brain. If you fail to recognize your feelings and appreciate them, you will speak or act out of your emotion, something that is almost always counterproductive for you.

Managing your feelings: recognizing that you have a “love problem”

Feelings are central. They are primary…always have been, always will be. The key to managing your feelings and hence fully utilizing your brain that creates these feelings begins with knowing what you feel. Keep in mind that you have these four basic emotions: joy, sadness, fear, and anger. Then consider the process of feelings: (1) you have something and love this something, so you feel some amount of joy; (2) eventually, you lose this something (could be property, person, place, or idea), and you feel sad; (3) then you often feel afraid of losing more and develop some amount of fear; (4) finally, you may become angry that you have lost this something. It may seem that anger comes before fear, but this is not the case. Fear always precedes anger. Keep in mind these four feelings and the fact that they all have to do with love:

  • I have something that I love: I feel joy
  • I lose something I love: I feel sadness
  • I think about losing something I love: I feel fear
  • I actually lose something I love: I feel anger.

So, not only are joy and sadness related to something I love, anger and fear are also about love It’s a bit easier to see that joy and sadness have to do with love, but you need to consider that anger about having lost something and fear (or anxiety) about potentially losing something are also feelings related to love. When you feel sad, you have what we have come to call a “love problem.” But also, when you are anxious or angry, you also have a love problem. Noting that anger and fear are “love problems” gives you the key to managing these feelings and ultimately overcoming anger and anxiety. You can also overcome depression by understanding and managing your feelings, but doing this requires much more effort and self-examination. We will limit our current discussion to overcoming anger and anxiety.

We have noted that feelings are central to human existence and ultimately lead to some kind of thinking and action. To take this understanding a step further, we remind you that all feelings are love based and erupt first with having something and then losing this something. It is easy to feel joy when we love something, but much harder to allow the feeling of sadness to erupt when we lose this something. Because we ultimately lose everything we love, it is paramount that we accept this common experience of sadness in life. So, first we feel some kind of joy because we have something and then eventually, a minute, a year, or 10 years later, we lose this something, and we feel sad. So, we propose that it is central that we learn to be sad and let it run its course. In our book, The Positive Power of Sadness we unpack sadness and its correlates and focus on the important business of finishing sadness. We talk about allowing sadness to finish because all sadness ends naturally if we allow it to do so. This is an important part of managing our feelings and an important part of “mind over brain.” You need to think about what you feel.

Thinking about feelings

Having recognized that you have a “love problem” when you feel sad can ultimately help you see that you have love problems when you feel anxious or angry. If you remember that sadness, anger, and fear are all about loving something, you will be able to get your head around this idea of managing your feelings and prevent your brain from running amok with anger and anxiety. But this is no easy task, and it is most certainly not thinking away your feelings. That is repression or denial. We suggest quite the opposite: recognizing your feelings and letting them run their course, particularly sadness. Try it: just notice what you have lost and you will feel sad; then after a moment or two, your sadness will start to diminish. It will eventually end depending on the depth of love you had for what you lost.

Managing anxiety and anger

If you can allow sadness to run its course, you are then ready to tackle anxiety and anger. Let’s start with anger because it is about the past, namely that you have lost in the past. Your brain, remember, only has a sense of present, not the past, has churned up anger in order to fight this loss and the attacker thinking that there is a lack of safety, and that you need anger to fight off this attacker. The “attacker,” by the way could be a person, an event, yourself (you having done something “stupid”) or God. Anger is a defense against any and all attacks. Now, having realized that anger is a love problem, you can focus on what you have lost and how you loved it. This thing you have lost might be an idea, a piece of property, a place, or a person. Whatever it was, you loved it. And you lost it. To manage your anger you need to think about what you loved, and then think about it more. Think about how you loved this thing. If you do this, you will begin to feel sad, and if you allow this to happen, you are nearing the end of anger. Anger doesn’t ever really end. But anger directed into sadness does. If you master this process of seeing that every time you are angry, you have lost something that you love, you will first be able to cure anger. Then as you mature, eventually be able to prevent anger. But this means that you will feel sadness more often, a sadness that will end. When sadness ends you will experience a subtle feeling of joy and will begin to realize that you are a person of love and that you have memory of having loved something.

This process of managing feelings like anger can also work for managing the feeling of fear (or anxiety). As we have noted, anxiety is the fear of losing something we love, so if we can get into the love part of anxiety, we will be able to cure it and eventually prevent it. Managing anger (curing it and preventing it) is finding a way to feel the sadness of loss that precipitated the brain’s reaction to anger. Managing anxiety is finding a way to feel the sadness of potential loss. We call this process anticipatory sadness. It is hard to learn how to get under anger to sadness and ultimately to love, but it is twice as hard to get under anxiety to find sadness and love. You will need lots of practice at this procedure, which is something like this: (1) note that you are anxious over potentially losing something and then (2) note that whatever you might lose is something you love.

Now comes the hard part: (3) consider what you would feel if you lost this thing that you love. You will note that you would feel sad. Allow yourself to feel sad even though you have not really lost this thing you love. This is hard, but you can get used to doing it. So every time you feel anxious about something, you can consider that you love something and that losing this thing would be sad. When you learn to do this (it takes months or years of practice), you will feel more sadness and more joy. And to be quite honest, anxiety, even more than anger, often requires a faithful guiding therapeutic hand, you will have used your mind to manage your brain. While not an easy process to learn, you can do it.

If you do this mind over brain process, you will value your emotions, whatever they are, eventually be able to think of what you love, and then remember what you love. And you can then “convince your brain that it is really okay to have these feelings. Now you are in a good place because you might find it possible to activate this love in some way. You might just enjoy the loving thoughts, memories, and hopes. You might tell someone about what you love. You might even get better at loving, which is our hope.

Further Reading

Johnson, R. and Brock, D. (2017). The positive power of sadness. Praeger Press.

Johnson, R. and Brock, D. (2018). “Mind Over Matter I and II

Johnson, R. and Brock, D. (2018). “Feelings I-V” blogs

Watch for “Mind Over Matter IV: Addictions”

Mind Over Matter II: Practice

Ron Johnson emotional maturity, Feelings, happiness, mindfulness, Positive psychology, Self-Awareness, social esteem

In our first blog on Mind Over Matter we discussed the theory of “mind over matter,” namely the idea of getting full use of both mind and brain. We discussed several things that distinguish the operations of the mind and the brain:

What is the brain?

  • The brain is a machine, a wonderful machine at that, but a machine nevertheless.
  • The brain knows only two things: safety (or the lack thereof) and pleasure (or the lack thereof). The brain’s priority is safety over pleasure…if it has to make a choice. You have to live before you can be happy.
  • There are times, however, when the brain actually chooses pleasure over safety when it concludes that the absence of pleasure is unsafe.
  • The brain only knows the present. The mind cannot conceive of the past and the future, but the brain cannot.

The brain does a myriad of things that the mind does not control, like blood flow and breathing. The mind doesn’t need to be conscious of these activities

What is the mind?

  • “Mind” is undefined although it exists, as we discussed in Mind over Matter I. We noted that time, space, and mass, the basic ingredients of the universe are also undefined but we understand these facets of the universe. We also noted that several elements of human existence and relationships are undefined but we know what they are, like love, wisdom, and feelings.
  • The mind knows all of these undefined elements like feelings, love, wisdom, and lots more. Simply put, the mind thinks and feels.
  • “Mind over matter” means using the mind to make full use of the brain’s wonderful mechanism (100 billion brain cells) to do the work of feeling, thinking, and doing. The mind couldn’t do any of these things without the brain.

We also learned that there are occasional dangers in the mind-brain interaction that has to do with the brain’s orientation towards safety and pleasure

  • The mind needs the brain to do anything and everything. It cannot operate on its own. It needs the machinery of the brain to think, feel, and do things.
  • If the mind thinks of distress in the past or the future, the brain immediately translates these things into the present.
  • When the mind conceives of something in the past that was distressful, the brain conceives of this distress as occurring in the present.
    • When distress about the past is on the mind, the brain “concludes” that the person is currently
    • When the brain receives these messages of distress of the past, it attempts to reduce this distress by secreting certain chemicals. These chemicals have the effect of increasing energy and preparing the body to fight. The result of this increase in energy is anger.
    • When the distress about the past is overwhelming, the brain secretes chemicals that have the effect of reducing energy in the body causing fatigue and reduced energy. The result of this reduction in energy is depression.
  • When the brain receives messages of distress in the future, it attempts to reduce this distress by secreting different chemicals:
    • When the distress about the future is on the mind, the brain concludes that the person is currently in danger.
    • These chemicals (cortisol) increase awareness and alertness. This often leads to what we call “hypervigilance.”
    • The result of hypervigilance is anxiety.
  • In summary, when anger, anxiety, and depression have occurred in a person, there has been a harmful cycle between the mind and the brain:
    • The mind remembers something bad that happened: the brain churns up anger.
    • The mind is remembers a series of bad things that happened in the past; the brain churns up depression.
    • The mind thinks of something bad that might happen; the brain churns up anxiety.

The brain is doing its job: maximizing safety and pleasure

The first thing we need to keep in mind is that the brain isn’t doing something wrong. The brain is always, and only, working to provide safety and pleasure as we previously discussed. When the brain creates depression, anger, and anxiety, it is doing what it is designed to do: create safety and maximize pleasure. It is easy to see how the brain creates safety with anxiety and anger, but it is a challenge to see how creating these things “maximizes pleasure” with depression.

Recall how we discussed that “anhedonia,” commonly thought of as lack of energy or interest, is the primary symptom of depression. The brain (not the mind) actually creates anhedonia, i.e. it decreased one’s energy, so that the person can do as little as possible. Why would the brain do that? The brain creates anhedonia because the mind has so many feelings, and so many thoughts that the brain isn’t able to get these thoughts and feelings resolved. Quite literally, because the mind is thinking and feeling so many things, the brain is overloaded with information and is not readily able to think through and feel through all this stuff. The brain does what it knows to do: it shuts down the person’s interest in doing anything so it can focus on this overload of thoughts and feelings. The brain does what it can do to create safety and pleasure: shut down activity by decreasing energy.

The brain protects us by creating anhedonia and other symptoms of depression, like sleep disturbance and appetite disturbance. Additionally, the brain operates on a “flight or fight” mode creating fear or anger as means of dealing with real or possible threats. The brain creates anger when the mind has experienced some harm or hurt, and creates anxiety when the mind experiences some worry about possible loss in the future. Simply put, anger is about hurt in the past and anxiety is about hurt in the future. But the brain, remember, doesn’t know future or past, but only the present. So the brain creates anger and anxiety in order to deal with perceived danger in the present.

We will never be successful in overriding the brain’s natural functioning. We can’t just push through depression with some kind of will power. On the other hand, we don’t want to simply yield to it. So, what can we do to use the brain’s power more effectively without violating the brain’s interest in our safety and pleasure? We have to find ways to use our minds to effectively use our brains. We have to find ways to overcome depression, anger and anxiety by using the brain, not challenging it. What can we do about this harmful mind-brain cycle that creates depression, anger, and anxiety? Simply stated, we need to get the mind in control of the brain. Stay tuned for Mind over Matter III: Mind over Brain

Further Reading

Johnson, R. and Brock, D. (2017). The positive power of sadness: the cure for anger, anxiety, and depression. Praeger Press.

Johnson, R. and Brock, D. (2018). “Mind over Matter I: Theory” blog

Johnson, R. and Brock, D. (2018). “Feelings I-V” blogs

 

 

 

Mind Over Matter

Ron Johnson emotional maturity, Feelings, mindfulness, Self-Awareness

 

The most important thing I learned in physics is that the central ingredients of the universe are undefined. My high school physics teacher always had us write out definitions of various ingredients, like space, velocity, and weight. He also included three requests for definitions of time, distance, and mass. It took me some time to catch on to this very simple and very important fact: time, distance and mass are all undefined. We can define velocity as time over distance, like 55 kilometers per hour, meaning that you can go the distance of 55 km in one hour, but this equation uses two of the three basic ingredients of the universe, which are themselves undefinable. While I have regrettably forgotten most of the things I learned in physics, both in high school and college, I have retained this important fact: some basic things are undefinable.

Think about it. You certainly understand distance, like 50 meters or two inches. And you understand time, like two hours or two seconds. It doesn’t take a physicist to know what time it is. You just look at the clock. And for measuring distance, you just get out the tape measure, or you might just use the middle joint of your index finger to approximate one inch. You understand mass as something like weight (weight though, is actually mass times gravity.) Not only do we understand time, distance, and mass, we can measure these things using clocks, tape measures and the like. My point of this discussions is this: the really important, really central ingredients of the universe may be measurable, and generally understood they are undefinable.

So what does the undefinable nature of time, mass, and distance have to do with “mind over matter,” which is the topic for today? A lot. There are also some very important basic ingredients to human psychology and experience, and just like time, distance, and mass, we know what these things are, but they defy an exact definition. We have to be cautious in this discussion: definitions are very important because they give us some concrete understanding of how the world works and how we work psychologically. We need to know what time and distance are or we won’t do very well in life, even if we can’t really make some kind of exact definition. So we don’t want to do away with definitions. Rather, we want to look at some important elements of psychological functioning that we know but can’t really define. These undefinable elements are not easily measured, but we can understand them if we work at it.

Undefinable basic psychological elements

There many real and definable elements in psychology, but also a few that are real and undefinable. In previous blogs we have talked about “feelings.” We can understand emotions, like the four basic emotions of joy, sadness, fear, and anger. We can understand the physical reaction that one has to something that causes one of these emotions. We can even write a book about one of these feelings, like sadness. But when it comes to feelings we are not really able to define this word. The undefinable nature of feelings is exactly why I have written five blogs on feelings and yet feel I have done an inadequate job of describing this most basic phenomenon of psychological functioning. But “feelings” are not the only things that may be undefinable. I think love and wisdom might also be undefinable. For the moment I am more interested in the concept of mind, which I think is real and undefinable.

There is great debate in the field psychology of psychology about the mind. Roughly, there are two schools of thought, one that we might call materialistic and the other dualistic although those terms are themselves fraught with difficulty. Many (although by no means all) neuropsychologists allege that there is no such thing as the mind. Rather, they say, there is only the brain which does all that we attribute to the mind, like thinking, and feeling. Interestingly, most psychologists, apart from neuropsychologists, talk about the mind in a rather cavalier fashion, as if everyone just knows what the mind is. Most clinical psychologists and other therapists operate as if there is a mind even if they don’t use the term. We therapists tend to use terms like, “your mind say this” or “that is just your mind talking” without thinking about the fact that we don’t have a definition of the mind…if it even exists.

If it is not already obvious, I believe that the mind exists. I also believe that the mind can’t be defined, just like other important ingredients of life. So I am left with talking about something that is so important that it can’t be defined, but we know what it is, and we can understand it even though we can’t measure it. Going further in this discussion of the mind leads us to murky grounds, however, so I will remind you that we can understand time even though we can’t define it. When I talk about the mind, I am talking about an essence that most surely exists and has a huge influence on what I think, feel, and do. I just can’t define it. So how do we get further in this discussion without a definition of mind? We look at the effects of this thing we call the mind. We infer that the mind exists because there has to be something that directs life and adjusts to life apart from a simple neuroanatomical assessment of human functioning. I have come to think of the mind and the brain as intricately related but also different. The brain is definable; the mind is not.

The brain

I will not bore you with some kind of discussion of neurological functioning. Even though I do neuropsychological evaluations every week, I admit, as most neuropsychologists would, that we understand just a bit of brain functioning. Instead I will simply say this: the brain is a wonderful machine composed of 100 billion brain cells (neurons), each reacting with a potential of 1000 other neurons. Because we have trillions of interactions going on almost every moment of the day it is no wonder we don’t know much about the brain despite 100 years of intense brain study. It is my belief and understanding that the brain does two things, safety and pleasure. Nothing more. The brain engages in activities that create safety for you (mostly for your body…but there is more), and is aware of danger to that safety. The brain also engages in pleasure, or the lack of pleasure. When the brain is aware of pleasure or safety or the lack of either, it is doing its basic job. It does nothing else.

So if the brain just does things that keeps me safe and affords pleasure, what about all the other things that the brain seems to be doing? Like, love and wisdom that we mentioned above. The brain has no idea about these things. Nor does the brain have any idea of time, which means that the brain is always in the present, not the past (with, say, regret or nostalgia) or with the future (with, say, hope or anxiety). Just the present. This fact is very important for my premise in this blog: the brain (not the mind) knows safety and pleasure, nothing else. So what about this undefinable thing we call the mind?

The mind does everything else

This is my proposition: the brain is a machine that keeps us alive and keeps us happy (at least some of the time), but this wonderful 100 billion celled organ knows only safety and pleasure. The brain does not know love, joy (different from pleasure), wisdom, relationships, hope, and a whole bunch of other things that we experience every day, usually every hour. Remember, we can’t define the mind, so what is it? We can only see what it does. This is my conception: the mind uses the brain, this wonderful machine, to do everything else. If we didn’t have a brain, we couldn’t do these other things, like love or read. We know, of course, that people with some kind of brain malformation or injury, are not able to do many things, perhaps including love. The important thing is this discussion, is that we consider that it is the mind that is the core of who we are, our self, our soul, or our spirit, however we might to define this undefinable entity. How does the mind operate?

Mind over matter

The title of this treatise is “mind over matter” as noted, but what does this mean. Simply, it means that when the mind and the brain are working well together, the mind is the operator of the machinery of the brain. We do this all the time and quite effectively. We think (mind) that we might want to go shopping, we feel (mind) some joy at the thought, and then we take action (brain) in doing that activity. Or the mind might decide to do something different than shopping. This is the mind and brain at its best: mind directing the brain. Because the mind has no matter to it, it can’t do anything without the brain, and it can’t really think or feel. It needs the brain to do these things. One stream of thinking is that the mind is a form of energy although not matter per se, but we also know that matter and energy are interchangeable. This is a discussion best left to people who understand such things better than I do.

The brain does many wonderful things without any kind of feeling or thinking. It takes care of breathing and blood flow, for instance. We don’t think about breathing very much unless we are doing yoga or if you happen to be a client of my wife, who actually does quite a bit of work with breath and breathing. And the brain does the safety feature at any moment. This is wonderful if, for instance, you hear a loud noise as you are about the cross the street because the brain understands this loud noise as dangerous and directs you to step back out of the street onto the sidewalk and let the 18 wheeler go ahead. You don’t have to think about moving, and you certainly don’t feel much besides the fear associated with the noise of the truck. The brain did its job keeping you safe.

Your brain does its two jobs of safety and pleasure and nothing else. As a result of this rather singular focus, your brain does pleasure or safety when you have more important things to think about. When you are unhappy for some reason, the brain does what it can to make you happy, like secreting happy chemicals, like serotonin. Unfortunately, the brain also finds ways to get you to do something that will secrete serotonin without regard for anything else. This pleasure-only orientation the brain has to your being unhappy can lead to a host of difficulties, like addictions and obsessions, which originate in some experience that gave you pleasure, like eating, running, or drinking beer. So when you are unhappy, the brain (not the mind) gives the mind the idea of going to one of these things to find pleasure. When this happens, the brain is in control of the mind. And when that happens, the brain is in the driver’s seat.

Not only can the brain be in the driver’s seat with seeking pleasure, it can also drive you to what it thinks is safety in ways that are not good for you. If you consider the future in some way, like what might happen tomorrow that could be dangerous, the brain receives the message of danger and does another chemical reaction: it kicks in another hormone, cortisol. Cortisol causes you to be hyperaware, or hypervigilant. This is not so bad if you are about to step in front of a truck in the present, but it is not good when you think about stepping of the curb in the future. Because the brain has no idea of time, it does not distinguish the real truck and the potentially imaginary truck. It just secretes cortisol. I trust you can see the danger here, namely of the brain creating anxiety for something that might happen because the brain doesn’t understand might. It doesn’t understand future; it only understands the present.

Stay tuned for Mind over Matter II: Getting the Mind back on Control

Further Reading

Johnson, R. and Brock, D. (2017). The positive power of sadness. Los Angeles: Praeger.

We discuss this mind-brain thing quite a bit.

Damasio, A.R. Descartes’ error. NY: Putnam’s Publishing

LeDoux, J. (1996). The emotional brain. NY: Simon and Schuster

Both Damasio and LeDoux are proponents of “brain only” thinking

Schiffer, F. (1998). Of two minds: the revolutionary science of dual-brain psychology. New York: The Free Press

Schwartz, J.M. and Begley, S. (2002). The mind and the brain: neuroplasticity and the power of mental force. New York: Harper

Siegel, D.J. (199). The developing mind: toward a neurobiology of interpersonal experience. New York: Guilford