Line BreakAuthor: Cole Bitting (1 Articles)
Cole Bitting distills life lessons from the science of our complex human nature. His new book Furies: The struggle for Growth addresses complex thoughts that affect every aspect of our lives.
A simple organism swims along and enters a patch of acidic water. It reacts and swims away. For a patch of food-rich water, it swims in and enjoys the bounty. The condition of the water changes the behaviour of the organism. Our selves swim in a sea of thought. Change our thoughts and change our behaviour in a manner no less significant than water for the simple organism.
To quote Steve, “Change Your Thoughts is a place to visit to help you try and change your thinking patterns, behaviours, beliefs and thought processes to live the life you were truly born to live…” My guest post is about the organism between the sea of thoughts and the consequence behaviour – the human body.
Where do thoughts come from? If you say “your mind,” you speak a tautology. In a physical sense, in a neural, biochemical sense, what gives rise to thinking?
Changes to your body are the essence of experience. And in the right context, specifically with the right kind of central nervous system and brain, the changes are the raw material for experience. Body changes are the precursors feelings, thoughts, consciousness and the persist sense of self we think of as our essence.
Hold your breathe.
What happens?
You start turning blue. Your body’s oxygen meter registers a decline in available oxygen and triggers various reactions designed to get you to breathe. If you hold your breathe long enough, you pass out. Then your body resumes breathing.
Don’t blink.
What happens?
I tried several times while watching the timer on my iPhone. The longest I lasted before blinking was 23 seconds. Even then, tears welled in my eyes after just a few seconds as if I were crying. My body strove to take care of its eyes even as I wilfully caused distress.
Our bodies are filled with the equivalent of thermostats for every conceivable system of internal regulation. Readings of “too hot” generate body changes much as the expansion of the thermostat spring turns on the air conditioner. The systems or our bodies respond whenever we push the meter outside a prefigured comfort zone.
We can screech, pinch our skin, lick our dirty feet, frown for a long time, and spin around until we puke. Each action sets off some regulatory response. We cower, yelp, feel disgust, become sad, or throw up.
(Twirling around affects the inner ear and creates a sensation similar to the disorientation cause by many natural poisons. We vomit after spinning to expel possible poison.)
If each body-regulation system was pixel on a screen, these systems would display an image of amazing size, complexity and color depth. The screen for this giant image is called a neural map.
When our body perceives an object (which could be physical, like a snake, or mental, like the notion of snakes on a plane), the neural-map image changes. The more salient the object, the more significant the change in the imagery. But how do we have a mental experience of these neural, biochemical changes?
(I am going to speak about prominent, well studied, neuro-scientific theories of consciousness as if they were fact. A fascinating book, by a leading neuroscientist in this field, is Looking for Spinoza: Joy, Sorrow, and the Feeling Brain, by Antonio Damasio.)
We have a sixth sensory “organ,” a sixth way to perceive information, a ghost sense if you will. We have a second neural map which records the changes to a small and varied portion of the comprehensive neural map of the body. It is the mental equivalent of a physical eye ball, optic nerve and associated brain systems. Like eyesight, this second neural map notices only a few things, a small range of ‘color,’ fixates on change, and is given to significant distortion and bias.
This second map records an ongoing sequence of body-state changes from the point of view of the body. It’s like a mirror for a mirror. The second mirror/map reflects (with all its distortions and biases) the content of the first mirror/map. The first mirror/map in turn reflects the content of the second.
These two reflections are highly combinatorial and recursive, the necessary ingredients for infinite experience and infinite expression. Together, the comprise a system of one body, one point of view, one emerging collection of feelings and thoughts, one mind. These maps detail a ghost for each body.
What do we do to care for our ghost? When we intentionally change our thoughts, we are tending to its mind, much as a therapist attends to the mental life of a client.
The client has a real body, and our phenomenal ghost has a real body. Change the body, change the ghost. The neuroscience of emotion invariably highlights the significant of the body-mind connection.
Thoughts are mental objects. When we think them, our body changes (see the NYTimes article about embodied emotion).
Think about a moment when you felt intense despair. What specific event or circumstance would give rise to the belief, “I should have known better!”
How did your body change? Try the imagery again and pay attention. What are the body sensations of: “I should have known better!”
For me, I frown. My heart is in my throat. My eyes feel like they want to cry. If I add voice, I might wail, “why me!?” I feel a tinge of nausea as if my chest were hollow. My skin crawls around my shoulders and feels chilled. These sensations are unnerving.
If we change our thoughts at this moment, we block changes to the body. We simply turn off the experience. We avoid pain rather than provide healing.
What heals?
How does your body feel when you are at peace with the unpredictability and unknowability of life? Try to evoke body sensations for this idea. It’s a lot harder, and the sensations are fleeting. These are the sensations of homeostasis, of wellness, of – from the body’s perspective – finding home.
I believe our sixth sense is much more sensitized to threats, problems and the experience of our own failings. These cognitions are ‘visceral,’ because they change the body. After a shocking thought, we might hold our breathe and stare in alarm. The red lights flash on the first neural map, and are second neural map is vigilant to this color.
Like a fish not noticing water, we have a hard time noticing the sensations of healthy regulation. When a body-system is well regulated, it might generate a neural image hardly noticed by the second map. This sixth sense notices distress rather than wellness.
Monks practice compassion-mediations for years to develop the capacity to the access this state by choice. From the perspective of our sixth sense, compassion is a wispy, ghosty sensation spoilt by the interruption of almost any other emotion. Cultivating the ability to evoke emotions of well being and peace are not just elements of personal development, but rather they are (in a strong, neurological sense) significant sources of comfort and healing.
If we can re-mind our body of such positive sensations before or after moments of torment, we are reminding it how to get home. The body’s journey home often takes time, as healing does, but on the way, our thoughts get better too.
Change your body*, change your thoughts, change your life.
*Thoughts, of course, can change the body.
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{ 24 comments… read them below or add one }
I have been “releasing” emotions for about a year now. I have been using “The Sedona Method” as a tool for exploring these hidden emotions which limit me in life.
Your post reminds me of this process of not fighting your experiences. I think we sometimes get addicted to the “good, happy” feelings and always want to ignore the “bad, sad”. But in actuality we couldn’t have one without the other.
Cheers,
Rishi
Thanks Rishi for participating, and bring out another great point worth talking about.
Emotions, as I use the term, are physical behaviors. Feelings are the mental counterpoint to emotions. I am scared (emotion), and feel frightened (feeling). So as I explore my concept of ‘emotion,’ know that I am not specifically talking about mental experiences.
Organisms emotes for the sake of their lives. Emotions are behaviors organized to provide optimal responses to given circumstances. Emotions are neither ‘good’ or ‘bad’ in an value sense, rather they are either effective or less so. Emotions are part of our physical process just as thoughts and feelings are part of our mental process.
Some of our emotions represent intense physical or mental distress. To protect ourselves, we defend against these harsh experiences. The emotion isn’t ‘good’ or ‘bad,’ but maladaptive defenses can be. So to wordsmith a little, you are spot on when you talk about ‘exploring these [hidden defenses] which limit me in life.’
Cole Bitting´s last blog ..Computer Disaster!
Hey Cole, I liked how you described the relationship with our thoughts and our behavior. I think reconditioning the mind in a positive way before pain happens is one way of lessening the pain in our bodies. Sometimes we may not know how our thinking helps us heal our bodies, but like you mentioned, perhaps we do have a sixth sense that is more powerful than our five sense combined, and that it only comes into play when we aren’t always fully aware of the present moment.
Hulbert´s last blog ..Tony Robbins and Why
Your illuminating post made me think of the similarity between radio set and mind set. As kids we think whatever we hear is in there, later we understand they are merely transmitters and the musicians actually live and breathe elsewhere. We now know thoughts are not in our brains, else we’d see them, yet with even the most advanced technology known to man [and woman] we don’t. Both the radio and the mind are “merely” sets, and as they are set so they shall receive. Explains why people who expect to be disappointed always are.
Beat Schindler´s last blog ..Finding Back to the Good Life
Beat, thanks for the comment and very relevant point
You notion, ‘as they are set so they shall receive’ is very apt. I equate ’set’ to ‘belief.’ More explicitly, believes are behaviors – emotions, motivations, drives, reflexes – so well honed, they are automatic. Other words for beliefs are schemas, scripts, biases, unchallenged thoughts and assumptions, and even values. These believes are, in many respects, learned body responses.
So one question is how do we change our beliefs. We practice new ways of responding, particularly new ways of thinking. Interestingly, if we were to talk about depression (setting aside the circumstances when it is severe and pathological), depression is persistent sadness. Sadness is the emotion which facilitates the letting go attachments, identifications and beliefs. Depression also give rise to rumination, and rumination is the process of identifying, and then practicing over an over, new beliefs to replace the lost ones. In this model, each occurrence of a new-belief thought is practice for the learning of that belief.
So your notion of ’set’ become very relevant to discussions of loss, trauma, depression and rumination. And the development of new, better, more coherent beliefs embodies then notion of posttraumatic growth and personal development.
Cole Bitting´s last blog ..Computer Disaster!
Thanks for the comment Hulbert
I love Steven’s blog because it explores the notion of process – the meta-perspective on our thoughts and thinking. I wanted to compliment this focus by going proto-. If this blog’s traditional focuses on watching the story and story teller, I wanted to focus on the sentences which make up the story.
So to your great point, I would add there is a physicality about the body on the one hand, and pain, loss, gain, and joy on the other. This somatic relationship exists before there are thoughts about suffering or happiness. These sensations, emotions and feeling are how we represent the sentences 0f our thoughts so we have experience of the story. And since organisms have had bodies far longer than thinking, remembering minds, it is fair to say there is a proto- quality to healing. In other words, the capacity to heal is as much embodied in our flesh and bone as it is encapsulated in thought.
Cole Bitting´s last blog ..Computer Disaster!
Cole, let me welcome you to CYT, it’s a pleasure having you write for CYT and what a first article to start with.
When you first sent this to me I didn’t really understand what you were trying to say. So I read it again and the second time I imagined the brain and all it’s processes going on at the same time, I then pictured the ‘Ghost’ as a camera taking hundreds of pictures and recording thoughts, feelings, emotions etc. The sixth sense, or ‘getting back home’ would be easier if we reminded ourselves immediately after ‘being home’ where the photo of ‘home’ was in our image gallery taken from the ghost. Thinking like this allowed me to conceptualise exactly what you were trying to say and I had one of those ‘ah!’ moments, not quite an ‘A-Ha’ but close to it?
Thank you Cole for such a thought provoking post.
Hey Cole,
I am fully with you on thoughts’ ability to change the body. The physical manifestations of an emotion such as love compared to that of fear/hate/sadness are remarkable. I am therefore also a firm believer in carrying healing beliefs and emotions. What I’m curious about, however, is how this plays with our bodies need to release certain emotions. When sad, we will sometimes hold that emotion in in order to “hold it together” or perhaps to focus on something positive . This in itself will also cause notice physical distress within the body. Any thoughts on this? Also, have you read Healing and Recovery by David Hawkins. It sounds like something you may enjoy.
Ben,
I hate to plug my book – Furies! – but I go into this topic at length.
First, I often is very adaptive and appropriate to hold in emotions. When we are in a crisis and must act to manage the circumstances, we often repress some emotions in favor of others. And when physical crisis is over, the mental crisis can begin – we can reexperience the full affect of the past crisis. Depending on how we react to this second version of the crisis, we either successfully integrate the experience or we react with defense in an attempt to keep the pain at bay.
I think of “releasing certain emotions” in this sense: when you start to feel sad (the sensations of sad, not necessarily the feelings of sad), how does this emotion play out? What are the sensations at the end? Most people don’t know the answer to this question off the top of their heads. For me, the answer is a collection of sensations which I call “collected peace,” and when the sadness is ‘big,’ I won’t get to that outcome until I go back through the sadness many times. The body sensations change because our neurochemistry changes.
See my reply to Beat for its discussion of depression and rumination. One of the points here, is that to integrate a particularly distressing experience, we process in parts and over time. We can only process what we can process, no matter how attuned we are to our emotions or precise we are with our thinking.
Cole Bitting´s last blog ..Computer Disaster!
Steve,
Thanks for the great compliment and letting me guest post. The photography ideas is perfect! Images are affect laden, and worth thousands of words. Interestingly, we do not recall images, but recompose them, and we use our belief structures as the primary composition tools. Where do these beliefs come from? How do we change them or create new ones?
We write on the same topic, and see these elements as central to the quality of life. What I wanted to do with this post was to discuss our system of experience and belief creation and outline a belief than can stand in place of the triad of helplessness scripts – “I’m not able,” “I’m not worthy,” and “I’m ignorant.” What if we know and can evoke the sensations of being home (well-being, contentedness, peace, etc.)? This belief would stand in place of many of our limiting schemas.
Cole Bitting´s last blog ..Computer Disaster!
Hi Cole. This is a great post. I believe our sixth sense is the product of our five senses working together in harmony. A symphony of information, beyond what we percieve our five senses are capable of, creates a data base of possibility: response, create, emotion, action, (?).
For me, and from my work with spirit, a seventh sense is knowing. So the ‘field’ knows past/present/future (coexisting), or (?)/sense/response.
When I’m healing the clients energy field talks to me. I hear within my mind, but mind is not in the body, it is with the body, and everything else, in ‘the field’. I guess you could say the neural map talks to me, and then a ghost map (sense), not perceived to be connected to the body talks to me, and if we broaden our thinking the map of life speaks to me.
I love this – “In other words, the capacity to heal is as much embodied in our flesh and bone as it is encapsulated in thought.” Yes and everything else.
Thank you for a great post. Simon.
I have a great friend who does energy work daily with her clients. Its funny how our two very different understandings hold so much common ground. For me, I think of energy work as deep attunement to how our mental states are presented in the body. It takes years to develop the perceptive ability to mirror the experience of someone else in accurate detail, and at the same time, have the presence to track that other-experience internally.
Spirit and knowing are one of my favorite topics. I touch on it in Furies! The short of it is that our brains are built to seek out understanding and sense making. This orientation has its distinct emotions – surprise, curiosity, awe, terror, feeling idiotic or clueless – its own brain systems, neuropeptides etc. Spirituality is reality this desire for knowing on its grandest scale.
My focus is on the recovery and growth from trauma. Trauma is at its core a violation of what we know – our beliefs, schemas, scripts, values, etc. Posttraumatic growth, in a significant sense, is the emergence of a new, better understanding to replace the one which was violated and lost. For many, their traumatic experiences are a gateway to spiritual development, insight and practice. The search for knowledge (which is a very spiritual notion) is literally built into our DNA.
Cole Bitting´s last blog ..Computer Disaster!
Very nice post! As a student of psychology, this area is what drives my imagination – what is consciousness? etc Nicely written.
Craig Thomas´s last blog ..The New ABC’s of Success: Always Be Creating
Thanks for the compliment. I hope people who like my post check out my other writing at Fable.
Cole Bitting´s last blog ..Computer Disaster!
I agree with Steven above, this is one of those posts that you don’t get fully right away but then you go “a-ha!”. Thanks Cole.
Lana – Daring Clarity´s last blog ..How I Got to The Core, Got Scared… and Survived.
Thanks for giving it a second read
Cole Bitting´s last blog ..Phenomenal Guest Post
Cole: Very interesting and educational post. It really drives home the point of the importance of understanding how to positively influence your sensations and thoughts. It also makes it even more evident that we really can work to change the way we respond to challenging situations and control how things impact us. It is interesting to read about the science behind it all. Thanks for the lesson.
alternaview – Sibyl´s last blog ..One Little Secret We Should Know if We Really Want to Do Something Well
Sibyl, thanks for the compliment
I have too much experience with significant distress to have much faith in the idea that we can “control how things impact us.” At some point in time in most peoples lives, something happens which rips down their biggest emotional defense and they feel helpless and without control. And many people have this magnitude of experience several times. I often call it “hitting a 10 on the pain meter.”
Two of the hardest lessons of all are to learn how little control we have and how random life is. Virtually all of our beliefs require a sense of control and predictability. So virtually all of our beliefs can be violated, and we suffer trauma.
However, there is a system of experience, and the better we understand it, the more we might trust the necessary, painful process which can guide us through our dark nights of the soul. I believe “understanding” is a better mindset than “control.”
An interest sub-point: just as we are programmed to seek knowledge, we are programmed to accomplish. So we have a “know” part of the brain and a “do” part of the brain. My point about “understanding” v. “control,” reflect my internal, and largely unconscious preference for “know.” Your brain might be wired to prefer “do.” Regardless, it could well be that my wordsmithing only satisfies a my hidden value rather than makes an insightful observations.
Cole Bitting´s last blog ..Computer Disaster!
HI Cole,
To say this is an interesting post is understating it… Its a tremendous topic and one close to my heart.
I am all for positive thinking and making the mind work with the pain at hand. I had shared in one of my earlier comments on one of Stevens posts…that i actually use this thought process whenever i am in pain..be it physical or emotional. It works miraculously!!
I like how you have approached this topic….
I just downloaded your ebook and subscribed to your blog too. You are gonna see more of me around your blog
Zeenat{Positive Provocations}´s last blog ..8 Cues for Developing Passion
You support makes me smile. Thanks so much!
Cole Bitting´s last blog ..Phenomenal Guest Post
Cole,
Thank you for such an interesting read, I’ve read it a few times and enjoyed just as much.
I have experienced many changes in my life recently, where I’ve had to had to change my thoughts about things. Many changes that I thought I wouldn’t be able to make. However, by allowing things to happen and become more accepting; realisng they were happening for a reason has made life easier. I’ve learnt to become more accepting and understanding. You post has been very helpful, thank you for sharing it.
Regards
Paul
Paul´s last blog ..It’s only skin deep
My background is with people in crisis who often suffer cumulative trauma. Something bad happens and the world caves in. For some, they wither; for others, they discover our spirits are born of suffering.
You touch on one of the most essential qualities to posttraumatic growth: making more meaningful sense of the world. Sense making can be a highly spiritual process.
Cole Bitting´s last blog ..Phenomenal Guest Post
I finally got around to starting: Looking for Spinoza: Joy, Sorrow, and the Feeling Brain based on your recommendation and am enjoying thoroughly. I’m finding it quite enlightening, thanks.
It’s an awesome book. It does a great job exploring a neuroscientific concept of consciousness. It surprised me how rich and deep the role of the body.