The world seems to be a scary place right now. All the predictions about climate change are coming true. There is the war in Ukraine, several African countries, the Middle East, and the threat of war in Asia. There is gang violence equivalent to war in Central America, Haiti, and countless other countries including the United States. There are animals facing extinction. Environmental disasters, starvation, and disease are all killing people. We have such extreme polarization in our political parties that the promise of our nation seems immobilized.

And none of this is new. Homo sapiens appeared about 315,000 years ago, with some references stating that modern humans popped up about 200,000 years ago. That is us, humans, with a prefrontal cortex, or thinking brain. Our limbic system, or emotional brain, is about 250 million years old. Our reptilian brain, which governs body functions, is even older.

What this means is that although we have had the ability to think and reason and make rational decisions, we often have not. We have used our smart brains to create technological advances that have harmed our environment. We have used our smart brains to create better ways to kill each other in war. We have not often used our smart brains to live comfortably in harmony with nature and each other. We have not often used our brains to improve our lives in fun and positive ways.

You may argue that we have, indeed, used our brains productively. I will argue back that, although we have done a lot and have demonstrated the capacity to make positive progress, we have been severely impeded by aggression, greed, and the general lack of Connection that has led us to the problems I stated in the first paragraph.

What gives me hope is when I look at the big picture. We have survived catastrophic events, whether of our own making or not. Almost all the animals alive today were not here before the last ice age nor prior to the meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs. We have created amazing innovations that enhance our lives, like the computer on which I’m typing and the internet where I looked up the evolution of homo sapiens.

I look at each country’s political history since it is politicians, despots, and dictators whose corruption and greed have always been present. I can easily despair at the small-mindedness and avarice that have led to wars, poverty, and desecration of our environment. Yet, we have moments in time when heroes rise up and remind us that there is a better way to live, we can be more evolved and loving, and we can truly Connect.

Laozi, Muhammad, Kung fu Tze, the Buddha, Gandhi, Solon, Euripides, Socrates, Aristotle, Jesus, da Vinci, Martin Luther, Shakespeare, Joan of Arc, Cleopatra, and the Dalai Lama are just a few of the beacons of light that sprang up from our earlier written history. More recently, Marie Curie, Benjamin Franklin, Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill, Joe Hill, Martin Luther King, Jr., Nelson Mandela, Tecumseh, and Malala Yousafzai are names I chose randomly. You can search online and find hundreds more. My current personal favorite is U. S. Senator Elizabeth Warren, whose intelligence, common sense, compassion, and dedication to better our country is a constant source of inspiration for me.

In every generation, there are such leaders and role models. There are individuals who hold up a torch for us to follow and who show us who we can be. These are the lights in dark times, the lights when we feel hopeless or despairing, the lights that guide us toward the vision of our best selves.

This is the choice with which we are faced as we find the Meaning of Life. It is the answer after we ask and answer “Why does God let this happen?

Be In Light,

Carol

Who here is tired, exhausted actually, by the political climate in which we are living?

What makes it so draining?

Addiction.

Or rather, the addictive state in which we live – needing more excitement, more drama, more novelty – that feeds our underlying need for stimulation.

I speak and write continually about this addictive process in which we are exposed to increased levels of stimulation, which leads to the Limbic System (Survival Brain) raising our baselines for how much stimulation feels normal, and then we need more.

We can get stimulation from anywhere: cocaine, shopping, smartphones, pornography, gambling, the news, and even anger and drama. The more we get, the more we want. It feels counter-intuitive because our Prefrontal Cortex (Enlightened Brain) is thinking, “I don’t want this, I want to calm down, I want to relax, I want to just think positive and happy thoughts. But the Survival Brain is not thinking, it’s just acting and reacting and so it keeps building tolerance until we are drained.

There are a lot of people in the media who are marketing hate to us. Hate stimulates the Survival Brain and shuts down the Enlightened Brain. In that state, we are easily manipulated and unable to think for ourselves. The relentless outpouring of vitriol keeps us exhausted.

So, what can we do?

The first step towards Recovery is to admit there is a problem and recognize the addictive process. Recovery is not just from addiction, it is Recovery of Connection. When we become aware of the nature of the process, we can make the conscious decision to live in Recovery. We can gradually bring our baseline back to normal so that we can feel everyday pleasures and experience quiet joy.

My Pocket Therapist: 12 Tools for Living in Connection, is a wonderful guide for Recovery.

Be In Light,

Carol

A lot of us are exhausted and overwhelmed. We have been inundated with 24/7 news full of drama and catastrophe and fear-mongering. We may have thought that once the election was over, we’d be ok, but we’re not.

Just like soldiers returning from battle or people going through any kind of crisis who believe that once it’s over, they’ll feel normal again but then they don’t, we are left wondering why we feel like we’re slogging through mud.

The truth is, we go on adrenaline and other stimulating brain chemicals in order to survive. When the crisis is over, of course we are left feeling depleted and drained of all energy.

So what to do? We have to live our lives, work at our jobs, take care of our kids, and interact in our relationships. How do we do that when we just want to crawl into a soft bed and hibernate?

This is where put into practice all the therapeutic interventions we give to our clients.

I go to the Serenity Prayer:

God, grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The Courage to change the things I can
And the Wisdom to know the difference.

Everything outside of our own brains is out of our control. All anxiety, depression, trauma, stress, anger, and fear are manufactured by the thoughts that feed them. Basic REBT. Not so easy to implement, though, which is why I go to Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) to get into the limbic system and move the underlying drivers of our self-defeating thoughts.

It starts, though, with a willingness to take responsibility for creating those above-mentioned emotions. Then we can CHOOSE where to put our attention and energy. When we are truly grounded and present, then we can orient ourselves to our surroundings and acknowledge that we are safe, right here, right now. (for an exercise in how to practice this daily, go here: Container and Orientation).

It seems so simple, doesn’t it, to focus on changing our own thoughts and attitudes and to stop stressing over things we can’t change, like our politicians, the cost of gas, and all the horrible things happening around the world. We can choose to speak out, send money, or volunteer, and then we need to let it go. Simple, right?

So, WHY is it so difficult?

The answer to every WHY about irrational behavior is rooted in the limbic system (Survival Brain), where addiction lives. We become addicted to stimulation and the Survival Brain does not differentiate pleasure from anger or stress. It’s just stimulation and the more our brains adjust to new and higher levels, the more we need. It’s that simple.

Addiction or recovery? Disconnection or Connection?

Use your prefrontal cortex (Enlightened Brain) to choose how you want to be, how you want to live, and then act in harmony with that. The exercises in My Pocket Therapist: 12 Tools for Living in Connection, will help, or you can find your own way, but make that choice. It is the one thing over which you have control!

The world today seems to have gone radically irrational. We are so polarized about everything that critical thinking is almost nonexistent, and everyone is just spouting the latest soundbites from whatever media they subscribe to without giving a real thought to what they are truly saying.

So, here’s a soundbite: The biggest motivator of human behavior is the need to belong to the group.

This is actually a survival mechanism rooted deep in our limbic systems. We are social creatures who need to belong to a group in order to survive. That was true a few million years ago and, for different reasons, it’s true now. As a group, we depend on our governmental systems to provide our infrastructure – business, social, environmental, and physical. As individuals, we rely on our family, social, and community support systems for our emotional well-being.

The problem is, that this need leads to us being easily exploited. All someone has to do is tap into our fear of being excluded from the group, or being unsafe, and then tell us that they will take care of us and alleviate that fear, and we belong to them. In fact, politicians, business people, and cult leaders will create something for us to fear, tell us they will fix it, and we will follow them forever.

This is true whether it’s an ad telling us we smell bad and need to buy a particular product to smell better; a politician telling us that a particular group is going to take away our freedom, livelihood, safety, etc.; or a charismatic leader who tells us that he has the all the answers and that we will go to hell if we don’t follow him.

Why do we fall for this so easily? Because when fear is activated in the limbic system, our prefrontal cortex (thinking, reasoning, and rational part of the brain) shuts down. We literally can’t think.

Again, this is keyed into basic survival. If we are in actual danger, our survival brain needs to react immediately, without thinking, or we could be killed. That is not the case with the manipulations of those who want to control us, however.

So, what can we do? We can ask, “Does this make sense?”

When you are listening to the news, to a politician, to anyone who telling you “facts” so you will act in accordance with them, first ask, “Does this make sense?”

Does it make sense that every person trying to escape intolerable conditions in their own country and come into the U.S. is a rapist and criminal?

Does it make sense that, despite more than 50 years of scientific study, man-made climate change does not exist?

Does it make sense that someone who espouses hatred and violence follows a religion that teaches the opposite?

When I teach a Research class, I focus on reading research articles critically and questioning all statistics. Who did the research? What were their biases? Who funded the research? Who was in the research sample? What was the hypothesis and was it supported? What were the limitations of the study?

Help bring some sanity back into an insane world. Be an informed consumer of information and make up your own mind.

Be a light of reason in the darkness of fear!

Be In Light,
Carol