More on the new Book!

Here's a sample from the chapter on Feelings and Emotions:

We often use these two words interchangeably, but they're not the same thing. Emotions are all about our automatic responses to triggers, like hunger, and anger, even happiness. We're not aware of them, and we don't have to be. They'll just happen upon us and will force us to act as our brains do their job of keeping us alive.

Did you know that there are 18 kinds of smiles our faces can make? Only one of these is caused by the emotion of happiness. The others are caused by our thinking about and then creating them. (Try a few; see how many different smiles you can create!)

Feelings, on the other hand, begin when we recognize our emotions and give meanings to them, like calling them love, hate and anger. We are meant to be aware of our feelings, even though they do not necessarily result in actions of any kind.

While have no control over our emotions, we do have a great deal of control over our feelings. As humans, we're so powerful that we can decide to make positive feelings our "default setting." According to Stefan Klein (stefanklein.info), one of Europe's most influential science writers, our brains would even appreciate our doing so! More on that to come....

New Book; Working Title

I'm thinking of calling the new book

Human: A Practical Philosophy

As I mentioned, this book stands at the intersection of being a human and what neuroscience has discovered about humans. I call it the philosophy of why a human is an extraordinary thing to be. It looks at feelings, emotions, thinking and memory - the hard science of these as well as my own life experiences of them. It also considers love, and fear, intuition and even imagination, the "soft" and the "hard science" aspects of these familiar human characteristics. And, of course, it is the story of how our one-of-a-kind, inner voices are at the center of who we are, what we know, and the proof that we can make smart and healthy choices and decisions in our lives.

After all, each one of us is the "expert" on us!

Let me know what you think of the title!

Starting Over...again

Do you ever feel that you want to start over again with a project in your life? One of the best things about being a human is that we can do that, over and over again, until we feel we're doing things just the way we want them to be.

That's what I'm doing, right now. I've been pretty busy since my last entry, and I want to bring you up to date. Then, I want to start over, by writing much more often than I have in the past, to keep you posted.

For one thing, I've moved back to New York City. For another, I'm just finishing up a book I've been working on, and I'm very excited about getting it out there to share with you!

As many of you already know (since I've been talking about it so much), it stands at the intersection of being a human and what science has discovered about being a human. Specifically, that's what neuroscience says, through brain imaging studies I've been reading and telling you about. I've been learning wondrous things about my own brain. As I've gotten to know how it operates and appreciate that its only goal is to help me thrive and survive, I want to help it. In some ways, it's become my new best friend - isn't that funny?! After all, it is the place where my inner voice lives, and you already know what I think of that great friend.

I'll be writing a lot more about this in coming weeks. I look forward to sharing it with you!

Fear is a great challenge (3)

Like I said, you can choose to be happy, because you and your brain are so smart.

The cerebrum, the newer part of your brain (relatively speaking; it wasn't born yesterday) is more technologically advanced than the reptilian, where the emotion of fear is born.

If you begin to plow the field of fear as it becomes feelings (that is, as your cerebrum begins to process the original emotion), you can think about and route it out. You'll notice something fascinating: your brain may disguise what is really your fear as anything but. It might wear a three-piece suit of reasonableness, or it might turn into a "Waldo," so well hidden in the fibers of your other thoughts and feelings that you'll miss seeing it there for what it truly is.

Whose brain is it, anyway? It's not fear's brain, even though fear is tough. It's got to be; it has a tough job of keeping you safe. It just doesn't know that, in your technological world, not everything you're afraid of is a "fight or flight" situation. (Imagine yourself inviting a cave-man or -woman to visit your home full of DVDs and IPODs.)

Get in there and fight for yourself. Interrogate those feelings until you know you've shown them who's boss.

It is you, isn't it?

Like I said, you can choose to be happy (2)

It works something like this. After fear's job of protecting us is passed, the emotion - fear - becomes a feeling in our newer, more technologically advanced brains. Said another way, your brain now has the time to wonder about what just happened.

This is when it gets interesting. You might be a person who denies your feelings, or one who "flies off the handle" at the prospect of a new feeling.

What you always are, though, is a human, able to think about your feelings. That means you are always able to decide how you're going to deal with them. It's just the way you're made.

If you take some time to ask the feeling about itself, you may eventually discover you're afraid of something. If you're brave enough to do that, you may also discover:

* you don't have to be afraid of whatever it is
* you don't want to be afraid; and
* most importantly, that the fear itself is evaporating while you're thinking about it (or writing about it, or talking about it, even to yourself).

I like to write about my fears, to interrogate them thoroughly (cross-examining them like a lawyer). When I do, they always disappear, leaving me free, again, to be happy - if I choose.

If it sounds simplistic, it is...and, well, it isn't. Because fear is an emotion designed to keep us safe, we have an investment in it. Sometimes we choose to hold onto it for seemingly no reason at all. If we can use our brain power over our fear, we've achieved quite a lot!

At the Risk of Repeating Myself...(1)

...I've just got to say another bit about FEAR.

We are very advanced technologically, so we tend to think we are fearless - and that's great!
But, we all have some places inside ourselves that are open to the lure of fear. Even those of us who are on to fear's tricks are often surprised to find (when we're really honest with ourselves) that we are fearful of this, that and the other thing. We don't talk about it; we don't want anyone to know. This message is for us.

Fear is an emotion. It lives in the oldest part of our brain, the reptilian part, way at the bottom. It was created to keep us safe, from animals in the forest who would suddenly attack (we automatically run or stay to fight), or from dying of starvation (we automatically get hungry). If we had to think about action, we could be hurt, or worse.

By comparison, we use a much newer part of our brain, way at the top, when we are feeling, and we can think about our feelings (Do you want to eat twigs alone in the forest, or a fancy French dinner with your friends?). We can even decide to feel happy, rather than sad.

How do you feel about that?

It's Been Awhile...

...and I'm glad to be back!
I have a question for you: What do you do when you feel angry...with yourself?
Do you know you can choose what you're going to do about how you feel?
You can! Every time. Even when you don't know you can, you can.
And, you can teach yourself how to choose to feel good, rather than bad. Every time.
That's because you're a human.
And a human is an extraordinary thing to be.
There'll be more about this in the next few blogs.

Trigger Happy

Have you ever been around a person who "pushes your buttons"? One who "triggers" such strong emotions in you that you can barely control your reaction to them? They make you angry, they make you say sarcastic things, or they make you yell at them. Afterward, when they're gone and you've calmed down, do you wonder what made you react so strongly, the way you did?

We all meet people like that. They're "triggers", because they "trigger" certain feelings and responses in us. We can recognize them by how intensely we react to them. We're sure it's something about them, and we can't understand why they have to be the way they are.

Next time you meet someone who makes you feel that way, ask yourself what's going on with you. What are you feeling, exactly? Did you ever feel that way before? What were the circumstances then? Try to identify the events that made you feel that way, and the people. Your answers might help you solve an important puzzle about yourself.

Do you know that you can diffuse the trigger if you can figure it out? You can! And your reward for doing so is great: the next time, you won't feel anything at all about that person. But you sure will feel good about yourself.

You see, it's not about them at all. It's about you! People who seem to know exactly what "buttons to push" usually don't know anything of the sort. They're your buttons, after all.

And our "buttons" are like our fear. The more you can name them, the more you can figure out how to stop being under their control. Think about it. If you can identify them, you can get free to move on. You might even feel grateful to the person for giving you the opportunity to learn some really important things about yourself.

And nobody but you will ever have to know there was anything going on at all.

Stop "Shudding" On Me!

I'm sure this has happened to you: people and businesses shudding all over you, uninvited, and unwelcome. It's enough to drive a person crazy! How are you supposed to hear the sound of your own voice when you're being bombarded constantly with "You should do this" and "You should do that"?

It's hard to hear our own voices when our heads are crammed full with all the things others think we "should" be doing and thinking and wanting and having, not to mention the ways we "should" be looking and acting and talking. Without even knowing it, we internalize those messages, and we carry them around with us whether they're well-intentioned (like from people who care about us and only want what's best for us), or they're just incidental television commercials trying to sell us a magic potion.

How can we even hear ourselves think, much less hear what our own, inner voices have to say to us?

Here's a quick and fun way you can clear your head of all those internalized messages that overwhelm you each day. Sit quietly for a few minutes and let your head fill up with all those "shoulds". When you've got a good head-full, stand up and, bending over slightly, gently shake them all out, all over the floor. Watch them fly out through your eyes and ears, your nose and maybe even your mouth (like those lipstick and mouthwash commercials you got today) - and see them pile up in front of you on the floor. When you think you've gotten a whole supply of "shoulds" out, start stomping on them - (if you're alone, you can add hooting and hollering, and definitely laughing at them as you stomp them out). Then, step over what's left of them, and keep on walkin'.

You've got a lot of living to do, and there's nothing that feels so good as having a clear head.

Me, Myself, and I (second in a series)

The longer I live, the more certain I am that the answer to the question:

"What's it all about?"

can be stated very simply:

"It's all about getting to love myself."

Now, stop rolling your eyes and reaching for the mouse. I said the answer can be stated very simply. I didn't say the answer is simple....although I have started wondering why we think the goal is so hard that many of us don't even try to reach it.

Why do we think of loving as something we can only do - or should only do (there's the "should" word: look for it in a blog of its own, very soon) - why do we think we can only love other people? And, frankly, if we can't love ourselves, how can we tell when we are loving other people? How can we know what love feels like? Not some sitcom and fashion magazine kind of love, but the real kind, the kind every human longs for...whether we admit it or not?

How do I get there - to loving myself? Lots of good self-help books tell me I
should(!)stop yelling at myself, stop criticizing and mocking myself for things I don't do perfectly. Stop judging myself, be kinder to myself, do nice things for me, celebrate myself, dance when I'm alone and even laugh with myself. Those can feel like baby steps when I don't love myself, like being at the start of a very long road: will I even have enouh time to get all the way up to loving myself with those small things?

Here's the thing: as long as we're living under the burden of things we wish were different in our lives, we can't know how it feels to be loved by ourselves. But even if we can change some of those small things we wish were different - like the ways we treat ourselves - wouldn't we feel better? And, maybe it's only a short road, not so long as we're afraid (fear: please read the Fear blog before you continue).

Here's another thing: every day that I live is another whole day of my very own life. Why should I waste any of them? Why wouldn't I want to spend every single one of them in the best love affair I could ever have - the one I can be absolutely certain will last for as long as I live? Wouldn't everything be much better in that environment? Isn't that what it's all about?

Me, Myself, and I (first in a series)

Think about it. We are with ourselves wherever we are and whenever we are there - whether we want to be or not. We're the ones who wear that gorgeous glow all over when we're happier than we could have imagined ourselves. And no one - no one - can break our hearts the same way we can. Before any of the guests show up, and long after everyone has gone home: it's always just each of us, and ourselves.

This is a giant truth that all of us humans share.

So, you'd think that all this "up close and personal"-ness of my own proximity would mean I always want the very best for myself. Unconditionally. What else would I say if somebody asked? Of course I want to be happy. I want to have a wildly successful life. And I want to be the one to define my life in the most meaningful way I can. After all, who has a greater stake in whatever I do...than I do?

Think about the next most important relationship in your life. How do you take care of it? How do you show how much it means to you, how much you treasure it?

Isn't it time you took that kind of care of your most important relationship?

Fear

I had a "fear weekend" a few months ago. Have you ever had one?

When I was a young person in my 20's, I used to joke that I was afraid of everything, but everything equally. So, since I had to do something, I folded up all my fear and slipped it into the back pocket of my jeans. Then I could just take it with me anywhere I went.

Have you ever noticed that we call fear, "my" fear? As if it's just the two of us in a special relationship, it's ours alone, and we own it?

Fear, of course, the kind that's hard-wired into our brains, is there to help us. "Fight" or "flight" we call it, so we'll know instinctively how to react to a possible danger in order to save our lives. We all have that fear.

But this fear, "my" fear, well, that's quite something else again...isn't it?

I've learned that "my" fear is very smart, and determined. It challenges me, even dares me to spot it before it takes over. It wears clever disguises. It masquerades as thoughtful concern, or something I might think is really important. Sometimes it takes me a while to recognize that it's just, oh, "my" fear.

But there's this about my fear - When I catch up with it, when I call it what it is - it begins to evaporate, instantly. It disappears, as quickly as it came on. If I stand up to it, it can't stand up to me. I'm bigger, and stronger, than it.

Try this sometime, when you're feeling "your" fear: grab a pen and paper, and write about it.
Start with something like this: "My fear tried to keep me from something I want today...." When you finish writing, pick your head up and take a deep breath. Is it still there? If it's getting smaller, keep writing: you're on the right track.

We're bigger than our fear, because we've created it. We've made it a part of ourselves that doesn't really exist without our inviting it in. If you can figure out why you invited it in (Start with asking yourself, "What is it I'm afraid of?"), you can decide if you want to give into it, or if you want to cancel the invitation.

We are much more powerful than we know!