Mentally Off Center

A childhood with a lot of emotional deficit, may lead you to develop survival coping mechanisms that may not serve you in adulthood.   Our environment shapes us, more than we’d like to admit. 

Addictions may be virtuous, if they have societal merits (say, being a workaholic). My addictions certainly do not.  This is even more interesting if we understand that both pain and pleasure is felt by the same area of the brain.  

“In addition to the discovery of dopamine, one of the most remarkable neuroscientific findings in the past century is that the brain processes pleasure and pain in the same place.  Further, pleasure and pain work like opposite sides of a balance” - Dopamine Nation - Anna Lembke MD.

It’s not so much about removing one's addictions, but learning the great art of balancing the pleasure experience so that eventually, we learn that “the trick is to stop running away from painful emotions, and instead allow ourselves to tolerate them.  When we’re able to do this, our experience takes on a new and unexpectedly rich texture.  The pain is still there, but somehow transformed, seeming to encompass a vast landscape of communal suffering rather than being wholly our own.” -  Dopamine Nation - Anna Lembke MD.

In this podcast, James and I discuss some tried and tested (and failed) attempts at modifying our behaviours, such as: 

1. Sober October - good old (tried and failed!) abstinence of cannabis, coffee and alcohol.

2. Cramming your spare time with “productive activities”!

3. Psychedelic therapy. 

4. Daily cocktail of behaviours to maintain your baseline: eat well, move, meditate. How annoying.

Embracing failure first is a must, with any endeavour, for "…we must make some effort until we get a taste of the benefit” -Yoga Sutras of Patanjali

Or one fail-safe way to make your life better is to get a dog. 

(This episode features a special guest, Santos L. Halper!  He interjects around the 20, 27 and 40 minute mark.  You have been warned.)