Saturday, January 19, 2013
Ways to Experience Life
There are two ways to experience life. One is the automatic way, in which we process and filter everything through our minds. There is a delay to our experience as our minds evaluate, compare, judge. And because of this, we are not in the moment, but detached. But there is another way, one we experienced naturally as a child, but have forgotten. And that is to experience life in real-time. To smell, to touch, to see - to breathe in the now. This moment, free from remembered pain or fears of the future, can be magical, and contains more than enough to fill our hearts with peace.
Sunday, January 13, 2013
Breeding versus Bonding Instincts
Problems in relationships are inevitable. We have two powerful forces acting on us that are at cross purposes. Call them breeding instincts versus bonding instincts. Call them genetic programming versus social programming. Call them our mammalian brain versus our prefrontal cortex. No matter how you look at it, we are most often torn into two directions when it comes to love.
In a new and exciting relationship everything feels good, due mostly to the love potion bubbling in our brain (neurotransmitters such as dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin that drive us, make us enamored, and bond us). All our questions are answered, forgotten, or moot. But when that heady cocktail starts to wear off, and we begin to become habituated to the other person, the two forces -- one covertly driving us away to seek novelty, and the other consciously driving us to keep our commitment to the other person -- can begin to make us feel torn.
While it may not be possible to reconcile these forces, if we ignore their influence, we may wrongly assume that our partner is to blame for our feelings of boredom, listlessness, or disappointment, when those feelings may be caused instead by our breeding instinct telling us to move on (an instinct that cares nothing for our happiness or bonding beyond what is required to raise our children).
If, however, we acknowledge these conflicts in ourselves and learn how they affect us, we can take ownership of those negative feelings. And with this understanding we can forgive others, and ourselves, for not consistently behaving in the way we desire.
In a new and exciting relationship everything feels good, due mostly to the love potion bubbling in our brain (neurotransmitters such as dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin that drive us, make us enamored, and bond us). All our questions are answered, forgotten, or moot. But when that heady cocktail starts to wear off, and we begin to become habituated to the other person, the two forces -- one covertly driving us away to seek novelty, and the other consciously driving us to keep our commitment to the other person -- can begin to make us feel torn.
While it may not be possible to reconcile these forces, if we ignore their influence, we may wrongly assume that our partner is to blame for our feelings of boredom, listlessness, or disappointment, when those feelings may be caused instead by our breeding instinct telling us to move on (an instinct that cares nothing for our happiness or bonding beyond what is required to raise our children).
If, however, we acknowledge these conflicts in ourselves and learn how they affect us, we can take ownership of those negative feelings. And with this understanding we can forgive others, and ourselves, for not consistently behaving in the way we desire.
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