A World of Possibilities: Stepping Back Into Life with Curiosity, Courage, and Wonder

Tonight we're gonna be talking about leaning out of the overprotective brain. uh addressing anxiety and old uh stuck patterns of behavior. And so uh after we have the talk Then we will go to a meditation where we'll build on the themes and practice. in contemplation. We know from the work of countless cognitive scientists that our minds don't wait for things to happen, They're always one step ahead or several steps ahead of our conscious awareness, anticipating what's gonna come next.

So when we walk into any kind of social gathering before a word is spoken uh to us or anyone even looks our way, our chest may begin to tighten with anxiety or release with ease. our attention may jump with anxiety or settle with uh a sense of confidence, depending upon what our unconscious right hemisphere expects on a date before somebody even finishes the first sentence. we probably have a prediction about whether we're being appreciated and welcomed or dismissed.

Our brain prepares us based on expectations, not by waiting for things actually to occur. Our brains Don't build these expectations from what's out there. Uh these expectations or predictions, by the way, in science is called priors and in Buddhism called sankaras, or fabrications that we mistake for reality, um Our brains build them from memories of past experiences that seem relevant.

to the present situation we're encountering. So very quickly as you enter any situation, you're I enter any situation, um Key regions of our brain, the dorsal anterior cingular cortex, orbital frontal, particularly in the right brain, basically work in tandem with the hippocampus and the enterrenal.

cortex and load up hundreds of thousands of cortical columns with old memory states, it's called reinstatements, and those old memories based on you know what happened in the past, t create in our bodies feelings, anticipations, uh outlooks. that are there to help us respond quickly. to the world. We don't wait until the world tells us whether i something is gonna be difficult or threatening. Our brain always anticipates what's happening in the present by what happened to us in the past.

So f for example, if we enter a room that resembles a middle school classroom when uh we were in fifth grade where we regularly felt embarrassed due to struggling with math or uh having dyslexia or whatever, um, and we experienced a sense of shame then our brain will automatically, without waiting for anything to happen in this new room, uh, will go into an emotional state. uh from the past.

If we were ashamed in the past, we'll feel ashamed now. If we were angry in the past, we'll feel angry now. So our brains don't load conscious. stories about what to expect, our brains load what's called affective tones or emotional dispositions. that prepare us. For example, the right temporal

contributes the the the sense of whether we can relax. The parietal region reconstructs what the body our bodies were like, the motor cortex begins to initiate behaviors, our frontal lobe begins to um suggest unconscious behavioral strategies as well. So, what's going on in each situation is rather than waiting for people to actually respond to us, as we enter each situation, our brain quickly goes, Oh, this reminds me of when. It goes back to that.

to those memories from the past, and loads the emotions, feelings, impulses qualities of attention that we were in. Suddenly we become anxious, suddenly we become frustrated, suddenly we become fatigued, suddenly we become confident. And This is because our brains are in many ways

always in two different time zones. Conscious mind is much more contextual, much more aware of what's happening in the present, but the unconscious r right temporal, parietal, um orbital frontal regions which are wholly unconscious, are living in past events, reinstating them to help us respond to life quickly. We don't weigh. were already in the anticipation of how to act. So our body states shift, our voice changes.

our attention narrows, our looking uh whether we become fixated on people's facial expressions with hypervigilance, or whether we begin to drift off, you know, uh dissociate, or whether we um feel encouraged to talk and take up space. We don't remember the past events that guide us consciously. They're all being enacted in us. Through fast.

automatic, unconscious behavioral dispositions that we feel in our emotions, whether we're anxious or depressed, tired, awake, confident, alert. And We see all the moments of our lives through these reinstated memories. And if you'd like to read more about it, you can look through the work of some of the giants in the field of um cognitive science and neuroscience. especially the w the works of Lisa Feldman Barrett, Annell Seth, Andy Clark, um Jeff Hawkins, and on and on. I mean

you can just look up memory reinstatement and see how it primes us for surviving and and adapting to the world. So long before we had words for it in childhood we learned What situations were safe and which situations weren't. Depending upon whether our primary or secondary caregiver was attentive or not, we learned whether relationships were safe.

Or not. We learned whether when a p if a if a parent suddenly became quiet and neglectful we learned through countless interactions whether that meant we should seek attention Or give up. and just self soothe by playing a game or dissociate, or whether we could confidently just explore the world knowing that if anything happened a parent would return their attention. Our brain stores all of the countless the patterns of these tens of thousands of interactions with our caregivers.

as what's called attachment styles or internal working models, as they're sometimes called. These are predictions or in science what are called priors. and in Buddhism Sankaras. These are the unconscious uh beliefs based on past experiences that we carry with us. So social anxiety

is a prediction. Social anxiety begins as and what we could say is the over application, yeah, that's right. The over application of old safety learnings from childhood, based on early life experiences Um, we walk into a gathering and anticipate Uh for instance or predict that we'll be judged. or that people won't welcome us. And so we don't Experience this prediction as a thought. Oh, I'm going to be judged. We experience it as a feeling. Our throat suddenly tightens.

speech we begin to stutter or go grows quiet. We avoid eye contact. We look at the ground. We leave early and others experience us, of course, then as distant, which reinforces the pro this prediction that we don't do well in social situations. we conclude I'm not good socially because the prediction I won't be welcome makes us act in our bodies act in certain ways, and in so doing, uh very often it just reinforces the prediction. Agoraphobia is

It's very similar. It's um another example of prediction error. So we predict that we'll be overwhelmed in any crowded s uh environment. Maybe riding a subway, maybe a supermarket, maybe a crowded uh plaza or something space. So our body shifts into a state of tension and jumpiness before we even go out, and we retreat. Because we're already feeling this sense of apprehension. And by staying at home and not going out, the brain learns that avoidance

reduces anxiety. So our world begins to shrink and it's not because the world is unsafe at all, it's simply because we never test. these predictions. We never constantly experience enough what's called disconfirming evidence. I'll talk about that in a little while. So negative early events in life leave far deeper marks. Then adult. experiences. Why is this? Well, one, our right brain during the first two years of life is rapidly building and shedding

millions of neural connections uh every day. Literally, I think it's millions. And the right brain, by the time we're four or five, becomes unconscious. But in the early life, the right brain is very, very dominant and it learns from all the interactions with adults. It learns whether we feel safe in the world, whether we feel relationships are a place where our emotions can be soothed, whether we can be creative, or whether we have to avoid

anything that we're not an expert at and so on and so forth. These ear these early events in life um activate our stress or our adaptive system. Uh criticism, shame, neglect, emotional chaos in the family activate an axis in the brain called the HPA, which stands for the hypothalamus, pituitary, and adrenal glands. And they flood the body with Hormones that alert us to we have to stay safe, we have to be attentive, we can't relax.

Cortisol and adrenaline have been shown, especially adrenaline to strengthen memory encoding. So the more uh constant, uh unpredictable events in childhood, the more the child feels uh constantly surprised by the parents changing disposition, the more the child remembers core attachments and social situations as unsafe. And the brain then goes on to wire these W uh connect in the medial temporal lobe. These

uh organize these memories in across multiple multiple networks. They become what's called what you could call redundantly wired. And what it means is The memories in childhood, especially the negative ones,'cause the brain hasn't uh in big t negativity bias, uh humiliating, scary, difficult situations in childhood. are encoded with redundancy

the system concludes, I'm never gonna let this happen ever again. I'm gonna make sure I don't re experience this. Overwired memories become easily reactivated in adult life. a mildly distracted roommate or coworker or romantic partner can create in us the same body state as when we were shamed by a third grade teacher a neutral facial expression can activate the vigilance we learned at home if we saw the same phase on our father when he was exhibiting disapproval. All these memories are stored

redundantly. So myriad cues from our daily life can bring them back and sometimes people use the word trigger. A more accurate word is reactivate. Reanimate the early emotional experience in the present. The brain does this because it believes it's protecting us. In reality, even though reality doesn't really follow these forecasts, the brain would always rather be safe than sorry. It takes constantly searching for disconfirming evidence, evidence that shows the brain

uh its predictions are wrong for it to begin to write new predictions. Predictions only change when we we behave differently. We go out into the world and we actively seek situations that our brains would prefer us to avoid. If we avoid parties Or social gatherings, the brain never encounters contradictory evidence. The anxiety stays in place.

So obviously all of this is leading to um the inevitable conclusion that some form of exposure therapy is always always how you do it can change, but re encountering um no the situations that we've been avoiding uh is always going to be part of the package of addressing and healing whatever the experiences we had early on in life.

when we speak despite social anxiety and people respond to us with word with warmth and uh welcoming expressions, then our brains predictions lose their certainty, at least a significant amount. If we ride a subway or drive our car over a bridge when those events used to cause us anxiety.

and nothing catastrophic happens, our bodies begin to re well not our bodies, our right hemispheres begin to recalibrate. So action going out into the world with an agenda of testing the situations that make us nervous is how the brain learns. and changes And if you want to learn more about this you can I mean countless neuroscientists along the lines of Andy Clark and Il Seth.

Or psychologists like Peter Phonegie, Tanya Singer, Michael Treadway, and on and on and on and on and on talk about how uh action in the world Is how we disrupt prediction loops in our brains. So daily life constantly offers us. the possibility of revising these models. If we travel alone That might at first uh trigger predictions of loneliness or overwhelm but the spontaneous conversations we get into with someone we meet can introduce a profound prediction error that changes the idea that uh

that traveling alone is always risky. Starting a new job Many of us fear looking incompetent, so we refrain from asking questions. But if you ask questions, It's how you show to other people that you want to learn from them, that you want to tap their knowledge. So the can the belief from early childhood that if I ask a question people will be irritated or annoyed. almost invariably in every new job is incorrect, yet people still

try to appear like they're an expert and that's when they get, of course, into trouble. Uh moving into a new neighborhood uh may feel alienating. I mean, uh, it can feel estranging or uh uncomfortable, but if we greet a neighbor or enough neighbors over time, we start to feel at home and uh if you're in a long term relationship, trying something new together disrupts the prediction of boredom.

So each deviation from the norm or from the script creates the not only the opportunity but over time the inevitability that we can break free of the old um the old b unconscious dispositions that um basically burden us and make us feel uh over time our our lives feel smaller and less comfortable. So again, in avoiding testing anxiety, we strengthen the old m models. We pred we strengthen the prediction will be rejected.

w and in turn we'll withdraw and in turn we'll once again experience loneliness. It's only when we act against these beliefs directly heading where the anxiety uh is has positioned itself in our life, we open the loop. For sometimes Um, interestingly enough, with some people, um, testing predictions can involve actually doing nothing.

So if somebody's very anxious in relationships, friendships uh, if they don't hear from someone they've started dating, they don't get a text message they expect or they uh feel like an exchange was awkward. the anxious person might feel the need to consciously try to alleviate their anxiety by writing text after text seeking attention. And so for them

Testing the prediction error might be not reaching out and actually connecting elsewhere. So Finally, let's bring this back to the Dharma and Buddhism.

In Buddhism we learn that everything we experience is impermanent. It's called anitja. And whether we like it or not, or notice it or not, it's a fundamental law of existence. And by this law, that doesn't mean that everything we cherish will go away. It also means that every negative prediction in our life. work is subject to be disproved. The colleague at work who seemed cold one day might be welcoming the next.

I remember from years and years and years ago, I mean we're talking about Twenty years ago, um When I was I was at I was pretty new to being a Buddhist pastor and I was still working freelance jobs and um I was in this freelance gig where I was writing copy.

for a uh ad agency and um this project manager kept coming in every morning asking if the copy was ready. And um so I uh over time, whenever I would see her anywhere, my body would go into this prediction of, oh I'm gonna be harassed again, I'm gonna have this person go in, you know, just bombard me with why aren't I creating faster?

why are things taking so long, etcetera. So one morning she came in and to m the place I was working and my body got all anxious and I was already in that place of dismissal and I was going to just um you know, uh, just say something that got rid of her and I and something in my brain came

present enough to realize that she was simply asking how my weekend was and was in no way harassing me. And if I hadn't paid attention and hadn't continued to engage with her and have a conversation, that conversation I remember changed everything. And then after that, my body didn't automatically go into this go-away state. So um it's really important to be curious. Um these old beliefs or expectations. The Buddha called these predictions or beliefs

Um, also beyond Sankaras, he also called them Ditti. Ditti means our beliefs about the world, both conscious and otherwise. And Ditti Upadhana clinging to views. he d he says throughout the Dharma causes suffering. So if we assume I'm not good at art, I'm bad with money, I'm too old to change. Relationships always become difficult. I'm not athletic. What we are doing are simply always living in old models as if they're fixed realities. They're cop-outs.

For not learning to We're opting out of trying and our very identities become stuck. And that for me is the worst outcome. So practicing w uh in permanence means actively looking for not just waiting for the surprise, but looking for surprises. You know, we c while if we travel while anxious, we can savor and really observe the times that our bodies relax and disconfirm the belief.

Um we sit in awkward silences in a social gathering and instead of speaking up to alleviate the silence simply sit and watch as it disappears. and notice that nothing bad happens, um, then we can re update an old prediction from childhood that silence is dangerous. Um if we watch irritation in a relationship recede we can see that even other people's moods are impermanent and we can't accurately predict what other people are feeling or thinking.

So in short, in summary, our brains learned that safety first. uh for good reasons that protected us in schoolyards, in our f at our family t dinner tables, uh in our early friendships. These predictions helped us survive. And unfortunately these predictions automatically follow us into our adult life. Sometimes the behaviors they cause are cold, maladaptive coping strategies. And freedom comes not just from um it never comes from erasing the past, but from gently updating it.

Each new action creates the possibility of fresh evidence. Fresh evidence can create predictive surprises. It's only when the brain encounters surprises that it learns. So anyway, I hope that talk was worth

your attention in some way. And now what we're gonna do is a meditation where we put into Practice some of these tools. So what I'm gonna encourage you to do is to for a little while go off screen. You can turn off your screen or go and find a place that's comfortable to meditate. And you can sit up or lie down or find a couch or a quiet spot where you can relax but not fall asleep.

So find a position, a seated posture that is conducive to both ease but also not eased to the point that we take a nap.

Not pushing out the air but gently releasing it. The slower the exhalation, the more we induce parasympathetic states which induce ease, rest and digest. If on the other hand you're tired, really focus on the inhalations, making them full and complete. So on meditation, if you want to enliven, focus on your inhalations, if you want to Relax or slow down. allow the mind to settle Focus on slowly releasing the exhalations.

It's the basic steering wheel, not only in meditation, but also In life, the fastest way to for the mind to influence the body is by influencing how we breathe.

that pull in the belly, tighten the shoulders, bring them up, clench the face, make fists, and then when you breathe out Just let everything relax. So now for the second breath as you breathe in, just tighten.

You can pay attention to sounds around you arising and passing without visualizing what's causing them. You can Repeat in your mind uh Dharma or spiritual teaching, a phrase That you repeat, May I be happy, peaceful, free of stress and suffering. May all beings be happy, peaceful, free of stress and suffering. May all beings live with ease.