Photo: KushiInstitute

So it turns out “neurology is not destiny” – at least according to William Harryman. Oh, and a little ole’ study at Rockefeller University.

Lotsa big words later, it seems all those crazy folks who’ve been saying, “the only thing that holds you back is your mind” were right. Or wait…wrong? Well, whatever. The study basically determined that our brains are not, as we thought, fixed in their wiring early in life, but rather change based on experiences we have and/or participate in throughout our lives.

So much for the but, but…can’t…old dogs…new tricks… Saying you’re too old to learn how to breakdance with a walker or blaming your parents for your Wendy’s frosties-and-fries addiction so you don’t get a green thing in your diet doesn’t cut it anymore. We always, always, always have the ability to change. Get better. Evolve, people.

Ok, it’s not quite that simple. Yeah, there are addictions. Those old neurons fire up when we get reprimanded by the boss, making us head straight out the door for a cuddly, loving ciggie that we oh-so-easily gave up five years ago. We get dumped, or a friend forgets to call us back for eight months, or we don’t hear back from any of the 750 painstakingly-applied for jobs. Bam! Time for a drink/hit off the bong/weekend drug-and-prostitute filled extravaganza in the Hamptoms. You know how it goes.

These addictions are seriously hard to overcome when the going gets rough (and it always will at some point). Why do you think spirituality sells? Partly because it gives a sorta answer: sit with the pain, and then surrender to [insert spiritual guru/god here]. They seem to give a bit of a way out.

The Pleasure of Pain

But what that does is make people think there is a “way out.” Sure, sitting in the pain sounds all good and mature, until you actually have to do it. Then you start to let all those excruciating emotions roll through you without satiating the burning desire to immediately rip your heart out and stomp it til the beating stops. Or rip someone else’s heart out, whatever.

Sitting in the pain hurts. And while I’m not sure that this happens so much if you are really sitting in the pain, the possibility of getting sucked down into that which you think is the pain can be a bit uh, stunting. As Danielle Laporte recently wrote on her blog:

Personally, I haven’t run from my pain. I compensated for it. I spent so much time accommodating it, “working with it”, paying attention to it –- NOT avoiding it, that I neglected my very agency and power: my joy. Unbridled, unabashedly sweet, essential joyousness.

Sometimes we can forget about our joy, and the power we have to achieve it. We can attach to our pain in the name of feeling it, not really letting it work its way through our system in order for it to compost into something actually worth holding onto.

Jesin albuquerque, someone who commented on Laporte’s article, captured this sentiment well:

During the past two years, I lost two close friends, two family members, and my cat-companion of 20 years. I had some grieving to do and I did it. Then, just a few days ago, I woke up one morning feeling strange. After some consideration, I realized that for the first time in a long time, I was not overwhelmed with grief. So what did I do? Tried to get it back. It had become an old friend and a safe haven.

Sometimes, we work just as hard to hold onto the bad stuff as much as the good. Sometimes, we’re scared of the fact that like those researchers determined, our brains aren’t fixed in their wiring. And neither are our lives. Which means we gotta take responsibility for them.

Oooh, more responsibility?

Oh, the Fine Line

I still believe many of us run away from pain (we also run away from true joy in order to experience easier pleasures). But when we start to work with our pain, we might just begin to over-identify with it, partly because we friggin’ ignored it for so long.

That’s why I think talk therapy is good for a while. Get at those wounds of why you act the way you do. Love yourself up. Then get out there and do something about it, instead of getting stuck in the wheel of “well, I acted this way because of my Dad’s inability to show his affection” for an hour week after week (’cause you know your therapist is bored after six years, anyway). Everybody’s got their stuff – it’s not about what happened, it’s what they do with it.

Like anything else – and any other emotion – feeling pain, then letting it go (or transforming it) is a balancing act. Sometimes you gotta wallow. Sometimes you gotta kick yourself in the rear and implement some changes.

Luckily, we know the brain’s got some endless possibilities in store. Re-wire away.

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