“To say “I love you” one must know first how to say the “I”.”
Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead
Ok, I Understand. Now What Do I Do About It?
Great news, You already HAVE done something about it!
In Traditional Chinese Medicine the “brain” has a natural ability to balance itself out when your sense of self awareness (which we talked about in the last post) becomes aware of the other parts of your brain.
How does this work? (Step 1)
Recall that there are 3 distinct parts (aspects) of the brain in Traditional Chinese Medicine. (If you want a recap you can find it here)
- Self-Aware/Consciousness
- Thinking/Emotional
- Body Brain
The thinking/emotional brain and the body brain have no ability to regulate or balance themselves. They in short simply regurgitate their conditioning based on past experiences, prior training, belief systems, and a whole host of other variables.
It is easy to understand them if you think of them as computer programs; they do what they were designed to do automatically based on the “programming” they were given. You can change their “programming” only with the help of the self-aware/conscious brain.
Once the self-aware brain is “looking at” the other 2 aspects of the brain then you become aware of the stories you are telling yourself, the emotions you are feeling, and how your body is responding to these things. In short; you become aware of how you are representing the world of your experiences to yourself.
I describe this process from multiple different perspectives throughout the blog so if you don’t “quite get it” don’t worry, your not alone. Here is a simplified example of this process:
At some point during the day you find yourself “lost in thought” jumping from 1 train of thought to the next. You are at this point completely identified with the thoughts that you are having and the rest of the world seems to “melt away”. –this is your thinking/emotional brain or “Hun” in TCM doing its thing.
During this process your body is reacting to these thoughts and emotions and responding accordingly. Often this is the part where your body gets tense, you develop a “nervous stomach” or you start to get a headache. – this is your body brain or “Po” in TCM doing it’s thing.
After some time has past you become aware of the thoughts you are having and the tension in your body. I have often heard this described as a feeling of “coming up for air” or “coming back to reality”. At this point you are now aware of what you are thinking and how it is affecting how you feel. – this is your self-aware/conscious brain or “Shen” in TCM doing it’s thing.
This is all step 1 of “now what do I do about it.” Because you are now aware of what your conditioned brain may be doing that is contributing to your state of anxiety you are better able to recognize this pattern in yourself in the future.
How can you further develop this step? There are many ways, you have already learned 1 of these; mindful meditation. You will continue to learn about more as you continue to work through this blog yet there is a new one you can practice right now. Go back the the previous page and re-read the parts that you felt most identified with. After reading them just sit quietly for a moment and let them “sink in” without further analysing them mentally, then come back here and continue on.
Up Next: What to do With it After I Recognize it?
