“The situation is hopeless, but not serious.” (Paul Watzlawick)
Yesterday morning, a friend and I set out for a kilometer-long ocean swim, as we have done regularly for months. A few days prior, the beach had been cleared when a tiger shark was spotted cruising through the bay, a not-infrequent occurrence in these waters. My swim buddy had been on the beach at that time, as she had been on other occasions wherein a shark had been sighted and the beach temporarily closed. Needless to say, sharks were on her mind that day. We hadn’t swum far when she seized my arm and pointed to a large, indistinct greyish shape materializing maybe twenty yards away. Meanwhile, I had been looking for a small spotted eagle ray that has also been known to frequent this part of the bay, so that, when my friend grabbed my attention, I had only curiosity as we tried to focus on this grey-black blob approaching us in the low-visibility water.
Soon we were able to pick out the distinctive shape of a very large manta ray, it’s graceful “wings” flapping in a leisurely manner that propelled it ever closer. For several minutes we hovered motionless and fascinated by its graceful aqua-batic display of arcs and rolls, its mouth and gills stretched wide to filter feed on the plankton that had been creating the poor visibility. When the ray drifted into the foggy distance we finished our swim (after hailing the lifeguard, patrolling on a jet ski, to accompany us for the rest of the journey).
Safely back on land, my friend and I debriefed about this unusual occurrence; seeing such a massive but benign sea creature “up close and personal” was the experience of a lifetime. But the initial mental suggestion that it had been a shark approaching us out of the murk was enough to compromise the rest of my swim partner’s day. As it would have done mine, had not a shark been the furthest thing from my mind. What my partner had fallen prey to was the acronym with which I titled today’s blog:
False. Evidence. Appearing. Real.
How often have I let my imagination run away with me in that same way? And what has been the effect of this fear on my mind and body? Depending on the seriousness of the imagined threat, I can feel anything from an elevated heart rate to spasms in my stomach, to a sense of hyper-alertness, or, worst case scenario, a state of wild panic. If in the latter state, I cannot muster the objectivity needed to assess the situation calmly and respond rationally. To quote behavioral psychology, my pre-frontal cortex (or rational faculty) has already “left the building”. How does this sequence happen? How is it that I can so quickly go “from zero to sixty” in re: how I perceive a threat to my safety and security?
The neuroscience behind this phenomenon attributes these knee-jerk reactions to our limbic system. The limbic system is located in the brain, and is most frequently associated with emotions. I think of this system as my personal bodyguard, whose role it is (among other things) to protect me from any and all perceived threats to my survival. The amygdala is an almond shaped collection of nuclei located in the temporal lobe that seem to be especially involved in fearful and anxious emotions, and has the ability to override or effectively shut down the brain’s logical capacity, and expropriate my mental faculties for a “fight, flight or freeze” course of action.
All of these reactions have one thing in common. They put me (and you, most likely) at the mercy of an ancient part of the brain (our lizard brain) that operates on a program of “lack and attack”. It is incapable of detecting the difference between real and perceived threats to my existence, which explains why, for hours after the monster in my closet turns out to be nothing but a crumpled-up pile of clothing, I still have difficulty lowering my heart rate, calming my nerves, and/or executing tasks rationally. That’s the science in a nutshell. Pun intended. Michael Singer, author of Untethered Soul, personifies this hyper-vigilant aspect of personality as a maniac in one’s brain. He writes:
“Ninety-nine percent of your thoughts are a waste of time. They do nothing but freak you out.”
“To attain true inner freedom, you must be able to objectively watch your problems instead of being lost in them. No solution can possibly exist while you’re lost in the energy of a problem. Everyone knows you can’t deal well with a situation if you’re getting anxious, scared, or angry about it. The first problem you have to deal with is your own reaction. You will not be able to solve anything outside until you own how the situation affects you inside.” Hard as it is to detach myself from my knee-jerk reactions, Singer insists that my essence, my true nature, is that which can stand by and witnesses this inner parade of thoughts and feelings, the way a particular situation effects me inside. As I understand it, when I say “I’m feeling anxious, bored, or angry etc.,” I’ve already demonstrated that I CAN and DO witness what’s going on in my mind. All the time. Like a therapist to a client, there is a part of me that can rationally see and describe what’s happening, even as I’m caught in the thick of it. I can observe the constant flow of opinions about everything (my big important story, as it were), and register the fact that I am more than all of these thinking, feeling and reacting facets. How could it be otherwise? The key is to not identify with the maniac in my mind.
Hence the point of leading an examined life. Just as soon as I finish this therapeutic glass of red wine.