Dr. Goldstein on Neuroscience and Mindfulness
When we turn an experience into something we can observe rather than something we're drowning in, we arrive at the idea Viktor Frankl is often credited with. If you've read my work or sat in on one of my talks, you've probably heard me return to it, because it has stayed useful to me for years: between a stimulus and our response there is a gap, and inside that gap sits the power to choose how we respond. Our growth and our freedom live in that choice.
So the practice becomes learning to treat the reaction as an object, something we can step back from. Once we have a little distance from it, the gap opens, and inside that gap is the choice point. Distance gives us perspective. Think of rising in an airplane and suddenly seeing the whole layout of the ground below, or stepping back from a painting until the entire composition snaps into view. From that slightly removed position we can notice that more than one option exists.
Noticing options is what builds cognitive flexibility. That flexibility is the opposite of what happens when a person gets locked inside a stress reaction, a stress loop, a depressive loop, whatever name you want to give it. Those loops narrow us; perspective widens us.
When I bring up bad habits, people tend to picture the obvious ones. Lying on the couch with a bag of potato chips. Smoking. Skipping the workout. Staying stuck in some situation far too long. What surprises many of them is where their most damaging habit actually lives. It's their thinking.
Every behavioral habit is preceded by a thought. Something flashes through the mind first: "I have to get away from this right now." Then comes the procrastination, the avoidance, the slide into whatever behavior we reach for to escape the feeling. Usually it isn't a behavior we're proud of. It's an avoidance move, and it fires up that right prefrontal region again.
Afterward comes the shame. "Why can't I get a handle on this? I wish I'd dealt with it sooner." The negative thoughts feed negative emotions, which feed negative states, including physical ones. Naturally we don't want to sit in any of that, so we drop back into the habit that promised relief in the first place. That's the depressive loop. It's an easy one to tumble into, and it doesn't begin with the chips or the couch. It begins with a thought.