It’s your mind, right? Use it the way you want to use it!
Our minds are wondrous, complicated, and not fully understood. Currently, science is making some large leaps in the understanding of its functioning. By extension, how we can make it work the way we want. Many of us struggle with lack of motivation, energy, and/or chronic stress, anxiety, and depression. Effects of these experiences range from sleeplessness and high blood pressure to racing thoughts and the inability to fully function to our potential. Scientists and researchers seek to find the physical root of these experiences to better understand why and how they occur.
Note that some of these experiences are very serious and should be treated as such. For many of us, there is much we can do to make our minds work for us.
The impact, symptoms, and what you should do about it.
Psychology Today defines codependency as “a relationship in which, by being caring, highly-functional, and helpful, one is said to support, perpetuate, or enable a loved one’s irresponsible or destructive behavior.”1This enabled behavior may also be abusive. Codependency originally was a title given to relationships involving substance abuse2. However, it is now widely applicable and widespread.
First introducing the idea in 2011, James Fadiman Ph. D presented survey data illustrating benefits of microdosing at a conference on psychedelic research1. Fadiman offered the practice as an alternative to Adderall and other focus aids.
What do Matthew McConaughey, Ann Frank, Marcus Aurelius, Albert Einstein, Fredrick Douglass, Mark Twain, Leonardo Da Vinci, and Ryan Holiday have in common?
Give up?
They all are famous (at least in part) for keeping a Journal. McConaughey recently published a memoir called Greenlights, sourcing material from his personal journals. Ann Frank’s diaries provided insight into the Nazi occupation during World War II. And Ryan Holiday’s modern stoic pondering lead him to report journaling as the most important activity you can do each day.
“When we translate an experience into language, we essentially make the experience graspable.”11
Minimalism Fights the External Battles Mindfulness Fights Internally.
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Part of our cultural identity is consumerism. We are taught to consume. It is bred into us. We signal status, security, and purpose with what we consume, what we buy. I believe it’s a slow killer of the human spirit. Marketers use deficit advertising: ads giving us the impression we are not enough. It plays to our insecurities and fears. The idea we could be better if we only had Product X.
Loneliness is at an all-time high in our society. Now, we enter a holiday season socially-distanced.
With COVID-19 cases on the rise, holidays surrounded (physically) by family seem less and less a good idea. As the pandemic reaches a peak, we are more likely to be physically and emotionally alone. Survey data (pre-pandemic) reports that almost half of participants sometimes or always feel alone1. What’s more, the root cause is identified as social isolation or the lack of social connection. Loneliness is associated with mental and physical health issues, from depression and dementia to heart failure and stroke2. For those of us with a mental illness, the holidays tend to just make it worse3.
