The Unpredictable Journey to Spiritual Maturity

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How Stress REALLY Works

So, two weeks ago I had my regularly scheduled throat cancer screening with Downtown Aaron Brown, MD, my radiology bro. I’ve had three years of exams now, starting initially at every three months. Now we’re at every six months; after the next one, we’ll stretch out to every 9 months – brain, mind, body, heart, soul and the Universe willing.

So, I pretty much know what to expect leading up to what invariably feels like . . . Judgment Day – I’ll either get a thumbs up or a thumbs down. English critic and poet, Samuel Johnson is famous for the quotation which roughly goes, “Nothing so focuses a man’s mind as the sure knowledge that he is to be hanged in the morning.” What Johnson doesn’t pay homage to are all the things that a man slated to be hanged loses focus on as a result of feeling like he’s literally staring down the barrel of a gun.

Blocking All the Portals

Leading up to J-Day, gradually ALL my sense portals begin to become noticeably compromised. Constipation shows up and urination frequency increases. My taste buds decrease in their range and ability to experience all of the five tastes with any degree of discriminating pleasure. My sense of smell – never really all that great – becomes almost non-existent. Same with hearing, which can operate at a decent level one moment and then have my auditory nerve bundles seemingly stop operating completely (The term for this is Hysterical Deafness). My hands and feet become numb(er) and the sweat glands that constantly lubricate them essentially stop functioning. When I rub my thumb and fingers together it feels like there’s a piece of fine, smooth silk between them. As you might guess, I drop a lot of things and I struggle to get my touch phone screen to respond.

During this current lead-up, compromised vision surprised me the most. Doing anything that requires short term memory, demands I be extra mindful and attentive. Clicking links on the internet, writing blogs, sending emails, using kitchen implements, shop tools – anything that requires paying attention, during this pre-exam period, requires paying even more.

So, I was working on the small engine on our riding lawn mower. I took two bolts out and put them deliberately on the contrasting yellow mower seat. When it was time to put the bolts back, I went to get them, surprisingly, they were no longer on the seat. I spent the next half hour futilely looking for them. Finally, I asked my wife to help me find them. She promptly went and found them – hiding in plain site – on the yellow mower seat. This is called Hysterical Blindness. The whole lot of these conditions fall under the umbrella of Conversion Disorders.

Stress Conversion

I would posit that in actuality, these conditions are stress disorders. Here’s how I think they work. All these portals are openings that provide the brain access to the outside world. If we didn’t have them, nothing of the outside world could get in and nothing inside could get out. What connects these portals are wires that run from them up and over to different areas of the brain (auditory cortex, visual cortex, olfactory bulb, etc.).

What stress does is compromise signal transmission. So far, the research only identifies chronic stress as indirectly causal. I would argue ANY stress that triggers sufficient glutamate activation can compromise portal wiring. It does so by literally weakening the adhesion molecules (primarily Nectin-3) that keep the wiring connected and intact. When the network wiring can’t stay stuck together, it begins unraveling. Here’s what it looks like as conceived by neuroscientist Carmen Sandi in her Swiss lab:

All that said, here’s the good news: because of how “plastic” the brain is, once Dr. Downtown” gives me a thumbs-up reprieve, glutamate activation lowers, adhesion-weakening begins to subside, new wires begin to make new connections (probably begin to restore some of the old wiring as well) and increasing functionality begins to return me to a “new normal.”

The Secret to Life

And the new normal, for me at least, involves monitoring my constantly fluctuating stress levels and then doing my best to keep them operating in the Green.

But wait, there’s more, and it’s good news – much of these downstream effects can likely be addressed upstream – by advance-managing stress’s effects in one area of the brain in particular. A special prize goes to the first reader who guesses the correct area (Note: it’s my personal, informed hypothesis here). Thanks for playing.

Does What Goes Around Really Come Around Again?

“Soul-knowing is a fountainhead within you moving out. Drink from there!”

Years ago I transferred out of a well-regarded PhD program at UCLA in favor of attending and graduating from this small startup school. It was founded by two male college graduates, one from Stanford, one from Harvard, who believed they only got 1/2 their brain (the left) and little of their heart educated. Their school would be different – it would be designed and intended to educate the right brain and the heart as much as possible.

One of my students in those days was an impressive mother of four kids who also worked as a civil engineer. She specialized in the design and restoration of movable bridges – the kind that rise up or swivel round to allow waterway traffic flow. She also worked as a birth doula and . . . a death doula in her spare time. Since I was a builder, had just fathered a child of my own and had been researching, writing and teaching about death for many years, Jeanne and I hit it off. I eventually became first her mentor and then her colleague. She ended up researching and writing an award-winning thesis (measuring heart variability resonance in bedside sitters with the dying). She went on to talk about that research to various groups who received it and her with open kindness and appreciative applause. I personally witnessed a group of retired, curmudgeonly Stanford professors receiving her talk with surprising warmth and appreciation.

Joining Whole Brain to Whole Heart

After I got my right brain educated at Sofia, I spent the next ten years tuning up my left brain at a Stanford Think Tank hanging out with Nobel Laureates and MacArthur geniuses – as a cultural anthropologist disguised as the maintenance man. Kind of like my own strange version of Good Will Hunting, I suppose. I learned many things over those ten years (I’ll share three of the most significant takeaways from that decade in an upcoming post).

Currently, I am enrolled at another small startup school. It’s a school conceived and birthed with mostly female energy, primarily designed for adults who have gone through traditional education. The school grew out of Jeanne’s interest and experience with birth, death, somatic psychology and engineering. And, things that exist before, during and after those things. Things known and unknown. Things seen and unseen. Things sensed and not sensed. It’s a refreshing School of Unusual Life Learning (Although I’m not a fan of naming any learning organization a “school” since Ken Robinson informed 76 million people of the many ways that modern schools kill creativity – people judge you by the circles you travel in).

I’m currently finding SoULL to be anything but a creativity-killer. In fact, simultaneously, along with my recent enrollment as a student, I’m just about finished with first drafts of my fourth screenplay (The Muffin-Truckin’ Change Agency; The Levamine Conspiracy; Triumph of the Intransigents and The Winner); I’ve created and taught extremely well-received seminars on Social Safety Science (Polyvagal Theory) and Artificial Intelligence and I’ve researched and written first drafts of Chapters 1, 2, and 3 of curriculum for a course in Embodied Altruism and . . . all while pretty much keeping up with my weekly blog-writing.

Rounding the Circle

It’s difficult to clearly and compellingly speak about numinous, expansive, healing, learning experiences. If you’re at all interested and resonate with such things, a startup School of Unusual Life Learning may indeed have some appeal. You can find out more by visiting: SoULL.

Oh, and did I mention enrollment comes with something truly unusual that no other school has ever offered me before: a money-back guarantee if I find the time invested wasn’t absolutely worth the tuition!

Helping Children Heal

I was originally solicited to write this account by an academic journal who ultimately elected not to publish it for reasons not related to content or usefulness. Nevertheless, I think it’s worth a read, especially if you have any interest in . . . helping children heal.

Helping Children Heal

Mark Brady

“You often meet your destiny on the road you take to avoid it.” ~ William McFee

Way back in the day (1980) when transpersonal psychology was struggling to become fully birthed into the world, I found myself serendipitously transplanted (seemingly) from graduate studies at UCLA to a small Silicon Valley startup school – The California Institute of Transpersonal Psychology. I was part of an entering class similarly transplanted, and enrolled among us was the volunteer coordinator for a local nonprofit – Kara^1a. Kara was a community-supported grief counseling agency. They sent volunteers to spend time with dying and grieving people. As a 33-year-old professional home builder, I was an unlikely volunteer candidate.

Nevertheless, two years later I found myself within Kara as one among a cohort of transpersonal “intransigent minorities.” Transpersonal intransigent minorities can be most easily described as people with . . . soul in the game – human illuminators with a passion for helping to relieve the suffering of others. The passion our little group of intransigents had within Kara turned out to be pretty focused and singular: helping kids move through grief, a worthy transpersonal pursuit.^1b

And Then There Were Two

There was only one program serving kids suffering significant loss in the country at the time – The Dougy Center^1c up in Portland, Oregon. Several people from our group contacted them and were invited to come up and observe and experience the work they did there. Those forward scouts brought the model back and we implemented it back in Palo Alto with very few changes.

Since we already had the meeting space (two large rooms donated by a local church), the first step was to describe the model to the community and get the steps down on paper. Ages suggested by the research literature (6-10 and 11-15)^2a as developmentally most distinct would be the initial two cohorts. Meetings would last an hour and a half. A parent or guardian would have to accompany each child to our facility and meet separately in their own group led by two Kara grief counselors. The first 15 minutes would be a large group gathering of kids, counselors and parents for socializing, healthy snacks and drinks.

Following large group time, the parents would go off to a separate room together with their counselors for small group grief support; the kids would go off with their counselors to what was essentially a multi-media art studio.

Allan Shore, the UCLA developmental neuropsychiatry professor, and the transpersonal-leaning Oxford neuropsychiatrist Iain McGilchrist both provide extensive evidence that early overwhelming or traumatic experiences primarily get stored in the right hemisphere of the brain (one theory is that much of the left hemisphere neural real estate is left available for later language development. It’s also important to remember that the brain is a distributed network across both hemispheres and into the body).^3a,3b For that reason and others, our work with the kids was mostly non-verbal. It involved drawing, painting, mask-making, clay modeling, singing, sand tray collage and one other activity that turned out to be critical to their healing journey. Had our group had better access to the easy research resources available today, we likely would have added a number of other activities to the program. For example: sensory bins, blind tasting, scented PlayDoh, interactive, prosocial VR computer games, etc.

The Number One Preferred Activity

Each weekly meeting with the kids would begin with 8-10 kids together with two counselors sitting in a circle on the floor on pillows of various shapes and sizes. One of the counselors would ring a chime signaling time for quiet and paying attention. None of the kids carried cell phones, so they weren’t a distraction. After a minute or so, one of the counselors would open the meeting by briefly sharing three bits of information: 1. Who died and their relationship to the deceased; 2. When they died; and 3. What they died from (counselors in the children’s program had to have their own grief journey integrated). This initial offering was all the intentional, structured narrative around loss that was a part of every meeting. As we would go around the circle, a talking object would be passed, often brought in by the kids (by counselors encouraging parents to have it happen).

When sharing in the circle was complete, kids were now free to choose where and with which activity, alone or together with other kids, they wanted to engage. Art, mask-making and sand tray were popular. But by far, the most preferred activity was getting to spend time in the Steam Room.

The Steam Room was pretty much exactly what it sounds like – kids had the opportunity to let off steam, not verbally necessarily (although they were certainly free to talk – mostly they wanted to scream and shout), but physically. The Steam Room measured roughly 20’ by 24’ with soundproofed and padded walls, floor and door. It also had safety webbing over the screened, openable window. Think of a padded dojo or yoga studio where no one could hear the ruckus that was taking place inside (Where in the real world do such places exist? And made more significant by the fact that this was a church building!).

The room itself was provisioned with a variety of pillows of various sizes, foam batakas, soft rubber kick balls, yoga balls, and a heavy punching bag – the kind found in boxing gyms. Groups of three to four kids, along with a counselor were allowed to be in the room together for 15 minutes at a time. When the first group’s time was up, a second group of kids, together with the second counselor would have their 15 minutes in the room. A majority of the kids preferred and significantly benefitted from the time in the Steam Room each week.

Look to the Children

I took a great amount of learning away from the years spent with these kids. First and foremost, they sent me on a deep learning quest into the trauma and neuroscience literature.^4,5,6,7 My learning in those areas over the last 20 years has been extensive, enduring and enlightening. Here are two great takeaways among untold numbers of them:

According to Columbia computational neurobiologist Daniel Wolpert, the human brain began evolving primarily to move the body.²¹ Life that can be nourished and grow without having to move, doesn’t have or need a brain. That need and the ability to move continues to evolve and remains with us to this day. Movement is critical for many neuro-somatic reasons, chief among them – metabolizing neuroendocrine stress hormones and other metabolic waste products.^22a,22b

The second learning, from brain connectome researchers like former MIT Media Lab director and neotenist¹¹ Joi Ito, seems to support the first: every cell in the mammalian brain is part of a network that eventually traces a route that terminates at a gland or a muscle. Human life is live-wired at the cellular level to move, connect and to grow into evermore integrated neural networks.

Grieving the Loss of Contingent Communication

Another interpersonal activity that stimulates neuroplasticity by growing new brain cells and new connections is serve-and-return communication (neurogenesis and synaptogenesis). In the attachment literature it’s known as contingent communication. UCLA neuropsychiatrist Dan Siegel²⁶ describes three critical elements that make for a successful contingent communication. First of all, we have to have someone actually be paying close attention to us – bearing nonjudgmental witness.

Next, they have to fully and accurately receive the message being communicated. So, for example, if a child in the program shows up in the group one week and they seem flat or distracted, for that child to be ignored or that difference in affect not to be acknowledged in some nonthreatening manner would not be contingent communication.

Third and finally, that recognition and acknowledgement must be provided in a timely and effective manner. For a counselor (or parent) to acknowledge a presenting behavior an hour, day or week after it takes place, again, that would be non-contingent. Dynamic feedback loops are like Miracle-Gro for the brain (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucQQCa_kA0U).

Back-feeding Feedback Loops

The years of their lives that children spend with parents, pets, family and friends are years spent building and growing networks through contingently communicated feedback loops. And those networks need to be periodically stimulated – the more frequently they are, the better. But there’s an old adage in neuroscience which essentially describes what happens: “Use it or lose it.” Where functioning and survival are concerned, neural real estate is some of the most valuable neurobiological real estate there is. Limited skull container capacity places it in short supply. If networks are no longer sending electro-chemical signals, an organic process called apoptosis will begin to dismantle the cells and connections associated with that network. Just the reverse – enriched, robust, widespread connectivity can be found in long-term meditators and transpersonal practitioners.^10,11

Let’s imagine a ten-year-old child loses his father through death or divorce. For 10 years daily contingent communication (think of it as relational learning) has been taking place between daughter and father. Precious neural network space has been taken up in the brain (and body) through this living family relationship. Then one day the father is no longer an interactive presence in the daughter’s life. Her cells are no longer firing in response to contingent interactions with dad. What begins to happen to the cells in that network? They begin to unravel and die, theoretically, in part to free up the skull space for new learning – for life, and learning, to go on.

Challenges for Community Counselors Working With Kids’ Grief

Much of the work of the children’s counselors was informally supporting, informing and assuring the parents that their children’s behavior was within the expectations of a normal grieving process. In addition, counselors were trained to be supportive and available to each other and to help each other identify, recognize and skillfully work with our own discomfort doing the work. One example remains vivid in memory:

The parents of twin 7-year-old girls had been going through a protracted and challenging divorce process. One weekend when the father had custody of the girls, he took one of them aside and angrily told her, “One day I’m going to commit suicide and it’s going to be your fault.” Then, less than a week later, he did.

In instances like this, critical and integral to the success of the Program was the availability of trained psychologists, pediatric social workers, pediatricians and psychiatrists, all voluntarily serving as consultants. Here are a few other issues parents and counselors ended up bringing to the program consultants:

While Kara counselors were somewhat trained in understanding developmental stages of childhood grief and associated behaviors, it was often difficult for us to know if and when sadness was within a normal range or indicated complicated grief. If it was the latter – frequently present if the loss was unexpected and/or traumatic – like from suicide, homicide or environmental disaster – then counselors were supported in getting extra consultations and parents were also offered additional community support.

(One training exercise that counselors found especially helpful when they found themselves emotionally activated or overwhelmed by the kids’ stories, art or play, was to simply “say what you see”, avoiding as much additional commentary or interpretation as possible. So, for example, if a child drew a picture of a heart, torn and broken down the middle, and printed “Mom” under it, a counselor might say, “You’ve drawn a heart that is broken with the word ‘Mom’ under it.” To our frequent surprise, just the simple act of identifying and acknowledging that personal expression would often positively, energetically alter the child’s behavior and affect).

In addition to complicated grief, occasionally children in the program would show telltale signs of physical or sexual abuse, such as erotic acting out, being sexually “playful”, suggestive drawings or sand tray depictions, or uncharacteristic aggressiveness with other kids. In those instances, reports were made to the consultants who were requested to contact and meet with the child and family member for follow-up evaluations.

One behavior in particular was deliberately paid regular attention to, and that was isolating or non-participating behavior by a child. In those instances a third counselor would be introduced in the general meeting and would become a part of the Children’s group, paying special attention to the needs of the identified child. The special attention would often work to begin to make it feel safe for the child to begin actively participating and nonverbally express what might be causing the isolating behavior.

Program Takeaways

As a general rule, children tend to have much greater neuroplasticity and resilience¹² and antifragility¹³ than adults. One consequence of that is, by and large, the children in our program were able to process, work through, and integrate their losses weeks ahead of their parents. A surprising number of older kids who successfully completed the Children’s Program asked to be trained so they could be of assistance and help other subsequent groups of kids.

As previously mentioned, there were a number of things that potentially contributed to that. First is age – young brains generally process energy and information much more rapidly (learn) than adult brains.¹⁴

Next was the fact that few activities took place in our program that weren’t primarily working primarily with the right hemisphere of the brain. This is the side where research suggests overwhelming and disorganizing, emotionally charged memories and experiences get predominantly stored.^15,16 Indirectly emphasizing and activating those networks with the express intention to integrate them coherently back into the larger neural network, seems to have played a significant role in the outcomes we obtained.

The supervised opportunity to freely move and express themselves physically in a safe, unstructured environment seems to be a significant difference in the length of time required for their grieving journey versus the journeys of their parents. This would appear to primarily be the result of the evolutionary development of brains to be able to expressly move the human body for a wide variety of reasons and purposes.^{17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24}

One Significant Healing Variable

Kathleen Speeth, a licensed clinical psychologist, taught “Transpersonal Clinical Methods” at the California Institute of Transpersonal psychology when I attended. Much of her childhood was spent living in a G.I. Gurdjieff spiritual community. Gurdjieff was a Greek-Armenian “wisdom teacher” who had established a number of learning communities around the world. Dr. Speeth grew up in one such community and was greatly influenced by Gurdjieff’s transpersonal teachings. One day in our methods class she delivered a directive, apparently based upon Gurdjieff’s living/teaching/healing model: “If you want to avoid any conflicts of interest, ethical dilemmas or unconscious hidden agendas in your work, find a separate way to make a living and do your healing work for free.”²⁵ (paraphrasing)

From its inception, all of KARA’s grief programs were community supported and available for free to those in need. While many people who received the services were most grateful, and could have afforded to pay for them, the fact that our services were offered non-transactionally sent an implicit message to the recipient: These are people with “unguarded, reliable faces”^26a, people with “Soul in the Game” (to paraphrase N.N. Taleb)^26b whom he identifies as: “people with skin in the game on behalf of others. Think of Buddha, Mohammed, Mother Teresa, or Desmond Tutu. It is my firm belief that this kind of relationship dynamic – where the living, breathing connection will not be transactionally terminated if a program participant is unable to pay to participate – is an important consideration. Such relationships can recreate the healing relational dynamic of a secure, nurturing, loving home.²⁷ And when individuals, groups and organizations are predominantly safe, warm, welcoming and non-transactional, they answer The Big Brain Question – Are you there for me? – with a resounding “Yes.”²⁸

References: (These days ALL references should be checked for accuracy).

1a. https://Kara-grief.org

1b. Boucouvalas, M. (1999). Following the movement: From transpersonal psychology to a multi-disciplinary transpersonal orientation. Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 31 (1), 27-39.

1c.https://www.dougy.org

2a. Fleer, M. (2006). The cultural construction of child development: Creating institutional and cultural intersubjectivity. International Journal of Early Years Education, 14(2), 127-140.

2b. Lanius, R. A., Vermetten, E., & Pain, C. (2001). Cerebral correlates of posttraumatic stress disorder: A meta-analysis. American Journal of Psychiatry, 158(12), 1959-1969. doi:10.1176/appi.ajp.158.12.1959

3a. Schore, A. N. (1994). Affect regulation and the origin of the self: The neurobiology of emotional development. _Hove: Hove & Sussex Publications.**

3b. McGilchrist, I. (2011) The divided brain. TED Talk. https://www.ted.com/talks/iain_mcgilchrist_the_divided_brain

3c. Leigh, J., Smith, J., Bowen, S., & Larson, B. (1989). Spiritual modalities: Dance, music, visual arts. Journal of Religion and Health, 28(4), 311–322.

4. Schechter, D. S., Holmes, S. E., & Paz, R. (2007). Early childhood trauma: The neurobiology of loss and resilience. Child Psychiatry & Human Development, 8(3), 225-237. doi:10.1007/s10578-007-0058-4

5. Van der Kolk, B., McFarlane, A., & Weisaeth, L. (1996). Traumatic stress: The effects of overwhelming experience on mind, body, and society. New York: Guilford Press.

6. Zimmer, C. (2023). Toward Recovery After Traumatic Injuries. NY Times, December 4, 2023. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/04/health/traumatic-brain-injury-implants.html

7. Ito, J. (2002). The meaning of neoteny. https://joi.ito.com/weblog/2002/07/30/the-meaning-of.html

8. Knudsen, E. I. (2004). Sensitive periods in the development of the brain and behavior. Journal of cognitive neuroscience, 16(8), 1412-1425.

9. Kolb, B., & Gibb, R. (2011). Brain plasticity and behaviour in the developing brain. Journal of the Canadian Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 20(4), 265.

10. Goleman, D., & Davidson, R. J. (2017). Altered traits: Science reveals how meditation changes your mind, brain, and body. Penguin Random House.

11. Newberg, A. (2016). How enlightenment changes your brain: The new science of transformation. Penguin.

12. Barnes, S. J., & Finnerty, G. T. (2010). Sensory experience and cortical rewiring. The Neuroscientist, 16(2), 186-198.

13. Taleb, N. N. (2012). Antifragile: Things that gain from disorder. NY: Random House.

14. Knudsen, E. I. (2004). Sensitive periods in the development of the brain and behavior. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 16(8), 1412–1425. https://doi.org/10.1162/0898929042304796

15. Johnston, M. V. (2009). Plasticity in the developing brain: Implications for rehabilitation. Developmental Disabilities Research Reviews, 15(2), 94-101.

16. Kolb, B., & Gibb, R. (2011). Brain plasticity and behaviour in the developing brain. Journal of the Canadian Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 20(4), 265–276.

17. Blakemore, S.J. & Choudhury, S. (2006). Development of the adolescent brain: Implications for executive function and social cognition. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 47(3-4), 296-312.

18. Schore A. Affect regulation and the origin of the self. New York, NY: Routledge; 2015. 

19. Spinazzola, J., van der Kolk, B., Ford, J.D. (2018). When nowhere is safe: Interpersonal trauma and attachment adversity as antecedents of posttraumatic stress disorder. Journal of Traumatic Stress.

20. Chen, S. Y., Chou, C. H., & Chen, Y. Y. (2020). The effect of yoga on stress reduction, anxiety, and depression in adults: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of Evidence-Based Integrative Medicine, 25(3), 2515690.

21. Wolpert, D. H. (2011). The real reason for brains. TED. https://www.ted.com/talks/daniel wolpert the real reason for brains.

22. Nieman, D. C., & Wentz, L. M. (2019). The compelling link between physical activity and the body’s defense system. Journal of Sport and Health Science, 8(3), 201-217.

23. Ekkekakis, P. (2020). The effects of physical activity on stress: A meta-analysis. Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 130, 109915.

24. Voss, M. W., Vivar, C., Kramer, A. F., & van Praag, H. (2013). Bridging animal and human models of exercise-induced brain plasticity. Trends in cognitive sciences, 17(10), 525-544.

25. Speeth, K. (1982). The Gurdjieff work. Los Angeles: Jeremy P. Tarcher.

26a. Doty, M (2016). In Ellison, K. P., & Weingast, M. (Eds.). Awake at the bedside: Contemplative teachings on palliative and end-of-life care. Wisdom Publications.

27. Siegel, D. J. (2012). The developing mind: How relationships and the brain interact to shape who we are (2nd ed.). NY: Guilford Press.

28. Brady, M. (2012). Four Big Heart Answers to the Big Brain Question. The Flowering Brain – Public Blog Post: https://floweringbrain.wordpress.com/2012/02/19/four-big-heart-answers-to-the-big-brain-question/

Is Your Brain Trying to Heal Your Heart Right This Minute?

Curiosity fuels human progress. We start out wholehearted, curious and creative. Trying to assess whether or not this world is safe for tender hearts, kids ask about 40,000 questions by the time they’re five, but early education tends to dowse that impulse.

The most enlightened brain science does it’s best to try and revive and breathe life into that organic impulse. Kids in which that glowing ember remains smoldering, often become scientists, either by training or by an open heart’s natural inclination. One of the things we often pay attention to are anomalies. Anomalies invite us to ask more and more beautiful, heartful questions. Below are synopses of three books that I think in different ways answer this blog post’s title query.

A Trio of Female Heart Doctors

First is Jill Bolte Taylor’s book – inspired by her super-popular TED Talk – My Stroke of Insight. In this memoir Jill recounts a journey that began with a severe left hemisphere stroke that left her unable to speak, walk, read, write or recall much of her pre-stroke life. She essentially became a child living in a woman’s body – a woman/child however who had the good fortune to have a loving, full-hearted mother, GG, who recognized what had happened and then willingly took on the task of raising Jill all over again. Much like an unplanned pregnancy and delivery, it took 8 patient, loving years to raise Baby Jill back to being a fully functioning adult. Actually, more than “fully functioning.” For me, Jill’s journey epitomizes the essence of Antifragility, or post-traumatic growth. This also represents brain (and heart) healing beyond what medical science even considered possible at the time.

Not Settling for Status Quo

In a vein similar to Jill’s mom, Diane Ackerman recounts going “against medical advice” in her book 100 Names for Love. In that book, she ends up lovingly answering the Big Brain Question “Yes” big time for her English professor/poet husband, Paul West, who suffered a stroke similar to Jill’s.

Paul’s stroke left him aphasic – unable to speak or understand language – a devastating loss for anyone, but especially so for gifted language lovers like he and Diane were. The stroke immediately disrupted both their senses of self and their identities as life partners.

Soon after he returned home and began rehab, Diane went to work, much like GG did for Jill, lovingly “re-raising” her man/child. Drawing upon their shared history and love for wordplay, she began by challenging him to create new pet names for her every day – a name-a-day-come-what-may practice.

At one point during Paul’s recovery, Diane noticed that the staff at his rehab center was not especially connected to their hearts, continually “inviting” Paul to live down to their expectations, based on what they ignorantly believed was possible. Realizing this would not optimize whatever recovery Paul’s brain might be capable of making, Diane gently and repeatedly implored the staff to “examine your assumptions.” When they failed to do that to her heart’s satisfaction, Diane called on an acquaintance of hers to come in and give a wake-up talk to the rehab staff. Shortly after Oliver Sacks came in and spoke to the staff about what was actually possible for the brain to do in terms of neuroplastic healing and recovery, Paul began to make accelerated progress that astonished many. By the end of 100 Names for Love, Diane and Paul are once again enjoying their love and connection through language.

A Brain-Changing Heart Paradigm

Barbara Arrowsmith-Young recognized early on that she was “neuro-diverse”, although the term in vogue at the time was “slow.” Being “slow” meant you were grouped together and tracked through the public educational system as being one of the dumb kids. Dumb kids often show up disguised as unlovable. What she, like many, many kids had, was a brain that struggled with memory, spatial reasoning and language processing. In other words . . . she was neuro-diverse. Somewhere along the way Barbara encountered the writings and research of the Russian neuroscientist Alexander Luria and significant tracts of neurons in her brain lit up. One result was the writing and publication of her memoir, The Woman Who Changed Her Brain (she doesn’t directly mention the heart, but throughout its work is obvious).

Luria’s research helped Barbara target specific areas of weakness in her brain. She developed many techniques and exercises that, through repeated, targeted, mental practice, allowed her to improve her memory, object recognition, kinesthetic awareness, and language comprehension.

After experiencing profound changes in her own brain function, Barbara, went on to start specialized schools to apply her neuroplasticity methods and exercises to successfully help large numbers of students facing similar challenges (isn’t that what love would do?)

There you go: three truly inspirational women after my own heart.

What Your Heart Wants Your Brain to Know

Who’s to Blame for the Mistakes We Make?

Regular readers, friends and correspondents know that I have what I call my “Daily Ignorance Practice.” When people ask me how I’m doing, I will often respond by telling them my simple, personal truth: “I’m walking the fine line between wisdom and ignorance. Mostly . . . on the ignorance side. ”The signature line at the bottom of my email reads: “Last year ignorance reigned. This year, no change – yet!” Hope reigns eternal in my ignorance-conditioned neural networks.

Defining Terms

Here’s what a personal ignorance practice might look like. A number of neuroscientists think of the human brain as … a Prediction Machine. When I explore their wisdom writings, what I essentially come away with is a description of how conditioned learning takes place in you, me, and the whole rest of the world, and continues to the moment we take up residence in utero.

Most everything I think I know to be true and have learned over the decades has all been the result of physical wires in my brain making connections. These connections were central for insuring my survival. At the time. But my Prediction Machine brain often takes that learning and applies it to current day circumstances where it may or may not necessarily apply. When yesterday’s news doesn’t fit today’s reality, I often end up with a very stressful “Prediction Error.”

Live and Learn . . . By Example

Let me give you a potent example from my own early life. I was raised on Welfare.  On the first of every month the State of Connecticut sent out Welfare checks to all the people on their rolls. In my experience, people on Welfare are there primarily because their brains are constantly making Prediction Errors when it comes to money. My family was no different, and Welfare simply reinforced how those errors continued to be made . . . to this day!

Here’s one, mostly accurate prediction that growing up on Welfare taught me to make: none of us get any money at all, except someone else gives it to us. If we get a paycheck, the people who hired us decided the company (i.e. people working there) would give us money; if we’re business owners – bankers, investors and customers give us money; if we’re professional investors – other investors or clients give us money. There are lots of reasons, simple and complex, why people end up giving us money, but if you trace money’s twisted path to us, you’ll inevitably find people behind the payout window.

In my case, the people (elected representatives) working on behalf of the citizens of the State of Connecticut passed laws to collect taxes to get people to give it money. Those workers administered a program to take a portion of that collected money and distribute it to people whose brains consistently made Prediction Errors where money was concerned – poor people. And while the intention may have been well-meaning, the result, in many cases, was not ideally what the people re-distributing the money (or the people who gave it to them – taxpayers) intended or expected.

The Cyclical Structure of Poverty

Because my mother’s brain was constantly making errors about how best to allocate the money the People of Connecticut provided (which, in my experience, even a brain great at predicting would be hard pressed to manage error-free. The money barely covered food and rent). At the beginning of every month our pantry would get restocked with “nutritional wasteland food” – sugary cereal, a few vegetables, bread, milk, butter and . . . beer.

But by week three of every month, the cupboard would be bare, the refrigerator would be empty and grocers and salesmen selling overpriced goods on credit, along with numerous bill collectors would be knocking on the door.  And that pattern would repeat, month after month, and year after year. This is how the brains of people on Welfare experientially learn to think about and predict how money works in the world. Subconsciously. Often for the remainder of our lives and likely in our children’s lives as well!

When I think about money as a kind of compressed, material life energy, what I realize is that at the beginning of each month, for years and years, I went through a “birth” process, a three week process of living and then building toward an “end of life trajectory” culminating by month’s end in a near-death experience. Only to be energetically “reborn” on the first day of the next month when the check from the State arrived.

And this deeply engrained pattern persists even to this day! Only, instead of Aid to Dependent Children, it’s called Aid to Dependent Adults – aka “Social Security.”

The only thing that appears to have changed over my 7+ decades is: the duration of the intervals from one rebirth to the next. But errors are constantly lurking deep within the subconscious in my neural Prediction Machinery. And they seem to be increasing as I age. Yes, a true joy riot!

What Prediction Errors from your early life-learning might still be running below your conscious awareness? And who’s to blame for the mistakes YOU make?

A Lifetime of Brain Change

Our brains are “live-wired” and are changing throughout our lives. Some of the changes involve only a few cells and the wires that connect them. Others involve significantly larger numbers. All the changes are the result of innumerable factors, within us and surrounding us.

These short pieces from my University of Washington colleague, Eric Chudler’s monthly newsletter, Neuroscience for Kids, takes a look at 6 broad life stages and the changes that healthy brains might be expected to go through. I think you’ll not only find them compelling, but they may very well point to areas in your own life that are, or were, developmentally delayed:

Click: A Lifetime of Brain Change

Everything About Polyvagal Theory I Wish I Learned in Kindergarten

. . . similar to the way Bruce Perry introduced his Neurosequential Model of Therapeutics to kindergartners in Omaha, Nebraska.

In the Beginning

I was first introduced to Polyvagal Theory (PVT) shortly before the very first Somatic Experiencing Conference was held down in Berkeley back in the early 2000s. Steve Porges was presenting there. I agreed to chauffeur a mutual friend and colleague -the “recovering” somatic neurologist Bob Scaer, who was also presenting - from SFO to the Berkeley conference.

Since I was totally over my head in trying to understand PVT, I didn’t really expect to be much better-informed from Steve’s talk than I had been by his books. Pretty dense stuff, especially since the little biology I knew came from a high school class, which I mostly skipped. Well, my “Prediction Brain” sure made an error with that grim expectation. Steve ended up stealing the show at that conference and set me hard on the Polyvagal Path. I was so impressed in fact, that I immediately went back to the Assistant Director at the Think Tank where I worked and asked her if we could offer Steve a fellowship. I told her Steve would be the emotional and intellectual lynchpin of any incoming class of fellows he was part of. She checked him out, gave the thumbs up, and I emailed Steve the offer. Turns out he had just accepted a new position at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill and couldn’t accept. Color me sad, since I was really most interested in picking his brain up close and personal, the way I was able to with a great number of other CASBS fellows. Steve knew things I had a deep sense it would be really important for me to granularly understand about my brain and body, especially how and when they don’t work as well as I might wish.

Taking It to the Kids

Okay. Now, how might Kindergarten Markie have best been taught PVT? First off, I would need to understand that nerves were like electric wires in my house. They carried energy and information all through my head and body like the way the wires in my house carried electricity. The electricity in my brain and body let me move my arms and legs and face and head. It also let me poop and pee and talk and think, and hopefully not get those things mixed up.

Next, I would have to be taught about special wires – vagus nerves. But they would have to be given new names. “Polyvagal” would be WAAAAY too hard for me. One set could be the Talking Wires or the Playing Wires (Ventral). The other could be the close-my-eyes Hiding Wires or the Freezing Wires (Dorsal). But here’s the difference that would have made the biggest difference for me: there are third wires that aren’t Talking or Hiding Wires. They are the Fighting Wires and the Running Away Wires. And they don’t come from beneath my skull like the 12 head wires (cranial nerves) do; they come out of the middle of my backbone! (Spinal Sympathetic nerves).

Now – and here’s the most important part: the Playing Wires and the Talking Wires (Ventral) are the best wires, the most fun wires. They let me use my words. They also let me hear other people’s words. They’re the wires I want to have working really well every day. But some days those wires are not going to be working so well. When I notice that happening – when the Fighting Wires or the Running Away Wires or the Hiding Wires are hogging things, I need to find ways to do my best to turn them off. Like turning off lights in my house when I forget to. And the best ways of turning those non-Talking wires off, have to be the best ways for me.

Practice Making It Easy Being Green

So, what might be some good ways for me to practice turning off the Hiding/Fighting Wires and turning the Talking Wires back on? Well, one way could be playing with a friend I really like and have fun with. Another way that might work, but isn’t really that great, is watch TV or play video games. A better way though, is to ride my bike or play kickball or basketball. Or go for a walk in the woods. Drawing or coloring messy pictures can sometimes turn the Talking Wires back on, almost like magic. Another way that sometimes works like magic is . . . to be a Crybaby. My mom and dad get sad when I cry, but they do pat my back and talk to me, so I don’t often have to cry for very long before my Talking Wires come back on. 

The picture of a red, yellow and green traffic light would be a help, too. Mostly to help me recognize that my wiring isn’t working well when I don’t feel like talking to anybody and I want to run away, punch something or lock myself in my room. Those times are signals that my brain’s not working the best it can. And I can practice and do all the things I know that can make it work better – call a friend, go out and play, pay attention to my breathing, do some “cranky art” or go swimming. It feels good to know there are things I can do to change up how I feel inside when I need to.

Is Your Brain Okay with Taking an A.I. Lover?

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(Article reprinted from the Geek AI Newsletter)

A few months back a story went viral about how a female influencer (with over 1.8M followers on Snapchat) turned herself into an AI. The result?

Her fans were able to “chat” with her for $1 per minute, allowing her to make a stunning $72,000 in one week. Shortly after, a company from Spain announced their (highly sensual) AI-influencer – Aitana Lopez – was selling shout-outs and sponsored posts to the tune of $11,000 per month.

Admittedly, these are two of the most dramatic stories to hit news headlines since AI went viral last year. At the same time, they’re proof that – after decades of anticipation – the era of humans interacting with AIs has finally arrived.

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On the surface, most people’s reactions to the idea of a man having an AI girlfriend fall somewhere between the idea of him being a nerd, and him being the most desperate loser on planet earth.

(No offense if that’s you, but that seems to be the consensus nowadays.)

At the same time, in the 2000s (and even early 2010s), people said the same thing about online dating.

While some of you may not be old enough to remember, before we had apps like Tinder and Hinge, “online dating” was limited to websites like Match.com and Plenty of Fish (which people had to access via their desktops).

Source: Archive.org

Back then, searching for a partner online was looked at as taboo. Something for socially awkward “losers” who weren’t capable of meeting someone in real life.

Fast forward to today and anywhere from 40-70% of exclusive relationships start on an app (depending on the study). Which begs the question:

“While AI dating may be frowned upon today, could it be normalized over the next 20 years? And if so, what are the Pros and Cons?”

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To shed some light on the issue, I asked Bard (Google’s AI) to act as a veteran anthropologist tasked with answering that very question.*

*The prompting strategy I used is one we will be discussing in our upcoming AI Beginner Bootcamp (including why I am now defaulting to using Bard instead of ChatGPT ; )

Here’s its response:

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The Pros

1. A Haven for the Underserved: Imagine men struggling with social anxieties – or living in remote areas – finally finding companionship and emotional support. AI girlfriends could provide a safe space for vulnerability, offering non-judgmental listening and tailored advice, helping to combat loneliness while improving mental well-being.
2. The Evolution of Empathy: Critics fear AI relationships will numb men to real-world interactions. However, could these virtual partners act as training grounds for empathy? Learning to navigate AI emotions, from joy to simulated anger, could enhance men’s understanding of human emotions, translating into better communication and real-world relationships.
3. Breaking Free from Societal Pressures: Traditional masculinity often dictates stoicism and emotional repression. AI companions, free from societal expectations, could encourage men to explore their emotional landscape, challenging toxic norms and potentially paving the way for healthier male-female relationships.

Ignoring social taboos, it’s my opinion our AI-powered anthropologist makes some valid arguments in favor of AI GFs.

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Now let’s hear it’s opinion on the other side.

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The Cons

1. The Rise of Digital Dependency: Just like social media, the constant availability and emotional validation of AI girlfriends could create dependence, hindering the development of healthy coping mechanisms and real-world relationship skills. What happens when the algorithm can’t meet complex emotional needs, leading to increased isolation and depression?
2. The Blurred Lines of Reality: Deep emotional attachment to AI could warp men’s perceptions of intimacy and relationships. The absence of real-world challenges and conflicts could breed unrealistic expectations and make genuine human connection seem difficult or undesirable.
3. Societal Implications: Fragile Fabrics: Could widespread reliance on AI relationships impact birth rates, social interactions, and even family structures? The potential societal shift towards digital companionship raises concerns about decreased social cohesion and a fragmented human experience.

Once again, it makes some good points. My thoughts?

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While I liked the arguments made on both sides, if we’re being honest, the potential downsides seem to outweigh the positives by 100-to-1.

Especially as it relates to increased isolation and depression, deep attachments, and AI GFs leading to “fragmented human experience” (which sounds dystopian and horrible).

With that said, if we’re drawing parallels, the sheer number of relationships that start via apps shows technology can be used to facilitate live, in-person interactions.

At the same time, many attribute the decline of the dating market to social media and dating apps in particular. And because of that, it’s impossible to say whether said apps have been a Net Positive or Net Negative for society.

Either way, the cat is out of the bag.

AI girlfriends, both of the platonic and sexual nature, are here to stay.

While no one understood it at the time, dating apps had a profound impact on modern mating rituals. And when it comes to AI romantic partners – for better or worse – we expect the long-term implications will be just as impactful.

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💡Wrap Up: “The dance between humans and AI is just beginning, and the steps we take now will determine the rhythm of the future. While the allure of a perfect, ever-present companion is undeniable, we must tread cautiously, ensuring AI girlfriends compliment, but do not replace, the messy, beautiful tapestry of human connection.”

*Closing words from our trusty AI anthropologist  🙂

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🤔Thought-Provoking Question: Would you test an AI GF or BF?

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Interesting Tool ⚙️: Screw it, we’ve already drawn attention to the issue. Might as well link you to an AI Girlfriend website 🤣

*This is not an affiliate link. All I did was Google “AI Girlfriend” and copy-paste the first result. If this topic offends you, chill out. We do not condone or disprove any of this stuff. We’re just here to discuss the industry, and AI dating (and the business of selling AI partners) is part of this industry.

So . . . Is your brain okay with taking an A.I. Lover? That’s probably up to you and your brain, mind, body and spirit to decide.