Being an energy leader

To be a thought leader, first you need to be an energy leader.  If, as Lisa Feldman Barrett theorizes, the brain is not for thinking, but for allostasis, then if we want to influence the other brains, we need energy. 

My first stage of energy building and maintenance is nurturing calm. I move  the needle from the unpleasant arousal that is the clay from which I make my depression and self-hatred, towards the pleasant stillness that is serenity and calm acceptance. The energy grows and rises and from that I can weave together curiosity, gratitude, enjoyment. And as it peaks, the excitement and ecstasy that crests until it becomes the base for deeper peace and equanimity.  

Even the unpleasant affects from which we make depression, grief, common misery, sadness, and anxiety can become the material for that more pleasant flourishing that sparks renewal. 

This morning's meditation sparked that kind of pins and needles feeling that I'm guessing might be the awakening of new neurotransmitters.  I'm not a neuroscientist, so I don't know for sure. But I feel like I'm going through a period of transformation. 

The key is still tapping into and strengthening the flow of serotonin. 

Emotional Hunger (Hello Serotonin)

Just as insulin is the ultimate cause of weight gain, so is serotonin the ultimate cause of wellness. 

I felt that and knew that in this morning's mediation.  I've felt it and known it before. So what it the best way to sustain this knowledge so that it infuses every day?

I have to experience it short times, many times.  I have to set a clear intention to breathe it into my transitions.  I have to plan for it.  I have to make it the thing that I produce. I have to track the impact of it on my life. I have to make art about it. 

I have to bring it into my big idea. 

I have to use my hunger as my friend. 

 

locality

Been thinking a lot about the truth that data works most efficiently when it is localized, i.e closeby, easily accessed.  This is why, for instance, AI is most powerful when all the data is stored in one place and why Amazon and google aren't going anywhere, anytime soon.

It's why to make well-being absolute , we have to bring our attention to the actual place where that well-being is produced.  The gut, the serotonin motherlode

I've been experimenting with renewed attention to my dan tien for the last week.  It's very powerful. I feel the intensity of that energy.

But I've also been experimenting this weekend with the direct path.  Being aware of global awareness, the reality that there is inter being and that there is awareness outside the material location of well-being. This big awareness that unites us will always be more powerful, collectively, than what we can harness in one body. In the best and wisest world, both yield their power towards the liberation of all.

The use of locality should ultimately be the ability to create global interdependence and sustainable peace throughout the world. In the same way we focus energy in the dan tien so that we can engage with everything that exists outside the centre.  We focus on the the dan tien so that in time we can let go of the dan tien.

Only

To whatever degree we know that we deeply have what we need within ourselves, we will let go...

The hormone connection

Read a book in one sitting yesterday that has truly changed my perspective on just about everything. The Obesity Code by a Toronto based clinician Jason Fung.

He makes an impossible to argue case for the hormone insulin as the ultimate (as opposed to proximate cause) of the obesity epidemic. Lower your insulin levels, by reducing sugar and simple carbs, eating less, eating more healthy fats and practicing intermittent fasting, and you'll reset your insulin levels, lower insulin resistance,  lose weight and stop regaining it.  Also lower your cortisol spikes so that you can sleep better and better regulate blood sugar. It's really that simple.

The Eat Right Now mindful eating program that I've been following has prepared me well for that challenge.  I'm more conscious of the difference between real hunger and cravings caused by low blood sugar and stress. I'm developing the habit of falling asleep to loving kindness meditation.  I think I could take on intermittent fasting and switch over to a healthy fat diet.

But this morning, during meditation, I started thinking about all the other hormones and how meditation works to balance them.  Meditation increases serotonin, the hormone of equanimity.  And oxytocin, the hormone of lovingkindness.  It lowers cortisol, the stress hormone that increases blood sugar in bloodstream.  And it increases melatonin, which helps to regulate sleep.

It increases dopamine, the joy hormone, which can help us recalibrate to what really, deeply, feels good.

Apparently it can increase your DHEA, a growth hormone that can reduce cellular aging.

Could it be that in the end, enlightenment is basically the state of having a right and intuitive balance of hormones?

The first drips of bodhicitta

Earlier this week I had a night of insomnia.  Nothing I did could unclench my mind, it seemed. So somewhere around 2 a.m. I sat.

And I sat, and at some point, I had one of those transformative moments I seem to only have in these evenings of jittery desperation. It was as though my mind suddenly re-settled into my gut, and I found this forever loop of serotonin. I could feel the flow take center stage in my psyche.

Serotonin is known as the social neuromodulator.  It accounts for feelings of well-being, but also feelings of power.  Monkey studies show that alpha males have more of the stuff than beta males. Who knows whether serotonin makes you more powerful, or power unlocks the serotonin. But I know that in recent weeks I've become conscious that I have more of it in my belly. This may be the result of this month's intense retreat. It may be the increase in money and responsibility in my professional life. Or it may be the result of all the kombucha I've been drinking.  I can't say.  But I can feel a profound change.

This is I think, what might be meant by "Buddha  Nature."  That feeling that Mingyur Rinpoche describes as the feeling after a concerted effort. That feeling of competence, of success, or relief from whatever suffering was in the process of working.  It's not quite enlightenment. That I don't believe I've attained until I've come closer to absolute bodhicitta, the insight that everyone is not the jumble of relative qualities that we project. That everyone is as perfect in each moment as a newborn baby. We see each other differently because of conditioning, not because of any true immutable reality.

For now, I'm still on the path of relative bodhicitta, trying to simply like more people more, and take more action towards being and feeling like a better person. The intriguing truth of bodhicitta is that if I could see everyone as equal, I wouldn't have to worry about status.

Wouldn't that free a rather large node of working memory!