It’s Never As Good As
The First Time
But
there are other firsts you probably don’t remember, like for example, the first
time you saw a dog. That was also
probably an amazing experience for you but it doesn’t usually come to the top
of the list of memorable “firsts”. You
probably also don’t remember the first time you tasted ice cream or smelled a
rose or saw a sunset (all amazing experiences). So why is that?
Research
from neurobiology explains it this way.
Information flows into our brains in two different ways. One is called
bottom up processing and one is called top down processing. When we encounter something for the first time
we are flooded with bottoms up processing which is the raw sensory input, the
sights, the sounds, the smells, the tastes, the feel. If it is an experience we don’t have very
often, this intense experiencing may last for awhile. But soon, the top down
processing starts to work.
Top
down processing is the sense that our brain makes out of all of this raw
sensory input. It consolidates and organizes it into learnings, and concepts,
beliefs, and ideas. This abstraction is
useful and necessary, we can now easily recognize and label things like “dogs”
and “trees” and “schizophrenics” and other things that don’t actually exist,
but that fit into our labeling system.
So now when we get this raw sensory input it
moves up towards the brain while the top down processing is busy interpreting
it, and the two processes crash like two waves in the center, with the top down
processing usually winning out. The
stronger the prior learning is – the more likely it is that the top down
process dominates.
Now
suddenly…nothing is as good as the first time.
And as we get older and we have more and more experiences and our top
down processes dominate more and more - we may begin to feel suffocated, our lives
feel dull, familiar, uninteresting. Some of the joy and wonder and energy are
gone and we feel weary at the end of the day.
So is this just an inevitable part of aging and building more and more
top down processes, or is there some way we can get back some of this stuff that
makes life really exciting?
We
often hear “be in the present moment”, “live for now” be “mindful”. And you
might say – I’m not into that yoga or meditation stuff and I wouldn’t have the
time to do it if I wanted to. But if you
knew that having some kind of mindfulness practice could greatly enhance your
life experience and your sense of well-being could you make time?
In
reality it’s not that hard. Mindfulness really means simply that we focus
attention in some way (yoga, meditation, qiqong, running or walking, fishing,
biking, etc) that disengages the top down processes and allows us to just be in
the flow of life and live in the moment. It can be a regular daily practice,
but it might simply mean that you notice new things on that familiar drive to
work, that you notice the aromas, the flavors and textures of the food you eat,
how the water feels on your skin in your morning shower. Simply that you take
some time in your day to notice sensory input as it flows from your body to
your mind.
So what
does that do for you? In general, it increases your enjoyment of life. In the “Neurobiology
of We” Daniel Siegal describes this as “integration
of consciousness” which means we are not just running around controlled by our
top down processes. We are more “integrated” which means overall we are
healthier and happier.
And that’s not all. When we take
time to focus on our bottoms up processes, the top down processes begin to
dissolve and we are less imprisoned in patterns from our past. We now get the sense that we have more
choices, we are more open to new experiences, and we even approach the old
experiences in ways that feel fresh and new.
So in a moment take your head away from your computer, stop reading and take just a
moment to notice all of the wondrous stuff you are surrounded by every day. Look, smell, listen, feel and like the song says "just breathe".
So here's to you and mindful awareness (however you practice it)
Bottoms Up : )
