The Elusive Mighty Pegasus! in Everyday Ramblings

In The Emotional Life of Your Brain by Richard J. Davidson he talks about how folks have different emotional styles that can be measured by brain activity. These are not fixed but there are tendencies towards a certain combination of the six styles.

The second dimension (after Resilience) is Outlook and this is all about how long brain circuitry underlying positive emotion remains active after being exposed to stimulus that activate this circuitry such as a Good Samaritan going to the aid of someone in distress or a glowing mother embracing her baby.

This slide show I found yesterday of a healer in rural Mexico is a good example of that. My mind has returned to the brightly colored rooms and the care these suffering people are receiving over and over after looking at these 8 photographs yesterday. (I am immeasurably grateful to the three people who helped me change my dressings last month that the idea that someone would routinely do that on general principles warms my heart…)

Apparently the depressed brain is unable to sustain activation in the positive emotion circuitry. They can activate it but not sustain it. He gives some pretty compelling examples in the book and backs them up with science.

I have experienced this. All by myself I tend to minimize my accomplishments or brief happy moments or a sense of contentment that washes over me and then fades unless I have some sort of reminder like a family member mentioning something or on my yogic Pratipaksha Bhavanam list of things that make me happy to contemplate I keep on my wall next to my work area at home.

There is a whole other part of the brain active in goal setting and doing the thing routinely that you need to do to achieve that goal. I have always had lots of activity in this area. I loved stuff in school where you would do something and then achieve a small reward (particularly social recognition) and then you keep moving on to higher and higher achievements. Like workbooks or we had these color-coded reading levels that I loved just zooming through.

This is not good or bad; I have just always been this way. That is why I think I was so successful right out of the gate with Weight Watchers.

And today I am one of the 329 people to have earned a Pegasus Badge on 750 Words!

How totally cool is that??? I’ve written my 750 Words for 365 Days in a row. And I am a much happier well-adjusted person for having done it. At least for me just getting out through my fingers the stuff that is sitting on the top of my thoughts without editing it has been very helpful at keeping me more balanced emotionally and able to handle the stresses I have encountered.

And encounter them I have!

Have I mentioned that Olga my yoga teacher is moving to Michigan in just over a week? She’s been my root teacher for 12 years. She is going to teach online and I will put up links to that when she gets it going but she won’t be doing the advanced training I was planning on doing this winter.

That is okay because I am spending almost all the money I saved for it on the cats and this cost sharing arrangement that my employer calls Health Insurance. I just got two bills yesterday totaling $400 for copays on my “procedures”.

Houston, we have a problem with Health Insurance here in the USA. Do you think I could get one of those Congress people that are trying to defund the Affordable Care act to pay those bills???

Anyway, I am very much enjoying the book. It is given me much fodder for both my emotions and my brain. :)

Go me on the Pegasus badge. I will savor it for the next 135 days.