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Loved into Being: Practical Insights from the Neuroscience of Relationships FACES March 3, 2017 Rick Hanson, Ph.D. www.RickHanson.net Sections 1. Feeling Cared About 2. Calm Strength 3. Compassionate Assertiveness 4. From Them to

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Loved into Being:

Practical Insights from the Neuroscience of Relationships

FACES

March 3, 2017 Rick Hanson, Ph.D. www.RickHanson.net
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Sections

  • 1. Feeling Cared About
  • 2. Calm Strength
  • 3. Compassionate Assertiveness
  • 4. From “Them” to “Us”
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1

Feeling Cared About

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Enrich It

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Enrich It

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Enrich It

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We’ll take a little longer.

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Mental Resources for Healthy Relationships

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Mental Resources Support Relationships Resilience Mindfulness Secure Attachment Self Regulation Compassion Self Worth

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Mental Resources Are Embedded In Brain Structure

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SLIDE 11 11 Lazar, et al. 2005. Meditation experience is associated with increased cortical thickness. Neuroreport, 16, 1893-1897.
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Mental resources are acquired in two stages:

Encoding Activation State Consolidation Installation Trait

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SLIDE 14 We become more compassionate by repeatedly installing experiences
  • f empathy and compassion.
We become more secure by repeatedly installing experiences of feeling cared about. We become more resilient by repeatedly installing experiences of calm strength.
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Steepening Personal Growth Curves

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What fraction of our beneficial mental states ever become neural structure?

Activation without installation may be pleasant, but it has no lasting value.

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SLIDE 17 17
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The Negativity Bias

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SLIDE 19 19 How stress changes the brain McEwen, 2006. Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience, 8:367-381
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The same research that proves therapy works shows no improvement in outcomes over the last 30 or so years.

Scott Miller, Ph.D.

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Professionals and the public are generally good at activation but bad at installation. This is the fundamental weakness – and opportunity – in much coaching, psychotherapy, human resources training, and mindfulness programs.

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SLIDE 22 22 [learning curves]
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SLIDE 23 23 [learning curves]
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SLIDE 24 24 [learning curves]
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SLIDE 25 25 [learning curves]
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How can we maximize the conversion rate from positive states to beneficial traits?

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Learning Factors

Environmental – setting, social support Behavioral – activities, repetition Mental – motivation, engagement

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Learning How To Learn

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Have a Beneficial Experience

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Enrich It

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Absorb It

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SLIDE 32 32 Like a Nice Fire
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Link Positive & Negative Material

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SLIDE 34 Activation
  • 1. Have a beneficial experience.
Installation
  • 2. Enrich it.
  • 3. Absorb it.
  • 4. Link positive and negative material.
(Optional)

Neuropsychology of Learning

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Have It, Enjoy It

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  • Witness. Pull weeds. Plant flowers.

In the Garden of the Mind

“Being with” is primary – but not enough. We also need “wise effort.” Let be. Let go. Let in. Mindfulness is present in all three. Be with what is there 1 Decrease the negative 2 Increase the positive 3
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Feeling Caring

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SLIDE 38 Have friendliness compassion love

Being Caring

Enrich sustain embody explore Absorb receive sink into enjoy
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SLIDE 39 Pick a partner and choose an A and a B (A’s go first). Then take turns, with one person speaking while the partner mainly listens, exploring these questions: ? How was that practice for you? Any reflections so far?
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Self-Compassion

Compassion is the wish that beings not suffer, with warm-hearted concern. Compassion is sincere even if we can’t make things better. Self-compassion simply applies this to oneself. To encourage self-compassion: 1 2 3 Get the sense of being cared about. Bring to mind beings you care about. Find compassion for them. Shift the compassion to yourself.
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’’

“Anthem”

Ring the bells that can still ring Forget your perfect offering There is a crack in everything That’s how the light gets in That’s how the light gets in Leonard Cohen
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2

Calm Strength

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’’

The good life, as conceive it, is a happy life. I do not mean that if you are good you will be happy; I mean that if you are happy you will be good. Bertrand Russell
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Being for Yourself

  • Bring to mind someone you are for. Find a sense of
caring, support, being loyal, standing with someone as an ally. Know this stance toward someone.
  • Apply this stance, this feeling, toward yourself.
  • Recognizing your difficulties and burdens. Recognizing
injustice applied to you. Recognizing the impacts on you.
  • Finding determination that you not be mistreated,
that you cope with challenges, that you be truly happy, having a good life as best you can.
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Feeling Basically Alright Right Now

  • Tuning into the body’s signals that all is well right now
  • Aware of breathing going fine . . . the heart beating . . .
awareness itself keeps on going no matter what arises . . .
  • Letting go of the past, not worrying about the future.
Noticing that at least in this moment you are OK.
  • Being alright, you can let go of any need to struggle with
anything unpleasant.
  • Feeling alright sinking into places inside that haven’t . . .
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Feeling Strong

  • Recalling times you felt strong . . . Determined . . .
Standing up for others or yourself . . . Enduring . . .
  • Opening to these experiences of strength . . . Feeling them
in your body . . .
  • Strength sinking into you . . . You becoming strength . . .
  • A spacious strength that lets others flow through . . .
  • In relationship and at peace . . .
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SLIDE 47 Pick a partner and choose an A and a B (A’s go first). Then take turns, with one person speaking while the partner mainly listens, exploring these questions: ? How was that practice for you? Any applications for clients?
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3

Compassionate Assertiveness

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Three Kinds of Relationships

I-Thou:

  • Recognizing others as beings, persons
  • Not liking, approval, agreement

I-It:

  • Little or not sense of the other as a being
  • Using others as a means to one’s ends
It-It:
  • Bodies in space, moving past each other
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Can you treat yourself as a Thou?

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Balancing Autonomy and Intimacy

Two great themes in human life: independence/dependence, separation/ joining, autonomy/intimacy, me/we Autonomy helps you feel safe in the depths
  • f relationship, and intimacy nurtures the
“secure base” that helps you dare greatly. Feeling autonomous and strong, you’re more able to manage conflicts in peace.
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Open Strength

  • Getting a sense of boundaries around you . . . Fences,
shields . . . People, the world, are over there and you are here . . . Boundaries you control and can adjust . . .
  • Beings who care about you are inside with you . . .
Supporting you, protecting you . . .
  • Feeling strong in your breathing . . . In your arms and
legs . . . Determined, enduring . . . Strong . . .
  • While sustaining the sense of both strength and
boundaries, also opening to others around you . . . Others in your life . . . With a spacious strength that lets
  • thers flow through . . .
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Healthy Assertiveness

What it is: Speaking your truth and

pursuing your aims in relationships

What supports it:

  • Being on your own side
  • Knowing where you stand (facts & values)
  • Refuges, wellsprings, allies
  • Focus on big things, let go of little ones
  • Health, vitality
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If you let go a little, you will have a little happiness. If you let go a lot, you will have a lot of happiness. If you let go completely, You will be completely happy.

Ajahn Chah
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If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each [person’s] life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm any hostility.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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There are those who do not realize that

  • ne day we all must die.

But those who do realize this settle their quarrels.

The Buddha

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Healthy Assertiveness – How to Do It

  • Know your aims; eyes on the prize
  • Treat the other as a Thou: compassion
  • Practice unilateral virtue; dignity, gravity
  • Wise speech; non-violent communication
  • Establish facts; bound the problem
  • Find the deepest wants
  • Focus on the future
  • Make clear plans, agreements
  • Scale relationship to its true foundation
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SLIDE 59 Pick a partner and choose an A and a B (A’s go first). Then take turns, with one person speaking while the partner mainly listens, exploring this question: ? Either with a personal relationship
  • r helping a client
with one: How could you apply this approach
  • f healthy
assertiveness?
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4

From “Them” to “Us”

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The Social Brain

The survival benefits of social capabilities have driven recent brain evolution. Mammals and birds have more cortex (to bodyweight) than reptiles and fish. More social primates have more cortex. Much of the brain’s recent tripling in size is for social capabilities (e.g., empathy, language). The growing brain needed a longer childhood, which required greater pair bonding and band cohesion.
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“Us” and “Them”

Within-group cooperation, between-group aggression Individual variation Strong inclinations toward cooperative sociability, but easily overridden by threats, fear, grievances, payback Reactive aggression is intensified and often exploited by economic, cultural, and religious factors. If there are two wolves in the heart – one of love and one
  • f hate, one that sees a vast circle of “we” and one that
sees a small circle of “me” – which one will you feed?
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SLIDE 63 In between-family fights, the baboon’s “I” expands to include all of her close kin; in within-family fights, it contracts to include only herself. The explanation serves for baboons as much as for the Montagues and Capulets. Dorothy Cheney and Robert Seyfarth
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SLIDE 64 Pick a partner and choose an A and a B (A’s go first). Then take turns, with one person speaking while the partner mainly listens, exploring these questions: ? Who has treated you as an “it”
  • r a “them?”
Who have you treated as an “it”
  • r a “them?”
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SLIDE 65 A human being is a part of a whole. [We] experience [ourselves, our] thoughts and feelings as somethng separated from the rest . . . A kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our tasks must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. Albert Einstein
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Feeding the Wolf of Love

  • Feel cared about yourself
  • Don’t over-identify with “us”
  • Release aversion to others
  • Focus on similarities
  • Recognize, have compassion for suffering
  • Consider “them” as young children
  • Recognize good things about “them”
  • Reflect on how we are all in this together
  • Self-generate kindness and love
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Kindness and Goodwill Practice

  • Bring to mind someone who has been good to you,
someone it is easy for you to care about.
  • Find warm feelings for this person . . . Good wishes, such
as “May you be safe . . . Healthy . . . Happy . . . At ease.” Taking kindness, goodwill as your focus of meditation.
  • Repeating for other beings you know: friend . . . neutral
person . . . difficult person
  • Radiating kindness and goodwill in widening circles . . .
Including the people in this room . . . In this city . . . In this country . . . In this world . . . Nonhuman animals . . . All living things . . . Omitting none . . .
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Suggested Books

See RickHanson.net for other good books.
  • Austin, J. 2009. Selfless Insight. MIT Press.
  • Begley. S. 2007. Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain. Ballantine.
  • Carter, C. 2010. Raising Happiness. Ballantine.
  • Hanson, R. (with R. Mendius). 2009. Buddha’s Brain: The Practical
Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom. New Harbinger.
  • Johnson, S. 2005. Mind Wide Open. Scribner.
  • Keltner, D. 2009. Born to Be Good. Norton.
  • Kornfield, J. 2009. The Wise Heart. Bantam.
  • LeDoux, J. 2003. Synaptic Self. Penguin.
  • Linden, D. 2008. The Accidental Mind. Belknap.
  • Sapolsky, R. 2004. Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers. Holt.
  • Siegel, D. 2007. The Mindful Brain. Norton.
  • Thompson, E. 2007. Mind in Life. Belknap.
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Key Papers – 1

See RickHanson.net for other scientific papers.
  • Atmanspacher, H. & Graben, P. 2007. Contextual emergence of mental states from
  • neurodynamics. Chaos & Complexity Letters, 2:151-168.
  • Baumeister, R., Bratlavsky, E., Finkenauer, C. & Vohs, K. 2001. Bad is stronger than
  • good. Review of General Psychology, 5:323-370.
  • Braver, T. & Cohen, J. 2000. On the control of control: The role of dopamine in
regulating prefrontal function and working memory; in Control of Cognitive Processes: Attention and Performance XVIII. Monsel, S. & Driver, J. (eds.). MIT Press.
  • Carter, O.L., Callistemon, C., Ungerer, Y., Liu, G.B., & Pettigrew, J.D. 2005. Meditation
skills of Buddhist monks yield clues to brain's regulation of attention. Current Biology. 15:412-413.
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Key Papers – 2

  • Davidson, R.J. 2004. Well-being and affective style: neural substrates and biobehavioural
  • correlates. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. 359:1395-1411.
  • Farb, N.A.S., Segal, Z.V., Mayberg, H., Bean, J., McKeon, D., Fatima, Z., and Anderson, A.K.
  • 2007. Attending to the present: Mindfulness meditation reveals distinct neural modes of
self-reflection. SCAN, 2, 313-322.
  • Gillihan, S.J. & Farah, M.J. 2005. Is self special? A critical review of evidence from
experimental psychology and cognitive neuroscience. Psychological Bulletin, 131:76-97.
  • Hagmann, P., Cammoun, L., Gigandet, X., Meuli, R., Honey, C.J., Wedeen, V.J., & Sporns,
  • O. 2008. Mapping the structural core of human cerebral cortex. PLoS Biology. 6:1479-1493.
  • Hanson, R. 2008. Seven facts about the brain that incline the mind to joy. In Measuring the
immeasurable: The scientific case for spirituality. Sounds True.
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Key Papers – 3

  • Lazar, S., Kerr, C., Wasserman, R., Gray, J., Greve, D., Treadway, M., McGarvey, M.,
Quinn, B., Dusek, J., Benson, H., Rauch, S., Moore, C., & Fischl, B. 2005. Meditation experience is associated with increased cortical thickness. Neuroreport. 16:1893-1897.
  • Lewis, M.D. & Todd, R.M. 2007. The self-regulating brain: Cortical-subcortical feedback
and the development of intelligent action. Cognitive Development, 22:406-430.
  • Lieberman, M.D. & Eisenberger, N.I. 2009. Pains and pleasures of social life. Science.
323:890-891.
  • Lutz, A., Greischar, L., Rawlings, N., Ricard, M. and Davidson, R. 2004. Long-term
meditators self-induce high-amplitude gamma synchrony during mental practice. PNAS. 101:16369-16373.
  • Lutz, A., Slager, H.A., Dunne, J.D., & Davidson, R. J. 2008. Attention regulation and
monitoring in meditation. Trends in Cognitive Sciences. 12:163-169.
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Key Papers – 4

  • Rozin, P. & Royzman, E.B. 2001. Negativity bias, negativity dominance, and
  • contagion. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 5:296-320.
  • Takahashi, H., Kato, M., Matsuura, M., Mobbs, D., Suhara, T., & Okubo, Y. 2009.
When your gain is my pain and your pain is my gain: Neural correlates of envy and
  • schadenfreude. Science, 323:937-939.
  • Tang, Y.-Y., Ma, Y., Wang, J., Fan, Y., Feng, S., Lu, Q., Yu, Q., Sui, D., Rothbart, M.K.,
Fan, M., & Posner, M. 2007. Short-term meditation training improves attention and self-regulation. PNAS, 104:17152-17156.
  • Thompson, E. & Varela F.J. 2001. Radical embodiment: Neural dynamics and
  • consciousness. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 5:418-425.
  • Walsh, R. & Shapiro, S. L. 2006. The meeting of meditative disciplines and Western
psychology: A mutually enriching dialogue. American Psychologist, 61:227-239.
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Where to Find Rick Hanson Online

Hardwiring Happiness: The New Brain Science of Contentment, Calm, and Confidence www.rickhanson.net/hardwiringhappiness youtube.com/drrhanson facebook.com/rickhansonphd Personal website: www.rickhanson.net Wellspring Institute: www.wisebrain.org