A funny thing about emotions is that they can become addictive. Literally. All our emotions, from euphoria to depression, depend on the proteins segregated by our hypothalamus, a region in the lower brain area. Such proteins enter our blood stream and communicate the intended effect to EACH AND EVERY ONE of the cells we are made of. But the most astonishing aspect of the whole process is that the cell’s receptors in charge of processing those proteins are the ones in charge of processing other substances like, for example, heroine.
So affirming that a person can be addicted to a certain emotion (i.e., to the substance associated to that emotion), is certainly more than a metaphor. And, as our biological mechanism involved is the same that deals with drugs, the laws of addiction are here applicable too: under sustained exposure to a substance, the cell become more receptive to it and, as it gets more and more into the habit, it will require growing amounts of the same substance simply to recover its balance. Translated into the world of emotions, it means that the same emotion will have to be more intense and last for a longer period of time before the cell get satiated.
The nature of addictions
An addiction can be defined as any behavior that, in spite of being prejudicial for the subject (and he being aware of it), he decides to maintain (you can find the canonical definition here). In short, it could also be defined as “something that you can’t stop”. Such definition is especially suitable when thinking about emotions.
Emotions themselves are not the problem. They exist for one reason, in many cases they fulfill adaptive purposes, and even when they don’t, they are a beautiful, overwhelming manifestation of nature’s capability for variation. Life would be poorer without them. The problem comes when one of them becomes too “sticky” or, expressing it from the other side of the equation, when we cling too much to it. As I mentioned above, emotional messages are transferred to our whole body, cell-by-cell, so resisting to them has global and sometimes devastating effects.
To make things even worse, western culture has always been more interested on the “outer” aspect of things than in our inner world, so its approach to the field of emotions has been typically limited to a very superficial acknowledgment of its bodily expressions (smile, tear). There seems to exist some kind of taboo on the issue, as if discussing emotions that we all have, were a thing of bad taste. Sadly, the invisible nature of feelings makes them easy to ignore… but God help you with the side effects if you do so.
So how to determine if we suffer an emotional addiction? From self-pity to rage, from systematic pessimism to an exhausting feeling of being irreplaceable… it could be anything. But how to identify it, especially after, in some cases, many years of promoting the wrong neural connections? The previous definition is good as rule of thumb: if you can’t stop it, then you are addicted. Needless to say, it requires courage and honesty to oneself to find out what is wrong. But the benefits can be huge, too. Real, intimate self knowledge starts here.
A useful technique: visualizing the storm
Words are a powerful tool, and a lot of psychological techniques make use of them: to establish time-out periods, to encourage right behaviors, to improve self-esteem… Invaluable as they are, such techniques also present a drawback that must be noted: every word is like the top of an iceberg, with the 90% of its mass being its underlying connotations, which vary for every person, are thus impossible to control, and can have strong effects on the results. Besides, the nature of language itself, and our everyday “overuse” of it, makes it difficult to distance oneself from words, a distance particularly important when dealing with emotions. That’s why, generally speaking, visual techniques are more effective than verbal ones when dealing with emotions, although it is also important to remark that, as configuration and abilities differ from brain to brain, one person can be more naturally inclined to verbal or visual techniques, depending on his most developed areas. A technique that I have found really useful to monitor and become more aware of emotions is what I call “visualizing the storm”.
Imagine your own brain. Visualize it. At the same time, feel it there, with you, being you in fact. Feel its round 3 lb somewhere up there. It is important that you do both things, visualizing and feeling, because every stimulus that enters our consciousness by several simultaneous channels multiplies its efficiency.
Emotions are not ghosts, they are flows of proteins unchained by electric signals in our brain, which in its turn waits for the reaction to generate new signals, etc. So whenever you experiment an overwhelming emotion of any kind, focus on your brain. It is all there. Imagine the surface. Focus on the electric discharges going from one point to another. Bzz! There goes another. Take a step back from your emotions, try to see them as something that happens to you, like hiccups. Take a deep breath. Visualize the storm, all those tiny blue rays twisting, flashing, communicating two points for an instant, starting the new protein discharge. Feel the protein flow as it goes down your spine, flows through your blood, feeds your cells, all of your cells. You are the one who has that weird electrical crown in his head. No problem. Be open to the sensation, just let it come, and associate it with the image of your brain, just as if you were watching a fascinating documentary on your brain. Keep yourself separated from what you feel, you did not ask that protein to come in, but now it is here, so just watch how it flows, spreads, dissolves and then leaves room for a different thing.
In any situation in your life, you always have the option to decide what “is you” and what simply “happens to you”. It is you who name it, you who set the line. The healthiest thing to do in this case is to detach. It feels weird when you start, but once you get used to it, it feels literally, like taking a huge weight off your shoulders. This stance is similar to what Buddhists call “detachment”. You don’t give up your feelings but you don’t grab them either.
A great advantage of this technique is that, as you get better at visualizing, you’ll start to see others as “victims” of their own protein addictions too. By no means it exempts them from responsibility for their actions: it is their obligation to modify such protein habits. But this radical change of focus can make you more open and compassionate towards other people. Moving from seeing someone as a menace, for example, to consider him a poor lad, momentarily “fried” by his own brain, is a radical turn, and it will help you to deal with problems more effectively and with lower energy consumption. Besides, a more compassionate stance is certainly perceived by the others, it generates positive feedback which in turn, etc…
Limitations of the technique: monotony always reduces effectiveness, that’s a universal law. Seemingly, our nervous system gets bored with any repetition of stimuli and then starts to lose interest. This is called the law of fatigue. Once your mind becomes “fed up” with this visualization, do not force it. You better have a rest, move to a different matter and let the system get “clean”. Brain is still such a mystery that it is difficult to tell for sure, but maybe it would also be a good idea to move to a verbal activity for a while, in order to exercise a different brain area…
Final credits: for those interested in how our emotions work, I strongly recommend the film ‘What the (bleep) do we (k)now?‘ (not an affiliate link), which explains in more detail the working of the hypothalamus, among other fascinating issues.
