Episode 44 -- August 15, 2020

Navigating important relationships can be challenging in normal times. When routines are thrown off by a crisis like the coronavirus pandemic, emotions are charged and even healthy relationships will experience conflict. It's natural to respond to these situations with fight-or-flight responses--the first impulse of the primal parts of our brains. Cynthia Moreno Tuohy offers a different option: stop and think. With insights from brain science, and wisdom gained through her own recovery, Tuohy helps us understand how to create new neural pathways by accessing the organs in the human brain that govern critical thought, the cortex, rather than default to the emotional survival skills provided by the brain's limbic system. Rein in Your Brain: From Impulsivity to Thoughtful Living in Recovery opens the door to a whole new way to think about thinking--especially when the emotional stakes are high.

This has been edited for brevity.

Your Brain Is Made of Jell-O
Not really, of course. But for a moment, think about your brain as if it were a bowl of Jell-O--in other words, highly malleable. Your brain creates pathways from repetition, like poking your finger into the gelatin. The more you do it, the deeper and wider the hole becomes. The scientific word for the result is a neuropathway. If I want to learn a new way of doing, saying, or being, I start at the top of that Jell-O brain and create a new neuropathway that gets deeper with repetition.

The creation of a new neuropathway to replace our old limbic-based style of conflict takes a lot of practice and repetition as well. When a familiar situation occurs, especially a conflict with a loved one or a coworker, the limbic brain automatically steers us into that older, deeper groove.

One way to ease the transition from an old groove to a new one is to simply stop in the moment. Once you stop, you can use conscious intention to redirect your brain. Taking a few moments to prevent yourself from speaking any further hurtful words or taking any more potentially negative actions literally stops your brain in its tracks. Inside the brain, you can picture chemical neurotransmitters that normally travel in one sequence shifting direction and taking a new, different-than-usual pathway.

This momentary stopping allows you to think through the possible consequences your words and actions may bring. Will they build the relationship up, keep it level, or tear it down? Pausing before speaking or acting, standing still in the moment, is more likely to result in a positive outcome.

Thinking Ahead
This different style of action and reaction can be practiced or rehearsed before you encounter the other person. If you suspect the situation ahead of you has the potential for conflict, you can consider the feelings you and the other person may already be experiencing. Before you pick up your child or go through the front door to greet a spouse, consider that they may have had their own tough day, a day with many stressful transitions in it. Think, or speak aloud, the following: "We're not going into that old familiar groove. We're moving over to the new pathway I've worked so hard to create."

Engaging your brain in this process of sensitivity, looking at the situation through the other person's eyes, will make a difference in how you approach the person in those all-important, tone-setting first seconds and minutes you are together.

This means thinking about how someone's entire day may have gone, from getting up in the morning to going to school or work. It means taking into account the variety of issues that may have risen in their day. It also means considering whether they have met (or may still need to meet) their basic needs for rest, food, and nurturing; perhaps they need to take time for a bit of solitude or exercise at the end of a day.

As human beings, we need to be held gently, spoken to with care, loved and adored. This is a tall order if we try to do it all at once. It is not so daunting when we think about and deliver these deliberate actions and words in small doses, and on a regular basis.

Standing still in the moment means letting go of the overly dominant "me" inside us in order to consider the highest good of the other person. We can also use this time to recognize our own needs. This two-step process--thinking about the needs of the other and oneself--is not done in a weak or self-effacing manner. To the contrary, it simply and powerfully allows you to take a stance that communicates that we all need to be heard and felt in a way that shows regard for each other.

If taking this stance feels difficult to us, it's only because our limbic brains have run the show for so long. However, there is much to gain from making this shift. If I can slow my brain down to engage with the other person, I can add to her feeling of being loved and cared for. If I stand still in the moment, if I look into the other person's eyes (that means getting down to a child's eye level) and communicate in a positive way, I will be enabling his brain to be in sync with mine--in a more open, less defensive emotional embrace.

Being on the giving or receiving end of positive interaction teaches the brain to move away from the limbic. Then we don't tend to follow the impulse to defend ourselves, since we are taking control of our brains and deliberately thinking through how we want to affect the other person. Instead of "winning an argument," we reach for mutual benefits. This moves us from the reactive limbic self to a more "proactive," cortex-based way of thinking and being.

When you delay your reaction to a provocative situation or comment, you intentionally place yourself in a state of suspension, signaling to your neurotransmitters that they need to come up with a better path forward. Suspension, or standing still in the moment to consider your deliberate response, gives you more--not less--power in the situation. You are no longer "dragged along" by your limbic brain!

Standing still and thinking about the impact of your next words and actions also creates an opportunity for mutual solution-focused problem solving. By having a conversation with the other person regarding how the day went, you consider whether one or both of you are feeling out of sorts, and what would help the two of you enter into and enjoy your "shared time" together. Here's some really good news: When our limbic feels loved and adored, it does not look to other substances and behaviors (drugs, alcohol, food, sex, or any type of excessive emotional pleasure) to be fed.

When you learn to apply this practice to your relationships, by standing still in the moment and giving yourself and your partner time to back up the train, you create new pathways in your brain. The more you practice it, the more it becomes instinct. The more it becomes instinct, the more balanced and centered you become. There are myriad ways to remember to stop what you're doing and stand still in the moment. Here's one:

Repeat a Mantra
A mantra is a phrase that you can repeat aloud or in your mind. It slows down your brain and gives you control of your limbic. A repeated mantra helps the brain become more centered and less intense in the heat of the moment.

Your mantra could be to answer these three questions before you allow a discussion to escalate: "Will what I am about to say and the way I am going to say it build the relationship up? Will it keep things level? Will it tear the relationship down?"

There are many other mantras that can reassure you that change is possible. "I think I can, I think I can" is a mantra from The Little Engine That Could that you may have read as a child. You can play around with other phrases and decide which mantra or mantras are meaningful to you and will best work for you and your brain to move from an instinctual mindset to a deliberate new track.

About the Author
Cynthia Moreno Tuohy, NCAC II, CCDC II, SAP, is the executive director of the National Association of Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Counselors.
Victoria Costello is an Emmy Award-winning science journalist, author, and mental health and wellness advocate.

© 2014 by Cynthia Moreno Tuohy
All rights reserved