The day my depression died

Something changed last night.

Insomnia, I just couldn't seem to get that oxytocin self soothing I've been able to induce when I wake up in the middle of the night. Just this rigid, impotent buzzing.

So I decided to stand.

I guess I'd been standing for about twenty minutes, pushing it, and surrendering, the sort of push pull I experience when I'm doing this. I started to feel this very strong and concrete post of energy. My arms and hands started to shift around in some weird feeling branchy ways. I was just quietly being still with this energy. Trying to rest in cool detachment, trying not to get too excited and trusting that it would come back when I seemed to be losing it. And then suddenly this lame, annoying stale energy came back. Or rather I became very conscious and hyperaware of the part of my brain where this energy came from. I was outside of of it, just watching it kind of flame up, and I realized that this part of my brain was kind of having one last hurrah, because I was about to leave that part of my brain to die. I realized that even if I ever felt that feeling again, those neurons would never have the same power they once had.

And then gradually I started to make my way to the new part of my brain. The pre-frontal cortex maybe? That part of my brain felt fresh, calm, strong, confident. Vital in a really flourishing, not manic way. That was the new place for me. It was a place I knew well, but had been visiting from time to time. It was my new home though. I knew it.

Did some counting realized that I was six months from my birthday. My real birthday if you believe my mother, since it was my due date.

I'm going to celebrate this day, January 31 for the rest of my life. The day when my real brain came alive. The day when the best part of my life really began.

The clearer path

I'm a little over three months into this, and the path is becoming clearer. I know that what is pumping through my body is the same natural opiate that pumped through my body during breastfeeding. And when I stand what I am for now is the letting down, that state when the milk flows, the opiate flows, and the bliss flows. I know now that if I commit to this that opiate can be there for me daily. And if what Norman Doidge says is true then I will be able to forget some of my past self-destructive behaviours and lean ones that will guarantee this steady flow of natural high.

Is this how I want to live my life? Of course.

The question is how do I enable other people to discover this?

My first stage is to trust in the process. My next stage is to get people to trust me.

But right now it's all about commitment. This is the commitment opiate, so they say.

My life suffers from a lack of commitment. A lack of structure that allows this learning drug to flow regularly and create more structured action in my life.

So what's the plan?

I guess #1. Get the flow going stronger.

stand, sleep, write

So I'm more and more convinced that when my brain, gut-brain, heart brain, and whatever brains there are in my body are opening up that I'm getting a rush of oxytocin. And this oxytocin rush is helping me to learn new healthier behaviours. And more importantly, helping me to forget old ones.

I''m still struggling to find the best way to express this. I see a year, like Liz Gilbert, but without the advance. Doing the three things I need to do to make a good life for myself. One: stand. It's still a challenge and Ben is now developing the habit of getting up early. So my meditation hour is being disrupted. But fine, then, little one. You can go to bed a little earlier tonight to make up for that. No way though, that doesn't make sense that he would start a habit of rising that early.

The next thing is sleep. I look into the effects of getting to bed early, giving up the T.V. feeling the advantages of regular sleep. I felt the advantages of them last night. Woke up with some dumb grievance on my mind about a blog I had read. Decided to stand and tap into the oxytocin, did a bit of self-hypnosis to get myself tired again, and within about half an hour I was fast asleep again.

And the next stage would be to write. How does writing change our lives, our culture, our brain. How does writing change our brain. What is the current theory behind writing, according to that French guy and the global workspace theorists. How can we change our brain to make us better writers. How can good writing make us more empathetic and a better community?

My job is to explore that. But also, how can writing change our heart, our lives?

this is it

Not a particularly disciplined meditation this morning. Feeling drained from that time of the month. Ben woke up early. Just stood really. But near the end of it, that vein in my brain opened up and I felt that oxytocin high, which I know from breastfeeding and sex and I guess labour. And I got it. This is what is happening. I feel calm. I feel connected and trusting of the world and the universe. This is the transformation. A commitment to this everyday would transform my brain and my heart and my life. That's why meditation is transformative.

And weirdly woman are more able to recognize it than men, since we have more bonding experiences.

But yes, this is it.

0xytocin

Watching the Daniel gilbert series on PBS. It reminded me about the theory of oxytocin and bonding. Apparently when we have sex, or breast feed or cuddle, we release oxy into our bloodstream and this helps us to bond.

I've done all these things and I suddenly just now, when I was meditating, recognized the feeling of when the energy opens my body and brain up as an oxytocin high.

So if I continue to do this what am I bonding with. The universe? God. My mind?

I'm happy

As long as I can remember, and still after a fairly rigorous meditation practice, on and off, I've always had intrusive thoughts telling me I'm depressed. Today for the first time I can remember I had and intrusive thought telling me I'm happy.

A lot of that, I think, has to do with getting a good sleep. I have had nights where I wake up in the middle of the night and can't get back to sleep. But last couple of nights I've slept through the eight hours I gave myself, and it does feel really good.

Been reading Jeffrey Schwartz The Mind and the Brain. Had a theory yesterday that just as I used to have intrusive negative thoughts when I was suffering from OCD as my brain becomes healthier I will start having intrustive positive thoughts. Intrusive silence, intrusive peace, intrusive happiness. Then positive mental health will be my driving force.

the opposite of depression

I've been watching Daniel Gilbert's PBS documentary on emotions. In the second installment Elizabeth Gilbert said something that has struck me like a bolt of lightning. The opposite of depression is not happiness. That is the opposite of sadness. The opposite of depression is vitality.

This is of course what I'm doing in this practice and with my chronotherapy. Setting up a life structure that will maximize my vitality. That would be the aim of a healthy diet, if I were to get back to that! Cleaning, eating and sleeping well, meditating. All these things are about creating a life that will bring in the vitality that will eventually flood out this depression. It seems so simple, but never is to my depressed mind.