Corona Virus and Dopamine Rewards

This message is for those of us sitting on the sidelines, not sick.

In my morning meditation, I was struck by an incredible metaphysical situation. Punch line: Human minds focused on corona virus and getting dopamine hits from the news are actually creating the thing they don't want. You always get what you think about. So think about the solution. Think about good feeling things unrelated to the problem. Change the channel.Stop creating what you don't want. Think about and create what you do want.

More details please.

Lets start with the familiar information that human brains get small dopamine hits from "likes" on social media or that scrolling through apps on your phone is addictive.

“Addiction is a primary, chronic disease of brain reward, motivation, memory, and related circuitry.” (American Society of Addiction ASAM Definition of Addiction - American Society of Addiction Medicine )

Every human brain loves dopamine and other neuro substances, and goes after feel good substances relentlessly. The human brain is an addict’s brain. The human brain is an addictive system. To be human is to have an addictive neurology. Every brain loves rewards and will go after them with a passion. Rewards, or lack thereof, rule our emotions and we seek dopamine to feel better. Most of us become addicts of one sort or another, ruled by the drive to get dopamine rewards.

“Somewhere in human history, we were conditioned to think that the feeling we get when dopamine fires in our brain equals happiness” (The Craving Mind Judson Brewer page 55). Getting a dopamine hit from a corona news story equals happiness to your brain.

Continuing the semi-addictive dopamine rewards of corona virus news ( like face book, football, TV, eating, shopping, working) is like a continuous low grade fever which will eventually have to be overdosed with real disease. 

Become conscious of corona obsession. Obsession is emotion. And, it is known that the amount of drug necessary to achieve the reward always increases. The brain is attempting to get the body to carry out behavior of finding bigger badder corona problems so it can have a dopamine reward. Therefore, you who are addicted to corona news always need bigger badder stories of corona problems. Thus we are perpetuating the problem ourselves. We create reality with our thoughts.

Become an observer who does have the power of thought choice. Make the decision to choose good feeling thoughts unrelated to corona. You aren’t in life for the dopamine. You are in life for genuine love, for yourself and humanity.

Yes, find out the rules of the Governor, the Mayor, or the County Health Department, but don't spend your time there. Get your dopamine hits on some other topics.

Morning Pages

Yesterday, I discovered a new book, "The Artist's Way" by Julia Cameron. For those of you in recovery, it does not mention AA, but it does mention that she got sober in 1978. And the book is filled with "higher power" and "spiritual experience."

I'm sharing this tool, Morning Pages, with you because I think is helps me to feel better. If you are an Abraham Hicks fan, I think this tool will help you to get on a high flying disk, write rampages of appreciation, get in alignment, stop doing that thing you are doing, get all the way to San Diego instead of stopping in Yuma and going back to San Antonio.

Lets review where I am coming from. I quit my job because I wanted to become a writer, yes. But also because I want to be the real me sometime before I die. The corporate engineer me is a logical brain construction and mainly exists to earn money and protect me from the world. Very little joy, or happy consciousness is allowed by the logical me. I'll be 60 in January. It is time to let go and find some joy in life. To find some happy reason for my existence. Yes, I can die as a millionaire, but did I experience The Universe's love for me?

Truly, I've sought Love for most of my life; and only caught glimpses. The logical brain always calls me down.

"morning pages are 3 pages of long hand writing, strictly stream-of-consciousness..."

Right there, I become unstuck. I was trying to write a rampage of appreciation when I had none. Or I was taking my inventory and only feeling worse. Or trying to write a novel instead of getting in touch with me.

"These morning pages are not meant to be an art. Or even writing. I stress at this point to reassure the non-writers working with this book. Writing is simply a tool. Pages are meant to be simply the act of moving the hand across the page and writing down whatever comes to mind. Nothing is too petty, too silly, too stupid, or too weird to be included.
     The morning pages are not supposed to sound smart...."

But I will share further promises.

• All that petty stuff you write down in morning pages is what stands between you and your creativity.
• The morning pages are the primary tool of creative recovery.
• We are victims of our own internalized Censor who constantly criticizes us. The morning pages are a way to evade the Censor and find your Artists Brain.
• The morning pages are meditation because the stream of consciousness writing gives us insight and helps effect change in our lives. Moving from the logical Censor to the Artist Brain is meditation.
• We meditate to discover our own identity, acquire a connection to our inner self. Morning pages build a link to the inner creative identity. (What wouldn't I give to have that. I've spent my life wanting that.)

If you made it to here, google "morning pages" or go to the library and get the book The Artist's Way. I'm not going to type entire directions for morning pages here. But I GUARANTEE YOU WILL BE INSPIRED. A being inspired feels good. Inspiration is good energy and I love it.

Today was my first attempt to get 3 pages written and I was successful. I couldn't do this when Abraham said to write 3 pages of a rampage of appreciation every day. Because, I don't appreciate that much or I am too afraid of the Law of Attraction looking in on my crummy thoughts and sending me more. Judgments and restrictions on my writing allow the Censor to shut everything down. And then I have nothing. But if I just free flow write with no restrictions or judgments, I find that the positivity does come out. Free flow writing is a way for me to dig myself out of my negativity. My negativity is mainly fear. My life has sort of mainly been about fear. What if I could dig out of feat and actually love being alive?

In any case, it felt good to let go and just write whatever. I feel better and that is important. This morning, I realized an important point: the life I created here in KC, post career, has room for the Artist and the point is that I need to learn who I am and be who I am. So working at part time jobs  with a hap hazard schedule does that. 

Also, I have created in my life some people I need. Like last night I met my tax office boss. But who I really met is a young guy who is extremely creative. By young, I mean really young. But he shared alot of his creative activities and explained why he like working for the tax office: to have time during the off season to be creative. So, I had the same life I have now 15 years ago, but went back into engineering because of the money. Also, 15 years ago, I had no creative projects so no reason to have a life with room for creativity. Now however, financial insecurity is not an issue and I do have creative projects. So, while this kid is my boss, I can surreptitiously watch a guy have a creative life. A real person, not a book author.

I feel inspired now. I feel good about my life. What could be more important than that?

Holding Pattern

I quit my job a week ago and on Monday a moving truck comes. These few days have been a waiting period. Done with my life here but not yet started with my life there. The rain has hindered running a little bit, but mostly it is the mosquitoes which are keeping me away from the parks. Even if I spray myself, a cloud of the little buggers hovers around me trying to find places which are not sprayed, like my face.

This little holding pattern got me thinking about how my most of my life has been a holding pattern. A holding pattern of waiting for work to be over so I could do what I want.

First look at the pattern: get up at 3:30 am, time for spiritual study, time for exercise, go to work at 6:30 am (to beat the traffic), be at work, come home from work, eat, rest, exercise, read fiction, go to sleep at 10. Five days a week, an incredible 3+ decades of work.

Astonishingly enough, my work as an engineer was mostly boring; only occasionally would an interesting project come along. Rarely was creativity needed. Most of engineering work is "putting the lines on the page." That is, after the initial excitement, carrying out the project is a routine technical activity. Often, completing a project does not bring a reward. They don't tell you this in engineering school, but most of engineering life is putting lines on the page.

There wasn't much dopamine reward in my work pattern. Mostly I went to work to earn the paycheck. My work environment was like many others. It was cynical and underfunctioning. I obeyed the rules. I played nice with others. I kept my mouth shut. Mostly I was surviving. My work was a holding pattern because for most of this life's daylight hours, I was restricted to the work environment. Creative ideas had to be shelved for later or discarded entirely. Even work related creativity mostly got discarded.

My dopamine rewards were not coming from work. The good feeling brain chemicals came from morning and evening exercise, spiritual investigations; and running marathons or ultra-marathons on the weekend. The little medals given at the end of a race represented more rewards than I obtained at work in years. And this comment comes from a highly competent, reliable engineer; not some slacker that nobody liked.

Americas best minds are warehoused in the work related holding patterns. Every corporation is wasting these resources. I am not unique.

So is it any wonder that I left the system as soon as possible? I am filled with creative ideas. I want to carry them out. Even the act of writing this blog would not be possible if I had needed to go to work an hour ago.

Excellence

This morning I read something interesting in Ernie Zelinski's book "Career Success Without a Real Job."

"Most people don't do their best because they don't enjoy what they do. They are working primarily for the reward of the paycheck, at the same time resisting the jobs they don't like. As a result they don't know the definition of excellence and never do their best. If you ask them how they are doing, they will reply, "Average." They even think that being slightly above average is quite a remarkable accomplishment.

"Take a little time and list the things that promote your being average, including the people with whom you hang around. To rise above mediocrity you must remove everything in your life that represents mediocrity. Surround yourself with people and things that represent excellence and you will be inspired to do your best so that you too represent excellence."

You know, my work group, and much of most corporations, is filled with the mediocre. I don't think that bright young minds start out that way, but end up that way as a result of continuous employment within one system. In some ways, staying in the same system for decades has to be killing your excellence. We know it kills creativity because corporate systems have too much inertia for one creative idea to make it.

I cannot tolerate working for a mediocre boss. It just kills me.