Am I Here?

A Beautiful Sunny Day

I’m getting frustrated at my dog as we are taking a walk. She was doing nothing unusual. I was in an altered state (low grade, undirected anger). I know that now, but on this day, I did not know that yet.

After realizing I was getting myself worked up, I started some breath work as we continued our walk. The breathing stopped the internal escalation, but the baseline irritation remained.

As I continued ruminating, I happen to ask myself “What is this anger doing for me?” I was not aware of any reason to be angry, and it occurred to me that I really didn’t need this anger. I then thought to myself “I don’t want to be angry.”

Coincidentally, the first, “What is this anger doing for me?”, came as I took a breath in (I was still doing the breath work). I thought “I don’t want to be angry.”, on the out breath, and finished with a letting go of my chest and stomach (lowered my chi). The mental shift in my brain was immediate. Like something moved. The anger was gone.

Wait, maybe I’m Relly Not There

That state I was in, low grade undirected anger, falls on the spectrum of Disassociated Identify Disorder. Another example, you arrived at a desired destination, but don’t remember how you got there.

When you are in such a state, in a sense, you are not there. Some part of you is there, in an elevated force. But your other parts are somewhat subdued as a result. Another way to say that is, I wasn’t experiencing anger, anger had me.

Who’s the “you” here?

Have you had the opportunity to experience an emotion strongly, but not so strongly that you lose your ability to /observe/ you are experiencing that strong emotion?

Imagine “anger” as a voice (by the way, mine is named “Fred”). Your ability to self-observe is yet another voice. When one voice is yelling, the others cannot speak. In my case, anger was making it difficult for my executive function to operate.

At first, you experience an emotion. If you start ratcheting on that emotion, that emotion takes over, and it has you; one part of the brain is talking so loudly (sending electrical signals along your neurons) that the other parts cannot hear each other.

How?

Was it taking a breath out in a particular manner that helped reset to a different homeostasis in my brain? Maybe, deep breathing can do that, Wim Hof breathing does it, and I’ve measured it using a Muse 2. It certainly is possible that the shift was primarily based on regular anatomical functioning. E.g., breathing in through your nose activates the emotional nodes of your brain, making it more likely you’ll remember what you hear as you breathe in - but not for mouth breathing.

Was it slowly pushed out through ongoing rumination? I made less space for anger to keep dominating? Before I started the breath work, I assumed that I was interpreting my current experience as “normal.” It wasn’t. But as soon as my ability to self assess started gaining a foothold in my electric meat bag, the other state of being (low grade anger), was slowly shut down. Maybe, the breath was the end was the end of a longer process, rather than the cause of the result.

Can I discover this sooner?

I’m often in my head and often “not here.” Might it be possible to find a way to notice when I’m in this altered state? In my last blog, I talk about how setting an intention before meditation might more easily get inserted into your subconscious. That came to mind during all of this, and what occurred to me is that asking myself “Am I here?” is a good way to give my executive function a chance to kick in.

So I’ve added that habit. Now, throughout the day, the question “Am I here?” comes to mind. Sometimes it comes up during a day-dream, and often I stop the day-dreaming. When I do this, I’m actively denying myself the dopamine provided by that day-dream. Do that enough, and your brain will find other ways to get its fix, and for me, that’s generally a good thing.

Several days on, I am still finding “Am I here?” popping into my head. I’ve also noticed that sometimes as I start to “tune out”, I might ask this question, which often helps me “tune in.” It also seems to help with my ADHD a bit, in that as soon as I start to look at a new shiny thing, I can ask myself “Am I here?” and it sometimes helps me get back to whatever I was intending to do.

Do you think there’s a question you could start asking yourself to interrupt some behaviour you’d like to augment?