Last week I shared some of the science-backed tips for protecting ourselves from depression. One of the fascinating take-aways was a warning to beware of anything that gives you a big dopamine hit. That is, beware of emotional highs.
This is not suggesting a ban on moments of excitement, thrill or joy. It’s a caution against overdosing on them – prolonging them.
I thought of the come-down I used to experience after a World Championships. These competitions are so intense, so full of highs and lows. There’s an emotional excitement building up for the few weeks beforehand and the competition lasts for two weeks, so the emotional intensity is prolonged.
I used to go through a patch of low mood every time I got home. Normal life just seemed dull when it was all over. I was aware of a desire for more excitement. As I noticed this pattern, I gave it a name – the Post-Worlds-Blues.
Dopamine is the neurotransmitter of craving, motivation and drive. After a hit of it there's a sensation of wanting more, but if you pursue that more over time, you get less and less bang for your buck. If we continually react by reaching for more, this eventually becomes addiction to the high. And it takes a bigger and bigger dose of our substance (or experience) to produce the same effect.
One of our wisest ancestors, the Buddha, observed that much of our distress in life comes from reactivity. That is, something is unpleasant, we automatically avoid it, block it out or try to destroy it. We try to get rid of it and get in a tizz when we can't.
He also pointed out that this reactivity is just as problematic with pleasant stuff. Something feels good, we automatically reach for more, try to keep it going, or to amp it up.
Both flavours of reactivity are mindless. That's the automatic bit.
A lot of personal growth is understandably focused on the first type of reactivity - our reactions to the unpleasant - how we deal with our wounds, our triggers, our hurts and hot buttons.
But the second type can be just as troublesome - reactivity to pleasant stuff like these highs. I find that it often gets overlooked. We might think: I'm not addicted to anything, so why should I put my reactions to pleasant stuff under the spotlight?
I’ve noticed a couple of common patterns with this kind of reactivity. The first is simply an unwillingness to look at it.
With unpleasant stuff there can be a pay-off for working with it, which is that it loses its grip on us and stops bothering us so much. This is super important and it’s much of the work involved in personal growth.
But with pleasant experiences, we can feel a reluctance to look at them closely because, well, what if they lose their shine? What if the hit of pleasure or comfort I get from them diminishes? That automatic reaction of wanting to hoard pleasure arises, and we move right along, paying no attention to it.
Barbed humour is one example. I make a joke at someone else’s expense, people laugh and I’m seen as clever and entertaining. If I looked closely I might see that the person on the end of my joke was hurt. They laughed along because of the social pressure to have a sense of humour. But I could see in their body language, and their eyes, that they didn’t enjoy it.
This often happens when there’s some negative feedback we’d like to give the person but we’re not brave enough, or maybe not skilled enough, to give it. So we give it to them under the cloak of humour. It’s funny, so it’s socially acceptable.
It’s also a withdrawal from the emotional bank account with that person, but we don’t want to look at that. It felt good to get a laugh and it felt good to make the point, so we don’t look any closer.
I ran leadership development programs for many years, and I always addressed this behaviour on the first day as we created a set of ground-rules for ourselves. I’d put it on the list as no covert criticism.
Often there was a resistance to it at first – this reluctance to shine the light on the pleasant.
Historically, Australia has had a culture, especially among men, of discomfort with emotions that are any shade of soft. So the way men would express affection or belonging was to give each other a hard time. The warped logic was that this showed some kind of closeness – if I can say this stuff to you, it shows that we’re good friends, because our friendship can take it. A bit like the way some families think it’s ok to treat each other awfully because we’re family.
But as the program went on (it was a 10-day program spread over six months), and I stopped and shone the light on the behaviour whenever it happened, exploring with the recipient how it was to be on the end of it, the participants would almost always become committed converts to this ground rule, often introducing it to the teams they led.
I’ve run into past participants many years later and they tell me that this became a treasured principle in their teams, with team members calling each other out on it.
One inspiring team leader put a jar on the front desk with a bowl of marbles next to it. He talked to his team about covert criticism and told them he wanted them to eradicate it from the team and replace it with honest, constructive feedback (these skills were also a part of the leadership program).
The inspiring part was that he was going to lead the way, and he asked them all to put a marble in the jar if they ever heard him issuing a covert criticism. It took just weeks for his awareness to grow and the number of marbles in the jar diminished quickly.
It was also a safe way for his staff to give him feedback that he’d fallen off the wagon and it drew their attention to how it felt when someone criticised them covertly which grew their commitment to changing their behaviour too. People felt safer and this led to a more positive culture in the team.
None of this would have happened if they weren’t willing to experiment with shining the light on something that they experienced as an enjoyable (i.e. pleasant) behaviour.
Looking at it closely also showed them that it wasn't entirely pleasant at all. It didn't feel good to hurt each other.
What habits do you have that feel good but that might do damage of some kind? Do you engage in covert criticism? If so, would you be willing to shine the light on it, get curious and look at it closely? Would you be willing to experiment with replacing it with honest feedback delivered constructively?
Next week I’m going to look at another pattern of reactivity to pleasant experiences – what I call the Happiness Hijack.
Until then.
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