How meditation can activate your inner superhero
You don’t need to look too far to find a superhero, we’ve all got one right inside is. We just forget how to hit the activation button every now and then for our superpowers. I talk about superpowers a lot in our house, it started off from memories of standing in specific poses before tough presentations or facilitating. Then it became relevant with my kids. Now, it feels that superpowers and superheroes are needed more than ever!
Meditation has been key tool in rewiring my brain, I do use other practices like journaling but it’s meditation that hits parts of my subconscious and even the unconscious to help me to really make meaningful changes.
We all have our traumas. The big traumas (big T’s) which most of us are quick to identify, we know them well. Then there are the little traumas (little t’s) that we may not be quite so aware of. This is important because the little t’s can influence our behaviour far more than what we realise. As we make our way through our adult life we can accumulate a whole bag of these little t’s and not even know that they are shaping how we think, our belief systems and complex coping mechanisms that are potentially holding us back from a life that we really want. As they are so small, even if we were to be confronted by them, we’d most likely dismiss them as unimportant. So, how does meditation come into it? Let’s first take a look at our stress response system.
Say hi to the Amygdala
Every day we will face various stimuli, stressors and triggers. It could look like a traffic jam, dropping your coffee, an uncomfortable conversation, someone that’s angry or a barking dog. Any of these can stimulate a tiny part of your brain called the amygdala, this is your internal lookout, whose role it is to keep you safe by alerting your flight / fight response. This little lookout is constantly scanning our environment and getting ready to activate this ancient system that has kept us going for hundreds of thousands of years. It’s on the hunt for danger, any danger at all.
Let’s talk stress
Not all stress is the same. This are two key types of stress that we will encounter during out days.
Eustress - (aka positive stress): this is the type that gets us primed for a race, jumping out of oncoming traffic that we hadn’t noticed or even avoiding that angry dog that may bite us (the old sabre-toothed tiger situations!)
Distress - (aka negative stress): this is the type that will have you playing back a conversation for hours and stewing over the things that you wished that you had said. Perhaps it’s focused on upcoming events or even things that you believe that you truly deserve but don’t have.
The tricky thing is that both of these types of stress will set in off hormones that activate the fight or flight response, this will often look like:
Increased heart rate
Blood gets pumped and moved from our internal core (think digestive organs) and to our extremities, ready for us to run
Pupils dilate and our vision focuses and narrows - tunnel vision
Our mouth becomes dry
Blood sugar increases
These are just some of the ways that our body gets ready. The other important thing to note is that our ability to think, to solve problems, even to communicate become compromised.
If you are someone who is constantly stressed out in non-life threatening situations (chronic low grade stress) then your overall health becomes weakened over time. The increased stress hormones can stop you from sleeping well, leading to issues like insomnia. If you’re not sleeping then your body and brain isn’t able to repair itself. It can lead to heart issues and diseases. It can also lead us to find ways in which to cope (or numb) with the ongoing, often relentless feelings of stress. These coping mechanisms can be alcohol, food, obsessive buying, smoking, amongst other thing. I know that I’ve used probably all of these myself over the years!
Say Hi to the prefrontal Cortex
Next we are going to get acquainted with the prefrontal cortex - (PFC) this is the CEO of the brain, it’s the primary function is the emotional regulation of the responses that are sent out from the amygdala. A great explanation that I was given was if you think of the amygdala as the smoke alarm, the PFC is the fire alarm. The PFC will help to identify whether the threat that has been seen by the amygdala is something to be worried about or go back about your business.
So, why are we talking about the brain in such detail and these areas? Meditation doesn’t stop the activation of either of these areas. What it does do is it gives you the ability to put enough space between the activation from the amygdala and the back up from the PFC to help you work out whether you are under threat. Now, again, it doesn’t mean that you won’t react, you will, I do. The superpower that I am talking about is the ability to calm yourself before reacting (or rather, acting) or you will at the very least be able to decide how long you will stay in that stressed state.
It’s all in the memory
Another super power that you can activate is memory. Meditators that have been practicing for a significant amount of time (we are talking years here) can actually develop a thicker cerebral cortex (this is the brain’s outer layer, the wrinkly bits! This is where we have the ability for sophisticated thought process like introspection, and abstract thinking).
Compassion becomes a passion
The last super power that I’m going to focus on here is one that I feel the world needs a lot more of. Compassion with action. Meditation helps those that practice it become more compassionate, empathetic but most importantly, they become more likely to act on those feelings. It doesn’t dull the feelings, in fact studies in measuring the brains of experienced meditators showed that they would often feel more compassion and empathy but would move through their emotions so that they could then act. They were able to be self-compassionate too which is an incredible superpower to have as it stops the incessant internal monologue that can too often hold us back from things that we want the most or cause us to behave in ways that we regret later, then the cycle repeats.
What fires, wires
Have you heard the expression what fires, wires? This is in relation to the brain’s neural pathways. The more that you meditate the greater your ability to decide how you want to act and behave in specific situations - this is incredibly powerful when it comes to stressful situations that you have to be in regularly like public speaking, presentations. It also allows use to deal with the little t’s that I talked about right at the beginning. We can become aware of our thoughts, emotions and behaviours and make changes where needed by sifting through what’s helping and what’s harming. It’s life changing when it comes to being able to enjoy the amazing things that are in your life because you have the ability to see them. That’s a superpower that I think that we would all like more of, to know that you can perform under pressure when you need to the most. To know that you can see the full picture and to feel a bit more love for those around you and most importantly, for yourself.