With life resuming normality after the TEDx adventure, I want to return to the topic I’d been riffing on – the importance of bringing mindfulness and intentionality to pleasant experiences.
I shared with you the Buddha’s insight that reactivity to BOTH unpleasant AND pleasant experiences can cause trouble, but that in personal growth we often focus our efforts on the unpleasant. This series of posts is exploring the other.
My first instalment on this topic was about taking care with humour – in particular, the temptation to use it as a cover for hurtful words.
Here I want to share the experience I’ve come to call the Happiness Hijack.
Let’s say you’re on an emotional high – maybe you received a promotion at work, or just had a fun night out with friends – shared laughter and connection and maybe a sense of belonging.
You come home and your partner, who is not riding an emotional high, expresses unhappiness with the fact that you left a sink full of dirty dishes and your clothes strewn over the bedroom when you left earlier that day.
All of a sudden, the pleasant emotional energy that was coursing through your body-mind flips to the dark side. At another time, you might have felt a little irked at being asked to do chores - perhaps it's associated with parent-child dynamics and feels a little unpleasant - but you would have realised it was reasonable, taken it on the chin and promised to do them soon.
Now though, you snap at your partner for being a nag, roll your eyes and throw out a little sarcastic insult – it’s so good to be home!
The Buddha drew our attention to the fact that all experiences have a feeling tone - somewhere on the spectrum between pleasant and unpleasant. Research into emotions has revealed that feelings also have an energy level – somewhere on the spectrum between high energy and low energy.
For example jealousy might be high energy, unpleasant (box 1). Depression would be low energy, unpleasant (box 3). Elation would be high energy, pleasant (box 2). Contentment would be low energy, pleasant (box 4).
The insight, and the practical tip here, is to be mindful of high energy states. Positive high energy can easily be flipped to the unpleasant side of the box where reactive harm is likely.
Research on decision making shows that high energy positive states are also ripe conditions for poor decision-making, causing us to be too optimistic and more likely to turn a blind eye to risks.
I remember a co-worker of mine who had married a man a week after she met him. Love at first sight she said. Their marriage didn’t last a year.
And as I described in the first post in this series, it’s also where the neurotransmitter of craving, dopamine, is often released leaving us wanting more. If we indulge this desire over time, we have addiction where it takes a bigger and bigger dose of the experience or substance, to get the high.
A fun night out with friends is an obvious example of a high. But there are more subtle high energy pleasant states that I’ve noticed can trigger reactivity easily. Let’s call them displaced divinities – broad inspiring ideas that lead to pleasant emotional states and that we then defend as if sacred. We refuse to look at them closely, lest the bright light of curiosity robs them of their warm glow.
Here are some examples I’ve observed from my experience with spiritual groups:
1. We are all one – there is no such thing as separation from each other
2. Everything’s made of energy, including us, which means we’re all one
3. Deep states of calm in meditation are essential and a sign of spiritual progress
4. Spiritual progress is about transcending this life
I don’t agree with any of these statements on face value and have often questioned them when I hear them. Sometimes, when I ask what people actually mean by these things, I find the explanation is more credible than the broad statement would suggest. However it's often the first time the person has inspected them in detail.
For example, with statement 1 above, we do know that humans have a mirror neuron deep in our brains which causes us to mimic motor behaviour in others, including outward signs of emotion. To some extent, we are wired to feel another’s pain and joy and so we are not completely separate, as in, unaffected, by it.
I’ve also experienced that the more I grow, the less I see your pain as yours, and I see (and feel) it as just pain…..human pain. Sentient being pain. Earth dweller pain.
However neither of these things mean you and I are the same organism, as the aphorism above would suggest.
At other times I find such statements to be woolly emotional reasoning that easily leads to reactivity. These ideas are pleasant to those that hold them. They might give a sense of connection with others; of certainty about a path out of the difficult thing that is human life; or of belonging, as barriers between people are mentally dissolved, if only momentarily (until someone truly annoying comes along 😊).
These are understandably pleasant experiences. But can we shine the light of curiosity and clarity on the views that trigger these pleasant feelings so that we are grounded in our uplift? Or are they above inspection? Untouchable? Unquestionable? And therefore prone to reactivity?
Pleasant experiences are a natural and wonderful part of human life, and we need to absorb them fully because we’re wired to over-attend to the negative. But if we want to flourish as people, we need to bring our curiosity and close attention to pleasant experiences, not put them up on a pedestal as sacred and beyond inspection, nor reactively reach for more. This applies both to experiences that are active and interactive as well as those we generate ourselves through our thoughts.
I’d love to hear about your experience with this.
Do you have an example of experiencing a high energy pleasant state, that was hijacked into an unpleasant state, or that led to poor decision making, or to reactivity? Do you have any sacred cows - ideas or beliefs that are so dear to you that you can't bear to subject them to the bright light of curiosity lest it rob them of their pleasure?
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