Tian Dayton

Our brains love to be challenged and stimulated. Tourists and settlers alike, seeking adventure, culture and business are ever flooding this city because something about New York does just that, challenges and stimulates us…and our brains.

It’s “use it or lose it” when it comes to building brain fitness, strength and resilience. Like any muscle, our brains atrophy from lack of use but will actually grow new neuronal connections through the kind of brain exercise that New York City is constantly offering up. Who needs crossword puzzles? The brain is far more “plastic” than anyone a half a decade ago dared to imagine, brains keep changing throughout our lives. New York City, in this way is like a huge brain that is constantly combining and recombining itself, paring down old, unused parts and building up others, making new connections at every turn. This is how our brain operates, too. Learning is a process of paring down and building up new constellations of cells and interconnections. The last decade of brain research has clearly revealed that people who daily do something to exercise their brains, like play sudoko or crossword, puzzles actually keep their brains younger and fitter.

Think of New York City as a huge crossword puzzle that you are constantly solving. It is an ever evolving plethora of sounds, sights, smells and experiences that, if we’re open to them, act literally as brain fertilizer. Our cognitive or thinking part of the brain can get a real workout just from sorting through categorizing and thinking about all of the “information” that are senses (read: limbic/feeling/sensing brai) feeds it from this unique city. The sights, sounds, smells and grand variety of the city are actual fodder for brain growth, just solving daily life in New York City requires that we use our brains in new ways at every turn. Our brains benefit seeing new things, thinking new thoughts and doing new stuff as well as from processing the same old information in new ways.

And then there’s the social or interactive side of our brains. Our “social brain” gets a workout in New York just buying a cappuccino, standing in line or dealing with co-workers. We’re social creatures and parts of our brain and limbic systems are actually built for interaction. Few places offer as many opportunities (some may argue too many but our brains may not agree) as does The Big Apple. Let’s face it, New York City is one big jungle gym when it comes to providing rungs to reach for and climb all over along with friends to climb with. It’s choc full of “things to do, places to go and people to see”.
If you walk to work or when you do your errands as so many New Yorkers do, you’ll add the body in there too. Physical exercise elevates our levels of the natural mood stabilizing body chemical serotonin. That spurt of serotonin that walking causes, will calm your body and brain and enable you to think more clearly, observe more keenly and feel more balanced. A cheap and cheerful solution to mental and physical health if ever there were one.

So walk across the Brooklyn Bridge and see it as you never have, get out into Central Park and let the kaleidoscope of sweet scents, birds, people and plants fill your senses, go to a play, a museum, people watch, observe, wonder, delight in both the ordinary and the absurd. As you move through your day notice new things and think new thoughts because in this case, what’s good for the brain is also good for body and soul. Timothy Leary reflected that “we are dealing with the best-educated generation in history. But they’ve got a brain dressed up with nowhere to go.” Try New York City.

Joke:
If heaven has two doors one saying “Heaven” and one saying “Lecture on Heaven” the codependents are the ones lined up in front of the “lecture on heaven”.
Codependents tend to be unsure of their own minds, they have put other people’s needs before their own so habitually that they lose a sense of what they think, need and want. Why is that exactly? That’s what my next series of blogs will be all about, a new look at codependency through a neurological lens.

Codependency is generally seen as a set of maladaptive patterns in relating to others. The term “co-dependency” grew out of the term “co-addict.” The co-dependent person, or the co-addict, was that person who got sick through living with the distorted, unregulated, and out-of-balance thinking, feeling, and behavior that surrounds addiction. In the early 1980s, codependency became a catch-all category for people with relationship issues of all kinds. But seeing codependency as a set of behaviors means that we tend to think that changing our behaviors is the solution to becoming less codependent. While behavior changes are always a part of recovery from codependency, there may be a neurobiological piece to codependency as well that we need to pay attention to.

So here’s my theory on codependency that I’ve based on neurological findings:
Codependency, I feel, is fear based and is the predictable set of qualities and behaviors that grow out of feeling anxious and therefore hypervigilant in our intimate relationships. Here’s how it gets set up: when we get scared, our left brain, the language part of the brain, becomes overwhelmed and shuts down. Remember those awful moments when you knew the answer but just couldn’t think of it cause you were on the spot? The part of our brain that remains very active however, even when we’re very scared, is the emotional scanning system in our right brain. We retain our ability to scan our environment and read the emotions of those around us even when we’re frozen with fear. The part of our brain that scans for danger and remains hyper-vigilant, in fact, works overtime when we are scared.
How Stress in Childhood can Create Codependency in Adulthood: Children who regularly experience hi states of stress in their homes, say from living with emotional or physical abuse, addiction or mental illness, often learn that they can fend off trouble if they can stay hyper-focused on reading the other person’s emotional signals. These kids can become very adept at reading other people’s moods, often to the exclusion of their own. Because of this over time they may develop the emotional habit of being more in touch with what those around them are feeling than what they are feeling. They become habitually outer-focused, in other words, and may lose touch with what is going on inside of them. A receipt for codependency, if ever there were one.

Remember another old joke, “a codependent is someone who puts a sweater on someone else when they feel cold?” The codependent, in other words, identifies their own feelings in other people rather than themselves, in a sense it’s easier for them to feel another person’s feelings than their own due to their years of practice scanning and focusing on other people’s moods often to the exclusion of their own. The codependent person may have trouble identifying and owning their own feelings because they have had little practice or encouragement in doing so, it may not have been safe to own their own feelings, or they may have been scared and had no safe place to share their fear (especially if it was their parent who was scaring them), or they may have had parents who told them what to feel rather than helping them to identify their own feelings.
How does this manifest in the codependent’s adult relationships? Needless to say, this habit of identifying our own feelings in someone else while disowning them in ourselves complicates intimacy and parenting. The codependent may project their own uncomfortable feelings onto their partner or their children then set about trying to fix in them what really needs fixing inside themselves. This inability to feel, label and own one’s own feelings can cause all sorts of relationship confusion that we may identify as part of codependency.

Codependency is also reflective of an incomplete process of building an independent and autonomous sense of self. Next week we’ll look into the incomplete sense of self related to codependency.
For more information look at Dr. Dayton’s book Emotional Sobriety: From Relationship Trauma to Resilience and Balance tiandayton.com.

Money, like a genie in a bottle, has the ability to morph into any shape and help us make our most startling dreams come true. Money can buy stuff, status and sometimes even people.
Let’s face it, money makes you feel special. The red carpet treatment can be a real mood elevator and can become pretty addictive. Family members along with the addict can come to “love” the lifestyle perks, the big bank accounts and the status and control over others that accrues to being able to spend, pay salaries and give away large amounts of money. Their identities too can become absorbed into the genie like quality of money to morph into any desired shape, to make one feel larger than life and able to manifest experience and control people, places and things. Why wouldn’t family members enable the money earner to well, keep earning?
But just as with the magical “drink me” elixir from Alice in Wonderland, money can make us feel very, very big or very, very small, proud or extremely self conscious, empowered or strangely out of control. Whenever we come to rely on something outside of ourselves either as a form of mood management that we cannot achieve on our own or to shore up an identity that is precariously perched atop shifting sands, we’re at risk for what Carl Jung called the “shadow” (read: our dark and hidden side) taking us over. The shadow in the case of money, being the insecurities, anxieties, undermined sense of self and weakened ability to live comfortably in relationship that money can so often mask behind a veneer of supposed success.

These days, the idea of process addictions is widely accepted. Process addictions are addictions that involve a compulsive and/or an out of control relationship with certain behaviors such as gambling, sex, eating and yes, even money (pardon the Guys and Dolls pun). There is a change in brain chemistry with a process addiction that’s similar to the mood altering effects of alcohol or drugs. With process addictions engaging in a certain activity, say viewing pornography, compulsive eating or an obsessive relationship with money, can kick start the release of brain/body chemicals, like dopamine, that actually produce a “high” that’s similar to the chemical high of a drug. The person who is addicted to some form of behavior has learned, albeit unconsciously, to manipulate his own brain chemistry.

It’s general wisdom that for someone who is addicted to alcohol or drugs, their lives become increasingly organized around the use and abuse of their substance. The person who uses money to mood alter can have their relationship with money spin out of control; by being overly focused on accumulating it, spending it hoarding it or using it to control people, places and things. For example, just as with a drug or alcohol, tolerance increases and they may find themselves needing to devote increasingly larger amounts of time to these activities, to achieve the same mood altering high that only a little once provided. Because of this they become increasingly preoccupied with all things related to getting and maintaining their substance to the exclusion of other things. Gradually, just as is the case with any addict, their preoccupation with money becomes their primary preoccupation and money becomes their primary relationship. This point is key when it comes to money addiction as far as I am concerned. For the person addicted to money their relationship with money becomes their primary relationship in life which means that other relationships become secondary. Their personal drives and identity become so wrapped up around having money (the wealthy person), accumulating money (the big earner) spending money (the big spender) or even giving money away (the big donor) , that they don’t know who they would be without it. Nor do they want to know who they would be without it. Over time their core sense of identity along with their ability to manage their moods becomes overly dependent on something outside themselves, just as is the case with other forms of addiction. “Who would I be without my money?” is the night terror of any one whose identity has become dependent on money just as “who would I be without a drug in my system?” is what haunts the substance abuser.

And as with an addiction to alcohol or drugs, family members eventually become drawn into the pathology through all of the interactions and mutual dependencies that are part of any family. The earner can have an unnatural power and control over other family members as they have their hand on the spigot so to speak, they can turn on or cut off supply. They manipulate with money and eventually other family members learn to manipulate them right back. The earner as well as family members can become increasingly taken over by money and all of the “paraphernalia” that surrounds a life of wealth. Just as the pot smoker becomes dependent on his water pipe, cigarette papers and laid back surroundings, the old “hippie pad”, the money addict becomes equally bonded to the trappings of wealth, the cars, big house, clothes, trips, parties, travel, fine educations, elegant surroundings and fancy friends. Money also becomes woven into relationships. The saddest manifestation of this being when I see the earner judging all family members through the lens of money (how much do they make?) rather than through a lens of deeper relationship values and worth. For the person addicted to money, there is no accomplishment that matches the amassing of wealth. Eventually, the money addict can’t really distinguish real love from the love he is able to purchase and he loses his ability to “roll with the punches” that any lasting relationship requires. He wants the “punches” to roll with him, to control the messy, sticky parts of live and to smooth out any jutting edges. Unfortunately life can and should be messy at times to allow for growth and change to occur. When the money addict disallows this “messiness” he puts a hamper on personal growth for himself and those around him.

There are always people only too happy to be part of the retinue of a wealthy person whether they are asking for donations, being paid for their job or marrying money. What this means for the money addict, is that they become dependent on having the control within their relationships that money allows them and hide their natural human vulnerabilities behind a screen of success and superiority. They have trouble tolerating the little ins and outs of relating that involve, compromise, patience, frustration tolerance and being okay with feeling vulnerable and dependent. They have become used to the “control” and “independence” money affords them but this independence can be a false one at times. It can make the money addict afraid of their own “neediness” because it makes them feel too out of control inside, so they hide it from others (and themselves) seeing it as weak and ugly. This puts them at risk for being controlled in the same way that they want to control others. It’s an old story that the wealthy tycoon marries a woman much younger than he, someone who possibly begins in a subordinate position to him and he feels is an ingénue who he can shape and mould to his particular needs and desires. But she winds up being in charge and controlling him. Because he cannot tolerate the natural vicissitudes of a relationship, he has unnatural relationships.

It is no accident that seeing money as a process addiction has risen out of the addictions field. For those of us used to tracking addictive patterns it has become increasingly clearer that money addiction can fall into a similar pattern.

I would have gladly gone to The Shubert Theater to see Noel Coward’s “Blithe Spirit” last month just to see Angela Lansbury take her curtain call. Her absolutely infectious and charming rendition of Madame Arcati was a complete pleasure if not honor to witness, but it was her eyes that most arrested my attention. The look on her face, the aliveness and gratitude in her blue gaze, became one of the most touching moments I have spent in the theater. She was radiant in that way that people are when they are present to more of life than our ordinary consciousness sometimes allows. She was so obviously in full possession of an awareness of the magic of just standing there, I couldn’t fight the lump in my throat as I watched her capacity to take it all in, the laughter, the applause and the, I guess you could say, “unbearable lightness of being.” That feeling that is probably there at all times for all of us but we ward off for reasons that have occupied the minds of philosophers and psychoanalysts for all time. Maybe we fear losing it, maybe it’s just too beautiful to feel, or maybe we just don’t have the eyes to see it.
When Angela Lansbury received her Tony she confirmed everything I had felt that evening. All she seemed to say was that she was grateful, grateful to be standing in front of the community that she has been such a part of for most of her life, grateful to be standing in front of a group who loves and appreciates her both for her talent and her resilience and grateful, well … just to be standing at all. To add to the enchantment of the moment she, in the spirit of true generosity, gave it all away by saying that her winning the Tony was hopelessly unfair but that she loved it none the less and appreciated the indulgence of all involved. Blowing kisses and taking a slight bow she seemed to be thanking not just the theater community but life itself for treating her with such love.

This sort of magical moment, replete with laughter, depth and inspiration that New York is so capable of offering up, is what makes this place so unique. Somehow this city has a heart that beats almost on its own, an internal combustion created by the interface of elements from the world over that fuels it’s passion and drive. I remember riding in a taxi when the driver reminisced about “That time I was driving my cab at 2:00 a.m. through the Lincoln Tunnel and saw one long line of elephants all connected to each other being walked to the circus.It’s an island, they had to go through the tunnel…..or swim.” He referred to it as “one of those ‘free shows’ you only get in New York.” This is such a strange and mysterious city with so much room for so many. New York, it would seem, invented diversity and valued it with a grassroots wisdom long before anyone did so in the main media. It’s is a land of reinvention, reinvention of self, of community and of art forms.

I suppose the Angela Lansbury moment was so extraordinary because somehow she is a symbol to me of how to live the full length and breadth of one’s life. The idea that she experienced such large success even late in life with Murder She Wrote, that she was able to play a character so close to her own personality and give all of her old friends roles to boot is both moving and inspiring. It makes getting older seem as if wonderful things can still happen, as if life can continue to open up all the way along. That I learned that she had been married to the same man for over fifty years put the frosting on the cake, she just lasts. There is a grace and ease to Angela Landsbury’s expression that seems to say that if you treat life well it will treat you well, and a dignity and discipline about her that makes one want to be better themselves. Congratulations Angela Landsbury on your Tony, congratulations on a life well lived!

Dear Dr. Dayton
I think I got scammed by the whole acai berry weight loss thing. I am always trying to lose those ten extra pounds that everyone tries to lose and the ten more I gained since I was let go from my job due to cutbacks. So I signed up for a couple of free offers and suddenly I seem to be nearly a thousand dollars in debt. My husband is furious with me and I am feeling like a real idiot. Please share my story to protect other people.
-Feeling Stupid in Wisconsin

Dear FSIW
I will start by printing your story and then respond to the deeper layers of self medicating emotional stress with food. Thanks for sharing this, hopefully it will help all of those who are also feeling stupid somewhere or another, you can bet you are not alone.

FSIW writes:
“This is basically how it went. I saw all of these adds for how you could lose weight the natural way by cleaning out your system with something called “Power Flush” and then taking “Acai Berry” . They made a free offer for $5.95 for each one and they used Dr. Oz and Oprah in their adds so it looked like a legit kind of thing. Anyway here’s how I got caught and I think it’s really wrong. They sent me the free offer of each then I started getting these pills in the mail and my card was being charged like $65.00 for each. They sent three of each acai berri AND Power Flush which cost almost $400.00 in total and there wasn’t any phone number or web site or anything that I could call in the envelop. I tried to get their phone number from information but they had no listing at all. Finally in the next batch I got a number. I called it and got someone in India who said I was too late to cancel the first batches and maybe I could close the account for the next ones. I am so confused and feel so frustrated and now I have spent at least $400.00 that I can’t get back and don’t even really have to spend and maybe twice that much. I feel kind of ashamed that I didn’t figure this out. They said I didn’t read the fine print but honestly the add made it sound like this came with no strings attached, the fine print must have been at the very bottom of the longest page I have ever well never scrolled down and using Oprah and Dr. Oz made it all seem like they were involved in it and it was OK. Please share my story so people will know what they are getting into when they sign up for this stuff.”

Dear FSIW
Thank you for getting past enough of your shame to be brave enough to share this. Try not to beat yourself up, we all get taken sometimes. Let’s see if we can find the silver lining here for you and use it as a wake up call to make some positive life style changes that are really long lasting, empowering and really are FREE!

The recession has put a lot of people under a lot of stress. It’s a common thing to manage emotional and psychological stress with self medicating behaviors. I am seeing a lot of this in my work in the addictions field. People are reaching for their “go to” medicator whether it be food, alcohol, drugs, sex or even spending. Tough times sometimes require extra discipline. Because of all of the stress you’re experiencing it’s easy to reach for your “go to” way of soothing yourself and calming down. I think you’ll feel a lot better about yourself if you can take some positive actions to turn your eating around.

This week instead of self medicating with food try cutting food portions down by a large percent, making healthier food choices and taking a brisk walk for thirty minutes each day. Look for an Overeaters Anonymous OA meeting in your area so that you can share about your feelings of frustration and anxiety rather than “feeding your feelings”. I think you will feel a lot better about yourself in a week if you take these actions. This is a positive way to use the extra time you have now and these are actions that will be much more beneficial to you in the long run. Sometimes the “quick fix” isn’t quick at all and the slow but steady solution, which in this case actually is FREE is what really wins the race. Good luck and thanks again for sharing this!