Dopamine Nation

Mindfulness is a term that is tossed around so often now, it has lost some
of its meaning. Evolved from the Buddhist spiritual tradition of meditation, it
has been adopted and adapted by the West as a wellness practice across
many different disciplines. It has so fully penetrated Western consciousness
that it’s now routinely taught in American elementary schools. But what
actually is mindfulness?
Mindfulness is simply the ability to observe what our brain is doing while
it’s doing it, without judgment. This is trickier than it sounds. The organ we
use to observe the brain is the brain itself. Weird, right?
When I look at the Milky Way galaxy in the night sky, I’m always struck by
how mysterious it is that we can be a part of something that looks so far away
and separate. Practicing mindfulness is something like observing the Milky
Way: It demands that we see our thoughts and emotions as separate from us
and yet, simultaneously, a part of us.
Also, the brain can do some pretty weird things, some of which are
embarrassing, hence the need for being without judgment. Reserving
judgment is important to the practice of mindfulness because as soon as we
start condemning what our brain is doing—Ewww! Why would I be thinking
about that? I’m a loser. I’m a freak—we stop being able to observe. Staying
in the observer position is essential to getting to know our brains and
ourselves in a new way.
I remember standing in the kitchen in 2001 holding my newborn baby in my
arms and experiencing an intrusive image of smashing her head against the
refrigerator or the kitchen counter and watching it implode like a soft melon.
The image was fleeting but vivid, and had I not been a regular practitioner of
mindfulness, I would have done my best to ignore it.
Initially, I was horrified. As a psychiatrist I had treated mothers who, as a
result of their mental illness, thought they had to kill their children to save the
world. One of them actually did, an outcome I recall with sadness and regret
to this day. So when I experienced an image of hurting my own child, I
wondered if I was joining their ranks.
But remembering to observe without judgment, I followed the image and
the feeling where they led and discovered that I didn’t want to smash my

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baby’s head; rather I had a great fear of doing so. The fear had manifested as
the image.
Instead of condemning myself, I was able to have compassion for myself. I
was grappling with the enormity of my responsibilities as a new mother, and
what it meant to care for such a helpless creature, wholly dependent on me to
protect her.
Mindfulness practices are especially important in the early days of
abstinence. Many of us use high-dopamine substances and behaviors to
distract ourselves from our own thoughts. When we first stop using dopamine
to escape, those painful thoughts, emotions, and sensations come crashing
down on us.
The trick is to stop running away from painful emotions, and instead allow
ourselves to tolerate them. When we’re able to do this, our experience takes
on a new and unexpectedly rich texture. The pain is still there, but somehow
transformed, seeming to encompass a vast landscape of communal suffering,
rather than being wholly our own.
When I gave up my reading habit, I was gripped in the first several weeks
by an existential terror. I lay on the couch in the evening, a time when I would
normally reach for a book or some other method of distraction, with my
hands folded over my stomach, trying to relax but instead feeling full of
dread. I was astounded that such a seemingly small change in my daily
routine could fill me with so much anxiety.
Then as the days passed and I continued the practice, I experienced a
gradual relaxing of my mental boundaries and an opening up of my
awareness. I began to see that I didn’t need to continually distract myself
from the present moment. That I could live in it and tolerate it, and maybe
even something more.
I