Are you ok Carwen?

My brain whirls into gear. I start to try and cross reference a whole load of information to try and get the correct answer.

Firstly, what context is this question being asked? 

Is it a quick social meeting situation were I'm supposed to say, "yes I'm fine how are you?" 

Then comment on further meaningless statements such as the classic, "so enjoying the sunny weather" (statement followed by a smile). In this situation you are not being asked for anything greater than a positive memory of a 5 minute meeting that enhances your bond of care for the person involved. 

Then there's the mid level, "how are you?"

This is usually someone who knows you and is genuinely interested but only 20cms into your world not the full measure. You have to remember to give what I call 'topic titles' but don't unpack the topic.

Then there's the not equal "how are you?"

This is perhaps one of the easiest as the person usually always works in this pattern every time you see them you just have to identify it. They ask how are you?, I give a quick summary of a few bits of personal information and then ask "how are you?". That the rest of the meeting sorted and you spend a few hours identifying and solving problem patterns in the persons surrounding environment.

Then there's the echo.

This person works by echoing. It's almost a tit for tat "how are you?" "How are you?". How's work? How's your work. This only requires one piece of information replies, any expansion on a one sentence reply will be ignored and another question asked until the prescribed 'set' of questions have been asked and the person is fulfilled.

Then there's those who can get  nerdy, deep, and are what I call fellow pattern thinkers. 

Carwen how are u? Six hours later all subjects covered from both our lives it's 3am and everyone's in bed. You say goodbye knowing you have offloaded up loaded pondered and perceived and are fulfilled, with every topic unpacked repacked cross-referenced and logged. Sleep is deep and content.

Then theres double question bonanza.

"Carwen how are you? Did you see that program last night?"

Wrong wrong wrong, that's two questions, neither of which you are going to answer as by the time you have separated and categorised the information it is to late and the conversation had moved on so I'm left on the back foot trying to work out what is now being said.

Then there's the well intended but can't cope so get cut of with no resolution "how are you?"

Negative situation 

•  " I'm worried about X"
•  "Don't worry it will be alright this time next week?"
• "You've been here before you'll be ok?"

These are the hardest and the quickest to learn not to be vulnerable with as they don't understand that it's really hard to ask for anything. 

Positive situation

• "How are you?"
• "I'm so excited about X"
• "That's lovely"  

They change subject or look away or interrupt you mid sentence with there next observation or comment. In short no time has been given for your reply and you realise your going to have to transition with a cannon full of unexplained excited energy in the next period of time - sooooo hard. This will often result in shut down from me as I desperately try to filter and be interested in what's happening and fail. No closure....

These are just a few of the thoughts racing round my head as I'm asked  "how are you?"  

They are of course all thinking about the other person. There is of course where I'm at.

• Am I busy?
• Do I have time?
• Do I want to risk getting the answer wrong?
• Have I enough energy to get my words in the right order?
• How are my voices behaving?
• Are my voices shouting something different to what I want to say?
• Can I be bothered to talk at all as I'm not alright but know it needs to wait till I see my therapist?
• Should I put all mental stress to one side and blar blar blar????

And don't get me started on the complexity of group conversations!!!!!

"Carwen how are you?"

I stare blankly exhausted, "I'm ok". End of conversation 

Not my words, but BIG THANKU Dan Segiel!!!!!

This is the first of a series on Interpersonal Neurobiology: Relationships, Health, and the Brain. 

How does knowing about the brain’s parts make mental health and happiness more likely to occur? 

On the one hand, we know that part of our mental life is shaped by how the brain functions. Neuroscience tells us that if we damage this or that part of the brain, our thoughts or feelings, memories or actions will be directly impacted. We also know that what happens in our relationships shapes our thoughts and feelings, memories and actions. And for these reasons, in Interpersonal Neurobiology we focus on seeing the mind as both embodied and relational. Embodied means that the mind is more than simply what happens in your head—it extends to at least the whole of the body in which “you” live.

But “you” also live within your relationships with other people and with the larger environment, the planet. So on the other hand, your connections with people and the planet shape your mental processes, from thoughts and feelings to decisions actions. This is why we say the mind is relational as well as being embodied.

The essence of mental life from this viewpoint is the flow of energy and information flow. Flow is the change of something across time. Information is a pattern of energy with symbolic value—it stands for something other than itself. And energy, in physicists’ terms, is the capacity to do something. This capacity creates a potential that extends from certainty to uncertainty as possibility is turned into actuality and then melts back into potential. Even if you just think of energy as a property of the universe that enables things to unfold that comes in various forms like light, sound, and heat, you’ll have a good starting place for how to just sense what the term ‘energy’ entails.

How energy “streams” or “flows” through our lives shapes our mental experience. If you smile at me and I don’t smile back, your feelings will be different than if I resonate with your smile, feeling the feelings inside of me and then revealing that resonance with a returned smile on my face, in my gestures, and in my tone of voice. Our separate bodies become “connected” as energy flows from you in the form of a smile that then connects with me. Your eyes and your ears pick up how that energy was received and two separate “entities” become connected as one in the exchange. This is how people come to feel “close” to each other even with physical distance that separates their physical bodies. Closeness is about resonance where two “systems” become linked as one.

Knowing about the brain is important in well-being because when we understand that the brain is a part of the body, and the body and relationships shape the mind, then mental health can be more likely to be catalyzed with knowledge of the brain as one part of the whole system of mind. Knowing about the brain’s different parts enables us to optimize how those parts work collaboratively as a part of an integrated whole. In Interpersonal Neurobiology we say that integration is the basis of health. Integration is defined quite simply as “the linkage of differentiated parts.” With integration emerges coherence and harmony; when integration is impaired, chaos or rigidity ensues. 

This background will prepare your mind to optimize chance experiences of life so that you’ll be able to sense chaos and rigidity and detect how differentiated areas of the brain—or differentiated aspects of your relationships with others—may not be functioning as a linked whole. Louis Pasteur once said that “chance favors the prepared mind” – and knowledge of the brain’s parts can prepare your mind to integrate your life by linking differentiated areas of the brain to each other, thus creating neural integration.

In the related blogs that follow this introductory overview, we’ll see the various players that, when known, can be intentionally shaped in how they function. For the brain, “function” means how energy and information are streaming through those particular circuits. Attention is the process that directs energy and information flow—within our brains, and within our relationships. And so we’ll discover that how we learn to focus attention can activate specific circuits. Where attention goes, neural firing occurs. And where neural firing happens, neural structure can be strengthened. When that firing is integrative, then we can see how using our attention in integrative ways can actually reinforce coherent integrative functioning in the moment and grow integrative fibers for future functioning to be more balanced, coherent, and harmonious.

So for now, this is enough for us to share. How you’ll learn to focus your attention with intention and knowledge in integrative ways will build the skills you need to create neural integration in your brain. Get ready for some fun!

INSPIRE TO REWIRE is a mark owned by Dr. Daniel J. Siegel and Mind Your Brain, Inc. All Rights Reserved.