Lucas Joan Bill

Mindfully Rewiring The
Brain For Love

A Webinar Session with
Ruth Buczynski, PhD
and Marsha Lucas, PhD
The National Institute

for the Clinical Application
of Behavioral Medicine
nicabm
www.nicabm.com
The New Brain Science Mindfully Rewiring The Brain For Love
Mindfully Rewiring The Brain For Love

Contents
A Brain-Informed Way To Regulate Body Responses
Social Rejection and How The Mind and Body Deal with Its Pain
Regulating The Response To Fear
Fear and Anger: An Intimate Relationship
Seven Circuit Breakers for Fear
10
The Polyvagal Theory, The Smart Vagus, and Relationships
12
Rewiring The Brain Helps Body Regulation and Improves Sex
14
Emotional Resilience in Relationships
15
Mindfulness Practice and The Brain
17
Obstacles To Rewiring The Brain
20
TalkBack Segment with Joan Borysenko, PhD and Bill OHanlon, LMFT
21
About The Speakers
25
The National Institute for the Clinical Application of Behavioral Medicine

www.nicabm.com
Mindfully Rewiring The Brain For Love

with Ruth Buczynski, PhD
Marsha Lucas, PhD
Dr. Buczynski: Hello everyone and welcome back to this series on The New Brain Science. I am Dr. Ruth
Buczynski, a licensed Psychologist and President of the National Institute for the Clinical Application of
Behavioral Medicine. I am so glad that you are here today.
People are calling in from all over the world; were practitioners from all kinds of specialties. No matter
where you are calling from or what your practitioner specialty is, we are awfully glad that you are here.
This is going to be a very, very special call. My guest tonight is Dr. Marsha Lucas. She
is the author of Rewire Your Brain for Love. This book is just out, and I am so excited
about it! Its subtitle is Creating Vibrant Relationships Using the Science of Mindfulness.
We are going to talk very specifically about the role of the brain in romantic experience. We will
also be talking abut things that get in the way of rewiring the brain, what is going on in the brain, and
recommendations you can share with your patients.
Marsha is a licensed psychologist practicing in Washington D.C. Marsha, thanks for being here. I am so
glad that you are a part of this series.
Dr. Lucas: My pleasure, Ruth. Thank you for inviting me.
Dr. Buczynski: You have been studying the brain and behavioral relationship for many years now. What
are the characteristics that developmental psychologists link to people who have healthy, attuned childhood
relationships that later increase their chances of having healthy adult relationships?
A Brain-Informed Way To Regulate Body Responses

Dr. Lucas: Having a healthy, successful, attuned relationship when you are very young, actually during
the first few years of life, really does predict how well your adult relationships will go. You can have an
earned, secure relationship or attachment style in adulthood, but if you have it early, you tend to show
certain characteristics that developmental psychologists are able to identify.
Those characteristics include your bodys ability to regulate itself in response to what is going on in your
environment. For example, if you get stressed-out, you calm down
fairly readily and return to baseline.
First, there is the regulation of fear. We all experience fear. It is a
nice, healthy response to have in the world, to be able to know that
a bus is coming and you need to get out of the way. But we do not
want to get hijacked by fear.
We all experience
fear, but we do
not want to get
hijacked by fear.
Dan Goleman talks about the amygdala being hijacked and getting
stuck in fear and having that fear color all of your subsequent
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interactions. So being able to regulate fear and not get hooked by it as much or for as long is the first
characteristic.
Emotional resilience is really knowing what is going on for you emotionally by noticing it and by knowing
what is going on in your body and recovering more quickly if you get angry or feel hurt. Emotional
resilience lets you do that and not have it take you away and out of yourself, or worse, put you into what
we could call an autopilot state where you are just reacting rather than being self-aware.
In fact, self-awareness is another aspect of insight into Why
am I reacting like this if my partner makes a snarky comment?
or What is it about being in the doctors office that makes
me so tense? When you have that awareness, perhaps you
can separate your history from what is going on in the actual
moment and deal with whatever it is that you need to feel better
about right then and there.
... worse is an
autopilot state where
you just react rather
than being self-aware.
Response flexibility is another element. This means not always responding to bad news or an argument
with a partner in the same way. Again, you are not in that autopilot sort of knee-jerk response mode when
something comes up in your life.
One of the most important elements is a greater capacity. This is good for psychotherapists; this is good
for physicians; this is good for anyone in health care. We go into these fields because we have a capacity
for empathy for others, and often we get lost in that empathy because it is not balanced.
A healthier, sustainable type of empathy is self-empathy: both an awareness of what your own emotional
experience is and an understanding of where that might be coming
from for you as well as a simultaneous empathetic response for the
A healthier type
person that you are with so you dont get lost in the other persons
of empathy is
emotional storm by empathizing with their sadness and then getting
self-empathy.
burned out. You are also able to be tuned-in to yourself, but not
narcissistically or ignoring the other person.
Then finally, along with that empathy, there tends to flow a sort of
perspective shift from just thinking about yourself or only your own closest family, to being able to think
in a broader community-based, larger family or even a global perspective. I would say, you are not in a less
advanced evolutionarily state, only taking care of your immediate situation, and perhaps doing that from
what the Dalai Lama might call foolish selfishness, but expanding into a wise selfishness, being able
to tend to yourself in a way that also serves the greater good. So there is that perspective shift.
So those are the elements.
Dr. Buczynski: I would like to work with as many of those as we can and to focus on what is going on in
the brain as each of those elements happens.
Dr. Lucas: Sure!
Dr. Buczynski: So lets start with the first one, the management of your bodys reactions.

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Dr. Lucas: Its a good one to start with since thats really at the basic level and many people find it helpful
to start there. As your body goes, so goes your mind, as we both
know.
Dr. Buczynski: Exactly. Why dont you tell us what is happening in
the brain because we havent laid a foundation yet...
Dr. Lucas: Sure.
Dr. Buczynski: Some of this will be repetitive for some people and
other people will find this a useful reminder.
The amygdala
... gets the rest
of the nervous
system involved
in the fight-orflight response.
Dr. Lucas: Part of the way that our brain and our body interact
between emotions and our bodys physical reaction is a two-way street. If you are on a roller coaster and
you are scared, your hands are going to clench and your gut is going to tighten up. The information is
going to flow from the bottom-up, up through the spinal cord and into the first rudimentary areas of the
brain. The first sort of emotional area that it is going to hit is your limbic system and in particular to the
amygdala.
Fear can often

happen so fast
that you dont
even know that
it is coming.
I dont want to go into too much detail, but the amygdala then sounds the
alarm if necessary and gets the rest of the nervous system involved in the
fear, the fight or flight response. It activates the sympathetic nervous
system; it gets the various neurohormones and neuropeptides going that
help get the body ready to fight or flee.
That leads to that very complicated integrated experience of being afraid,

feeling the fear, noticing the fear, and then perhaps your body gets even
tighter as a result, as you brace. It can often happen in a way that is so
quick and so fast that you dont even know that it is coming.
One of the objectives of practicing mindfulness is to be able to give that whole alarm system sounding
through your body a moment, a millisecond, to go a little further up into that lovely, wrinkly prefrontal
cortex in the part of your brain that we attribute to the higher self.
Were supposedly the best mammals on earth and as humans, were able to engage in that higher level
of awareness and thought. Then we realize, Oh, wait a minutethats my grandson thats just rounded
the corner going Bang! Bang! as opposed to being in a dark alley and having someone come out of a
dark shadow with an actual gun.
If you are aware of your situation and what you are responding to,
you can regulate your bodys response to it better. For example,
that experience of taking that breath after realizing that it is a
garden hose lying across your sidewalk as opposed to a snake, and
then you feel your body rest and restore a bit more.
Dr. Buczynski: I think it might be helpful if we talk about a case
to illustrate some of that information and also point out some of
the treatment issues.
... mindfulness
gives the alarm
system ... a moment,
to engage in a higher
level of awareness
and thought.

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You talk about a patient in your book. Her name was Michelle. Would it be all right if we talked a little
bit about her?
Dr. Lucas: Sure. Michelle was actually a blast to work with, partly because she was so high-energy. She
came in and was ready to go and ready to make things happen. But that was actually a part of her problem
- she was always on. Her alarm system was always going.
For example, she would be on her way to a date after work, and she had not had particularly good
experiences in relationships. She would find herself with a lot of self-talk that escalated her anxiety like,
Im sure the guys going to dump me or Dates never go wellthis ones going to be no different.
Then, she was also rushing, taking the subway; the metro here in DC can be a little stressful! Shes rushing
and her body has to hold on as the train is jerking and she is having all of these thoughts. She walks in
and she sees her date at the back of the restaurant, and because of her mindset at this point, she is braced
for fight - or - flight. Her whole body and mind are in this place, and she thinks she sees, she doesnt even
know for sure, that he is irritated because shes late.
She sits down and you can guess how the date goes. We can call it a self-fulfilling prophecy; it was a
prophecy of her mind as well as her body. The date does not go well.
We helped
They end up really very disconnected and having a very difficult time
her learn very
because she was not able to regulate - calm things down and tune into
what is actually happening at the table between her and her date.
basic breath
awareness...
Dr. Buczynski: What kind of approaches did you use with her?
Dr. Lucas: One thing was to help her understand more about where
these kinds of habitual responses came from in her. We certainly talked about her adult history in
relationships. We also talked some about her early experiences with her parents growing up, about the
messages she had gotten about whether or not it was safe to be in close intimate relationships or why she
felt she could never get it right.
That helped her to understand that she wasnt the way she felt. Well, this is just how I am. I am sure we
have all encountered people who see themselves that way and who are understandably a little skeptical
about their ability to change.
It was important to help her understand how she got to be the way that she was - helping her understand
what her body and her brain were doing in response to how she was thinking about things and how she
was going about her life.
Then, I initially helped her learn a very basic breath awareness mindful meditation, and we can talk more
about that. She was practicing on a daily basis something that was going to develop different and better (if
we can use a judgmental term) neural pathways for regulatinge her body.
For so many years, she had been going down that same super-highway as it were, the neural pathway
in her brain, that led her to have these anxious thoughts and to have these responses. Practicing even just
for a relatively short amount of time every day helped build those more regulated pathways so that they
werent just weedy dirt roads anymore. They were faster, better pathways for her brain and an alternate to
the other routeif you want to think about it as a highway.
Dr. Buczynski: Rather than involving the amygdala
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Dr. Lucas: Rather than reacting only from the amygdala, she could kick it up a notch, and have other
parts of her brain bring in responses that would help calm her amygdala. The idea was to have part of the
prefrontal cortex that she had practiced with, be able to deliver a neuropeptide to the amygdala to soothe it.
Dan Siegel, who I know your listeners will know, talked about a patient
of his, I think it was a young girl, who talked about giving her amygdala
some GABA goo, the neuropeptide GABA. That is like giving your
amygdala a soothing hug. A hug soothes a baby whos out of control;
GABA calms down the amygdala. It acts as a way of countering the
amygdalas alarm system and then the whole stressful response can be
calmed down.
...giving the
amygdala some
GABA goo is
like giving it a
soothing hug.
When Michelle practiced being able to engage in a mindful way with

herself on a regular basis, say twenty minutes in the morning, she was
practicing those pathways. She was noticing what would happen if she got anxious during her meditation
or give herself critical self-comments. She would practice not reacting to them from that same alarmbased place. Although I measured her brain clinically and not directly, she showed really lovely, lovely
improvements that I dont think she would have gotten to with insight alone.
Social Rejection and How the Mind and Body Deal With Its Pain
Dr. Buczynski: I think I read in your book that the brain recognized the broken heart on the same neural
pathway that it recognized a broken bone.
... there are

studies that look
at what is going
on in the brain
when certain
emotions are
activated.
Dr. Lucas: Pretty close! There is a fairly recent study, actually. Let me
see if I can pull that up. Probably the most recent one is 2011. Ethan
Kross at the University of Michigan looked at people who were thinking
about a bad breakup - a fairly recent breakup so they werent over it and
a breakup in which they really experienced a lot of emotional pain.
He was looking at what was going on in the brain. The portion of the
insula that was activated during those thoughts of painful social rejection
was similar to those areas that came up when they gave the same subjects
a painful stimulation to the handlike spilling hot coffee. The same
areas of the brain seemed to be involved.
I would be interested in seeing more research on this. There have been a few studies that talk about certain
areas of the brain being activated. Richie Davidson out in Wisconsin certainly looks at what is going on in
the brain when certain emotions are activated.
This was the most specific study and the most recent one that I
found really fascinating. It really involves, not just when you are
feeling crummy, but really that pain of social rejection. The idea
is that we are socially interdependent creatures, and evolutionarily
speaking, weve developed a cooperative way of living. If you
...having a social
group (affiliation)
is an important
survival technique.

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wandered outside of your clan, youd be somebodys dinner out there on the veldt. So being able to have
affiliation is an important survival technique.
If you are cast out, if you are socially rejected, its dangerous, and our body responds as if there is the
danger of breaking your leg or getting burned. We can think about it that way and understand then that it
serves a specific purpose and the brain has devoted some real estate to that.
Regulating Your Response To Fear

Dr. Buczynski: I would like to get back to Michelle, but before we do, I think it would be good if we did
a little trip down the lane of fear because I think the brain isas you have been sayingso focused and
wired on anything that is harmful or fearful.
Dr. Lucas: Sure!
When you are in

the grip of fear, it
is more difficult
to engage your
higher-level
thinking.
Dr. Buczynski: In your book, you talked about some things that are
important to know about fear in the brain. One of the things you said
is that fear is in the future.
Dr. Lucas: Right. I remember years ago in my clinical training, we
talked about the idea that people who are neuroticwhich is a type of
fearful response to the world in generalare always living in either
anticipation of a bad outcome in the future or with what happened
when there was a bad outcome in the past. They are never in the
present moment.
We think about fear as, In this moment, you and I are speaking, and Im okay. In anticipating talking
with you, I may have been anticipating that it might not go well and so I would have a fear response. I like
to say sometimes before I give a very large public talk or my fear may be a little higher that, The brain
is a magnificent organ. It begins working and wiring itself in utero and does not stop working until we are
asked to stand and speak in public.
Now, of course, the brain doesnt stop working, but when you are in
the grip of fear, it is more difficult to be able to engage your higherlevel thinking. You are not going to be thinking in that moment about,
What was it that I read about the existentialists and the brevity of life?
Where did that come from? No! You are going to be in full fear; you
are going to have sweaty palms, racing heart, and rapid breathing. You
are going to be in survival mode, and that is not the best mode to be in
when you are trying to relate to someone else. It takes you out of being
able to feel safe enough to have a connection.
Survival mode
is not the best
mode ... when
you are trying
to relate to
someone else.
Fear And Anger: An Intimate Relationship

Dr. Buczynski: Another thing you talked about is that fear and anger are intimately related.

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Fear and
anger are
very closely
related...
Dr. Lucas: If you had a pet, perhaps a cat, and that cat is afraid or injured and
goes into a corner, no matter how well intentioned you are, if you reach in
toward that cat and its afraid, its going to lash out in anger.
Fear and anger are very closely related. It is a defensive mechanismagain

the fight - or - flight response was made so we would be able to survive. It is
better, though, if we are also able to engage other parts of our nervous system so that we are not only ruled
by that defensive mechanism.
If we notice that we are afraid or if you notice that your partner or your patient are angry, remembering that
anger is a defensive reaction to fear can help you and your partner or patient get down to what they really
need, rather than yelling at you. If you can maintain that sense of awareness - anger is really coming from
fear - then a whole world of possibilities opens up in terms of how you can respond.
I remember that I did some neuro-psych testing on an older gentleman. He had had a stroke. He had a
significant cut in his visual field and it was not safe for him to drive. This was a man whose identity was
related to driving. He drove his truck, he went to see his buddies, and he did his stuff. When I said to him,
You cant do that anymore, he was afraid. But the way the fear came out was anger, and it was directed
towards me and his wife. He called the neurologist and threatened him. It was really quite a large anger
response.
But when we were able to all say, Okay, hes really scared. What can
we do with that fear? we were able to engage him in a way that was
much more productive than just trying to restrain him or grab his keys
or do whatever action that would have provoked even greater anger
and resistance.
The fear
doesnt go away
just because you
are masking it.
Dr. Buczynski: And greater fear.

Dr. Lucas: And greater fearwhich is where that was coming from. Exactly.
Dr. Buczynski: Another thing you said is that hiding our fear gets in the way.
Dr. Lucas: Absolutely, and it doesnt stop. The fear doesnt go away just because you are masking it. It
sort of reminds me of the old vaudevillian trope of the chest of drawers - there is a chest of drawers and
the top drawer is open. You slam it shut and one below it comes out and hits you in the knees. Then you
reach down to close that one and the top one hits you in the head.
I think that is one of the best visual metaphors I can come up with for what happens when you are hiding
your fear, when you are masking it, or when you are hiding your anger, which is a big part of fear.
Now, that is not to say that what we should do is vent. I appreciate psychology still being a relatively
young science, and some people may remember primal scream therapy and getting your feelings out. That
certainly feels good and it is a discharge where your nervous system goes, Ooh! That feels good! I need
to do that again!
But actually, that is precisely the problem. The idea is that whatever wires together - whatever neural
pathways are practiced the mostwhatever fires together wires together. If you practice venting as a
response to anger every time you are angry or for that matter, hiding fear as a response, which is how
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... venting, as a
response to anger,
is unproductive and
potentially hurtful ...
10
phobias at their core, come into play, you are really practicing
responding to anger in an unproductive and potentially hurtful
way.
So, not hiding your fear or anger, being able to deal with it
productively and in a way that keeps you from getting hijacked
again by that amygdala is a very useful tool.
Seven Circuit Breakers for Fear

Dr. Buczynski: You actually talked about seven circuit breakers for fear. Because I think fear really
influences how we behave, it might be good for us to go through them.
Dr. Lucas: Sure! I actually talk about the circuit breakers in a couple of ways with patients. One way is to
explain what is going on in the brain and then, growing out of that, what they can do to help make those
circuit breakers an integrated part of their wiring. I use a lot of electrical metaphorsI am not really sure
why because I have never done wiring myself, but it really seems to work well for a lot of people to think
about it in that way.
So, one circuit breaker, as I mentioned before, is being able to deliver some of what Dan Siegels patients
called GABA goo to the amygdala. It is an inhibitory neuropeptide and when it is delivered, rather than
exciting the amygdala, it calms it. It helps it to stop its firing and sounding of the alarm to the rest of the
nervous system for fight-or-flight.
That comes primarily from an area in the prefrontal cortexthe orbitomedial prefrontal cortex. I dont
want to overwhelm listeners with too many technical terms, but the idea is that you are engaging that
higher part of your brain that we talked about before in delivering the calming or neuropeptide to the
amygdala which is lower down in the brain. So, integrating from top to bottom helps with that specific
process.
That is one circuit breaker, and the mechanism that happens in the brain. Do you want me to talk about
ways to get that to happen?
Dr. Buczynski: Yes, lets.
Dr. Lucas: Let me go through the circuit breakers and then talk about
them in terms of a practice that can help you really evoke all of them.
Some people may be familiar with oxytocin, which is the second circuit
breaker. Oxytocin is often referred to as the cuddle hormone, the
bonding hormone. It is what mothers typically produce in much
greater amounts when they are holding their infants or nursing their
infants.
Oxytocin is
often referred to
as the cuddle
hormone.
The production of oxytocin helps with not only the sense of bonding, but also the sense of safety. If
infants dont feel safe in Moms arms, they are going to have a hard time nursing. If I dont feel safe in my
partners arms, bonding is going to get in the way. So the oxytocin helps with that sense of well-being, of
safety. You want to be able to know how to promote that in your own body.
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...a twenty
second hug,
ventrally along
the belly, seems
to stimulate the
production of
oxytocin.
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Stan Tatkin, who I think is at UCLA, talks about how twenty second
hugs, ventrally along the belly, seem to stimulate the production of
oxytocin. Its not just a quick hug. He talks about it taking at least twenty
seconds, a full-contact hug.
Now, if you are terrified of the person who is hugging you, obviously
that is not going to happen. But if you can relax, you get that sense when
you hold someone - that Ahhh which is a whole relaxation response.
That is in part due to help from the oxytocin working throughout your
body and in your brain. So that is a circuit breaker for fear.
We havent talked yet about the different branches of the nervous system. Listeners may remember
when they studied this that there is the sympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system and the
parasympathetic branch. The easiest way to think about itand it is a very popular metaphoris that
the sympathetic is putting on the gas, the go of high-energy, and is involved in the fight-or-flight. The
parasympathetic is more rest and repose.
As a circuit breaker, it would be good to be able to shift from a sympathetic response, let up on the
accelerator and gently push down on the brake, and to be able to do that when you know that you are
headed into fear or when you are already in it. It is incredibly useful in a relationship so that you are not
getting stuck.
We havent really talked about the relationship between emotional regulation and well-being and the
different sides of the brain, the different hemispheres of the brain. But in short, Richie Davidson, who I
mentioned before, is an amazing researcher of emotion in the brain. He has seen what he calls a left shift
in the brain - a shift from being heavily dependent on your right hemisphere, in terms of that lower part of
it. That is the limbic amygdala part that tends to be more raw, primitive, unprocessed emotions like anger,
fear, and rage. So, being able to shift your set point, as it were, more toward the left and have it be more
balanced has a lot to do with better emotional regulation and more positive
thoughts.
If you can practice something that helps you shift from the right to the left,
it is very helpful.
Shifting the
brain from
right to left is
helpful.
Another circuit breaker is making the most of the part of the brain called
your anterior cingulate cortex. Without going into that too much, you can
think about that as another way of being able to regulate your amygdala. The ACC is involved in that.
It works in part of the pathway to be able to engage your frontal lobe and your thinking with that fear
response so that you are not just reacting blindly.
Another circuit breaker is being able to integrate the various parts of your brain. Overall, we have been
talking about integration of the brain. We have talked about top to bottom, bottom to top, and we have
talked a little bit about left to right. Being able to integrate the various parts of your brain not only allows
you to call on all of your resources and to bring your best self foward when you are in a relationship,
but it also has a number of other benefits. For example, you have more information available to you when
you are thinking through a problem.

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Also, if more of your brain and body are integrated, and I am sure we
will be talking about this shortly, sex gets better. Not only relationships,
but sex itself gets better because you are not only focusing on one
specific part of your body or one aspect of the experience, but because
your brain is integrated, you are calling on all that is available there.
This is something like what Masters and Johnson were trying to do
with sensate focus, to make you aware that there is more than just
genital stimulation to being sexually responsive.
So all of that good stuff, not that sex is a circuit breaker, but it is a
part of the same system.
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Integrating the
various parts
of your brain
allows you to
bring your best
self forward in
a relationship.
We are talking about a lot of different aspects of the brain and being able to do something simple, even
if you cant get a hug from someone else. Linda Graham, who is a wonderful meditation teacher and
psychotherapist in California, has people put their hand over their hearts. This is not where we pledge
allegiance, in the polite part, but really down lower, where you actually feel your heart beating. She tells
us to hold one or both hands there while breathing.
The breathing, deeper breathing, helps you shift from that sympathetic rapid-breathing mode and tells
your body and your brain, Okay, were breathing more slowly. Maybe the danger is over and we can calm
down. As you are touching and pressing on the heart, you are also
potentially stimulating greater increase of that oxytocin that we talked
... pausing and
about.
focusing on the
breath, gives
you those extra
milliseconds to
engage more of
the brain.
As you pause and focus on the breath, you are practicing giving yourself
those extra milliseconds to engage more of the brain. You are noticing
what is going on in your body and kicking it up into conscious awareness
so that you can make a choice about whether you are wearing your
shoulders as earrings! Bring your shoulders down, and that ends up
leaving you feeling like you are in a space where there is greater safety
and you dont have to be in so much of an alarm.
You have the circuit breakers activated as much as possible through some of those basic ways of selfsoothing, but it is really activating ways of breaking out of the fear response.
There is an awful lot there and I hope I didnt go through it too quickly.
Dr. Buczynski: Thank youthats very helpful. I would like to get into Stephen Porgess ideas just a little
bit.
Dr. Lucas: Yes, thats a perfect segue actually.
The Polyvagal Theory, The Smart Vagus, and Relationships

Dr. Buczynski: You wrote about the polyvagal theory. We actually had Stephen on a series that we did last
year on trauma. How is his theory, particularly his concept of the smart vagus, relevant here?

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Dr. Lucas: We have already been talking about the way that most
of us learned about the nervous system: the sympathetic and the
parasympathetic branches of the autonomic nervous system and
how we respond to what is coming at us from the outside world.
Actually, I had to ask Stephen to help me understand because he was
talking about it in terms of three circuits and not three branches. I
asked him if there was a difference between branches and circuits?
And he said, Its an important distinction because a circuit gives a
clearer sense that it is a feedback loop.
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The vagus nerve

has to do with
perceiving whether
being with someone
is safe or not.
He has taken the evolutionary aspects that we were talking about earlier, of how affiliation and social
connection are an important part of our evolution and he said that what has happened evolutionarily
speaking, is that there is actually a third circuit that he sees as important to survival. That is what is called
the smart vagus. The vagus nerve has different parts and different branches, but the part to focus on here
has to do with a lot of different physical responses to perceiving whether being in interaction with someone
is safe or not.
...the smart vagus

sends the message
to your brain, that it
is not safe here.
For example, you go into a therapists or a physicians office

and notice that the physicians face is tight, his jaw is tight, his
breathing, his chest, the micro expression on his face, and maybe
his pupils are a little bit dilated. You perceive all of this and your
own nervous system is going to respond in kind. That is due in
part to your smart vagus.
What happens is the smart vagus sends the message to your brain, that is the circuitry, that it is not safe
here. Then, you can get tight and in a defensive posture, fight-or-flight. The vagus is related to the word
wanderer because the vagus nerve wanders through so much of our body and our mind and controls so
many different aspects of our responses.
On the other hand, if you walk into that therapists or doctors office
and when you see the doctors face, his eyes are relaxed, his breathing
is well-regulated, and his shoulders arent up around his ears, the vagus
sends a message to your brain and you end up with a mutual response. If
you perceive safety in the other person, your vagus then down-regulates
everything and your facial features soften and your pupils open up. It
even controls your hearing. It relaxes the muscles in your ear that have
to do with the ossicles, and that means you are able to take things in and
listen better. Your breathing is more regulated. Your heart rate slows down.
The vagus
nerve controls
many aspects of
our responses.
Being able to engage that smart vagus, to know when it is safe, to be able to feel safe within yourself and to
convey that to the other person, allows for a safe engagement and mutuality that is really lovely, whether it
is doctor/patient, therapist/client, partner to partner, or parent with childanother important one. It is the
idea of being able to hold onto yourself and get that reflected back to you with your partner.
Dr. Buczynski: You mentioned before that we probably would talk about sex and I think we should. It is
such an important part - the brain in love.
Dr. Lucas: Sure!
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Rewiring The Brain Helps Body Regulation and Improves Sex

Dr. Buczynski: You targeted the insula as the part of the brain whose rewiring would help with body
regulation, particularly helping to improve sex. Why do you think that and how would we do that?
Dr. Lucas: The research that gets my attention is wide and very wonderful. I forget the exact term that Dan
Siegel uses. It is a little loose, neurologically speaking but he sees the insula not as a toll booth, because
that is too restrictive, but something like an important part of the super-highway between information
coming in from the body and going on up into awareness.
If that insula is capable of being easily activated and is fluid in a place that your brain is used to engaging
and that pathway works well, then you are taking in so much more information from your body and you
are aware of it. Then your thoughts also feed back in a lovely way when you are engaged with your
partner in terms of being sexual with them.
The insula is the

super-highway
for information
from the body to
awareness.
So that is, first and foremost, knowing that the insula helps in the
integration of information from the body and what we would call
the mind.
There are studies like the one out of Dartmouth by Stephanie Ortigue
that was published in NeuroImage in 2007. This is when she was at
Dartmouth, and I think she has moved now, but what she and her
colleagues found was a correlation between activation of the insula
and self-report in terms of the quality of orgasm in women.
We were just talking about that integrative piece between body, thought, and awareness, so when the
insula is more active the orgasms were better. You would think that because as you are more in the moment
in your body and not as engaged in worrying about whether your thighs are too fat or whether your partner
is going to leave you in the future, which is an example of fears about future anticipation, you are more
present, have more of the experience, and youre getting everything firing and able to engage in sexual
activity in an important way.
So that is a big part of why I focus on the insula. As you pay more attention to what is going on in your
own body and your insula is more easily engaged and activated, you are also better at perceiving what is
going on with your partner, we were talking about the smart vagus. Then there is more of that back-andforth of the sexual energy and the intimacy that you would hope for in
a healthy sexual relationship.
Dr. Buczynski: Certainly there would be more intimacy if you are able
to process what is going on in yourself and with the partner.
Dr. Lucas: Exactly...if you are not doing that retraction that comes
with fear or anxiety.
Dr. Buczynski: Or with the anticipation of the future and then the
projection.
As the insula
is integrating
information, it is
helping control
the anxiety and
the fear.
Dr. Lucas: Exactly. As the insula is integrating this information, it is also helping if you are caught-up in
the anxiety and the fear. What happens with a lot of our fear responses is that any unnecessary blood flow
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gets directed to where you need it and that does not include your erection or vaginal engorgement. So your
sexual response is going to be much less in terms of all the different things that we typically think should
be present during intercourse.
That is another way that being able to regulate that information flow between your body and your thoughts
makes for better sex.
Emotional Resilience in Relationships

Dr. Buczynski: That was really fascinating. Lets move on to emotional resilience in relationships. We
were talking a little bit about studies. You mentioned one in your book that dealt with the brains responses
when looking at our partners facial expressions. It showed that the more activity in your prefrontal cortex,
the more resilient your emotional state will be after conflict: the more activity, the more resilience.
...emotional
resilience ... is
having feelings...
and thoughts ...
work together.
Dr. Lucas: Right. Lets say you are in a conflict with your partner and
that the lower limbic part of your brain wants to protect you so it is
sounding the alarms. If you are able to engage your prefrontal cortex in
that integrated way, which has to do with what we think of as higherlevel human thinking, then with that integration having the feedback
between what is going on in terms of your emotional experience while
being mindful, you are able to regulate emotionally and have greater
recovery if you have that fight with your partner.
What is interesting is that for people who are able to engage that when theyre looking at their partners
faces, theyre able to have that circuitry more online and their resilience is going to be better because they
are not just getting hooked into one part or the other.
We have been predominantly talking...about people getting caught up in being overly emotionally reactive.
But it can happen the other way as well. I am sure a lot of clinicians out there have dealt with one partner in
a couple being highly emotionally charged, easy to tears, easy to anger - all those sorts of things. And their
complaint is that their partner just takes an intellectual approach to everything: problem solving, logical,
linear - all those lovely L words that are associated with the left side of the brain.
You can be too heavy in one direction or the other. What we are really looking for is that integration
between those lower, raw, primitive right parts (that drive a lot of the stronger emotions that can overtake
us) and that highly intellectual part. You can think of people who are like Spock in Star Trek, very leftbrained and cortical in their approach. We want to be able to integrate
the two, to take Spock and Kirk - I cant believe Im talking about Star
... imagine
Trek! - but to take those two and integrate them. Then, youd really
that the two
have something!
hemispheres
That is what we are aiming for with emotional resilience. You have the
feeling and you have the thoughts about it and you have them work
together.
of the brain
speak different
languages.
The best way to think about it is to imagine that the two hemispheres
of the brain speak different languages. Literally, one of them uses language, and for most of us our left
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16
hemisphere is very language-dominant. The right part of your brain and lower part really speaks very
differently.
Imagine that you have someone from Greece trying to negotiate with someone from China. As far as I
know, those languages have almost nothing in common. What you need is some diplomat in between who
can speak to both so that they can communicate and work well together. The area that seems to help in that
shuttle diplomacy, if you will, has to do with the prefrontal cortex. The more you are able to engage the
prefrontal cortex, the insula, and all those other parts, the better those two countries are going to be able
to work together towards the greater good.
Dr. Buczynski: A little bit of Richard Davidsons research seems to apply here.
Dr. Lucas: Yes, absolutely. We were talking before about that left shift. There are other studies about how
people who are able to put their feelings, their physical experiences,
and physical feelings as well as their emotions into word. They are
...practice putting
having all that experience coming in.
the emotion into

words, which
therapists have
been trying to get
people to do for a
long time.
We have talked about it predominantly on the right side where it

gets a most vivid response, and then practicing the shifting of it over
and putting it into words, which therapists have been trying to get
people to do for a long time. This is, you know, Tell me what youre
feeling.
If you are doing that, then you are having the feeling and you
are engaging the other part of your brain; you are building that
communication pathway. That is not Davidsons study in particular, but that is another way of looking at
being able to have that integrated focus between the two sides.
Dr. Buczynski: How does verbalizing or labeling emotions affect the brain?
Dr. Lucas: As I just mentioned, if you are having an emotion, there are a number of different ways that it
happens in your brain and your body. One of the ways that it happens is that it is below what we consider
awareness. It just kind of happens. If you can kick it up into awareness and specifically kick it up into
awareness with language, then you are creating that same pathway from the lower-right to the upper-left.
You are bringing it and integrating the different parts of yourself, the different aspects of your thinking.
You are also slowing things down just a touch, which gives you that moment to avoid a kneejerk response. The people who work with little kids might say, Well, hes acting out his anger, but
instead of acting out, you are engaging the reins on the horse which is in your prefrontal cortex.
The left hemisphere, by putting it into words, kicks it up, and
you can use your words. Instead of hitting your little brother,
you can say, Im mad. I want a lollipop too! and thereby avoid
responding with only that initial knee-jerk response. Im not
sure if Ive answered your queston, but I think that gives you a
flavor of it.
...emotions can
happen differently
in your brain or
body.

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17
Mindfulness Practice and The Brain

Dr. Buczynski: The subtitle of your book is Creating Vibrant Relationships Using the Science of
Mindfulness. How does mindfulness affect the brain? We were talking about a study before we began
our discussion that was particularly fascinating. In that study, they eliminated some of the limitations of
previous studies where they looked at long-time meditators versus mass controls. Here they had an actual
random sample assignment, which we all know is the Gold Standard. So tell us about that study.
Dr. Lucas: Sure! One of the initial studies that really caught peoples attention when it came to mindfulness
and the brain, and in particular the ways that it benefits the brain, came out of Sara Lazars lab. That study
began by looking at people who were long-time meditation practitioners - those who had been meditating
for hours and hours every day and comparing them to people who
were novice meditators.
We take
novices,
train them in
mindfulness, and
then do brain
visualization.
Of course, she found a number of wonderful and exciting things that

were going on in the brains of those meditators. But the problem, as
you pointed out, is that there was a limitation. Maybe those long-term
meditators hadnt created changes in their brain. Maybe someone who
does twelve hours of meditation a day for forty years is different to
begin with! So that is one of the limitations.
So the desire, the drive has been, to look for a study in which you take novices and train them in mindfulness
techniques and then do the brain visualization. In fact, it was Britta Hlzel out of Sara Lazars lab who did that.
The study that we are talking about in particular came out in the journal Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging.
Dr. Buczynski: I think it was just last year.
Dr. Lucas: Yes, I think it was just last spring that it appeared. Actually, it was accepted by the journal in
August 2010, so it has been around for a little bit. The title is Mindfulness Practice Leads to Increases in
Regional Brain Gray Matter Density. Essentially, they did what everyone had been wanting to do: they
took novices and looked at their brains before and after training, with controls.
Dr. Buczynski: So they randomized?
Dr. Lucas: They randomized the assignment to the two groups and these people had not had meditation
experience before. They trained them in mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR), which is the program
that Jon Kabat-Zinn really helped introduce to so many of us.
They were able to find that there were brain changes. Now, they
did sort of a priori, looking for changes in areas that they suspected
were going to change. It was an MBSR program, and they used
the MRI to look at changes in gray matter concentration. They
also used a technique called voxel-based morphometry, which is
another way of saying that they were looking at what the brain
was busy doing and compared it with the wait list control group.
...changes occur in
the brain as soon
as two weeks after
someone has begun
mindfulness training.

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First, they found

changes in the
hippocampus.
18
This was a program of people who were getting no training versus

people who were getting trained.
They looked within the left hippocampus. That was one of the areas
where Sara Lazar originally found changes in people who were longterm meditators. They looked for increases in the posterior cingulate
cortex and a number of other areas, compared to the controls. They also looked at brain regions involved
in learning, memory, and emotional regulation.
They were talking about it in terms of self-referential processing and prospective-taking - being able
to know what is going on inside you, where it may be coming from, and then being able to take the
perspective of another. These are the brain regions that they looked at and where they found some changes.
I believe it was an eight-week program, which is typical MBSR training. So, after eight weeks, they were
seeing these changes. Davidson has said that from his experience, he believes that changes occur in the
brain as soon as two weeks after someone has begun mindfulness training. He is working on those studies
to see how quickly things really do start to change.
Certainly, clinically, what I see and what a lot of other people are reporting is that changes happen in their
patients not necessarily straight out of the gate. You dont have someone come in clinically and just throw
mindfulness at them. You want them to understand how they got to be wired the way they are so that they
can have that insight, and then to be able to take that further, I have really found that it accelerates the
process of change. I would imagine that occurs as it becomes something they are practicing and that has
been trickling out into the rest of their life.
As they practice when they are in an interaction or when they are standing in the subway, there is a neural
change that is going on although I personally dont have access to an MRI to be able to measure that
change! That is not part of my psychotherapy practice yet.
Dr. Buczynski: We dont have a lot of time left, but there is a story in your book about Justine, or a person
you call Justine, and she was a Capitol Hill powerbroker
Dr. Lucas: She was a top lobbyist.
Dr. Buczynski: Her story illustrated the concept of mindfulness and how it brings us into a better sense of
interconnectedness. Can you share that with us?
Dr. Lucas: Sure. Justine really excelled in her career. A lot of the folks I see are very bright and very
successful; my office is six blocks from the White House so you see a lot of lobbyists and folks on the Hill.
Being very bright didnt really give her what she needed in terms of being able to have a successful
relationship. So, she was coming in, bound and determined to learn what she needed to learn and apply
the same skills and diligence she used in her job to creating that.
For years, in order to succeed, she had to ignore the beliefs she had grown up with. She was raised by her
grandfather. From the way she described him, he was a really wonderful, warm man. He was a minister
who really lived by the golden rule...and here she was a lobbyist servicing clients.

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...if your mind

and body are
integrated,
then your
being can be
integrated...
19
In order to meet their demands, their needs, and to earn her very high
paycheck, she often had to do things that really went against her own
beliefs, her own sense of right and wrong, her own moral center. She
admitted that over time, she had really become hardened and tough.
The guys she tended to meet were either these wimpy guys who didnt
really have much in the way of fortitude and Go get em! energy or
guys who had no moral compass, really doing the same things she was
doing - selling out your sense of right and wrong in order to be able to
service your client, get the paycheck, and keep climbing up the ladder.
So, to cut to the chase, we did get to a point where she appreciated that what she was creating in her life,
what she was encountering in her life, had to do with the fact that she was not really honoring what was
true within her and that it was costing her quite a bit.
She was out there in the world, turned off to her inner experience, to her own inner compass and that
created internal conflict. Her body was carrying her that way. The way she talked in the world was that
way. She was often activated, again, in that fight or flight mode, not so much with the smart vagus and
being able to really authentically connect.
She was somewhat of a tough sell to accept mindfulness as we moved through this. That is where using
the brain and the science helps, having hard evidence. This is not just some woo-woo soft thing to do to
feel more relaxed; this really makes changes in your brain and you make an empowered choice to do so.
She did agree and she practiced.
As she began to practice, she started to notice that these feelings, these conflicts were coming up, and she
was looking for other ways to be able to do something in the world other than just throw money at charities
in a sort of dispassionate way.
She ended up making significant changes in her life. She started doing some pro bono work for a charity
in Africa; I think it was micro farming. She ended up liking it so much and really appreciating more and
more what she knew about herself that she reprioritized her life. She changed her finances.She made her
lifestyle less expensive so that she could afford to use her skills as a lobbyist in a way that was more in line
with her values. She ended up working for a nonprofit organization that had a mission she felt good about.
She felt good about how she was doing her work, what she was representing
and that it was, again, integrated in terms of who she was and what she
wanted to create in her life.
It sort of sounds like hocus-pocus, but sure enough, while she was working
there, she met a great guy who was not a wimpy guy and not an immoral
shark. She really had made some profound changes.
Mindfulness
really makes
changes in
your brain.
I use the word integration in terms of the brain, but I also think about it, and I think many clinicians think
about the idea of integration and integrity being the same thing. Integrity comes from a whole place, from
an integrated place. If your brain is integrated and your mind and body are integrated, then your being is
going to be integrated. That allows you to be in the world in a much more authentic, real, and vibrant way,
creating more vibrant relationships.
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20
Obstacles to Rewiring The Brain

Dr. Buczynski: We are pretty much out of time, but lets just talk briefly about obstacles for rewiring the
brain.
Dr. Lucas: I am guessing that you are talking about obstacles like Justine had in terms of willingness or
readiness to rewire the brain. I dont know if you were thinking about something more biological.
Dr. Buczynski: You talk in your book about protecting ourselves from self-limiting thoughts and that we
carry around a way of protecting ourselves from change.
Resistance
comes from fear
and it needs to
be addressed.
Dr. Lucas: Yes. Most people are familiar with the idea of resistance to
change, right? We like homeostasis. Even if it is uncomfortable, we tend
to prefer the familiar. People often resist coming into psychotherapy
for that reason or they come into psychotherapy and then they give you
a lot of, Yes, buts
Remembering that the resistance is coming from fear allows the

clinician, whether it is a physician who is asking someone to change
their diet for diabetes or cancer, or a psychotherapist who is trying to
engage a person or a couple to do things differently, to recognize that fear is going to be an important
component to address.
Rather than seeing that you are going to be taking something away from somebody, you are giving them
additional tools and helping them use all that they have in their brain in an integrated way. It is not that
you are planting different ideas. I say, I dont do personality transplants. Youre still going to be you. You
are just going to have better access to more of you and the best of you. So the resistance to change is a
big one.
Partners often are a little resistant to change, but one of the partners starts spending more time meditating
and starts acting a bit differently; maybe they dont fight the same way anymore and they dont know what
to do with that. One partner tries to goad the other into a fight or get in the way of a partners meditation
practice, whether consciously or unconsciously.
As any couples therapist will say, You have to be listening to
your own voice, knowing what you want, what you are feeling,
and what you are needing in the relationship, and being able to
bring that forth in a way that isnt about just beating up your
partner If you are able to do that, then the relationship has
much more of a chance than if you give in to your partners
fear and remain the same.
I think that probably two of the biggest obstacles for people,
at least when they first come in, are: Should I do this? Am I
ready for this?
Therapists dont do
personality transplants.
Youre still going to be
you. You are just going
to have access to... the
best of you.
Dr. Buczynski: Thanks. We are out of time. I just want to say to everyone on the call, thank you for being
part of this call. This was really fascinating. I will be sending you a link to Marshas book. It is Rewire
Your Brain for Love. It is a wonderful book, very, very readable. I think you are going to find it something
that many of your patients might find interesting. There are footnotes so you can look up the studies, but
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I think two of the

biggest obstacles for
people, is thinking
Should I do this?
Am I ready for this?
21
the language itself is very user-friendly, very layperson-friendly.

So, again, Rewire Your Brain for Love will be an important book
to check out. We will send you a link to Amazon so you can see
what you think.
Marsha, thank you so much for being a part of this call. I have
enjoyed the time we have spent together and all the ways that
you put these ideas together for people. Its just so important.
Dr. Lucas: Thank you very much, Ruth. I appreciate the opportunity to talk about it and to talk with you...
The more people know, in whatever way or voice appeals to them, the better. So thank you.
Dr. Buczynski: Thank you. Take care.
TalkBack Segment with Joan Borysenko, PhD and Bill OHanlon, LMFT
Ruth: Im back with my good friends, Dr. Joan Borysenko, the author of Minding the Body, Mending the
Mind. She is a licensed psychologist, cell biologist, and one of the first people to start a Mind-Body Clinic
at the Deaconess Hospital in Boston. She is also author of the book Fried. Also here is my good buddy,
Bill OHanlon, who is the author of Do One Thing Different he is the author of about thirty books, but
coming up is his latest - The Change Your Life Book. You wont want to miss that it will be great.
So, lets jump in and get started, because we have a lot that we would like to go back to - what Marsha
brought out in our conversation.
Bill, lets talk about fear. A lot of times, fear keeps us in the past and in the future. What are your thoughts
on how people can stay grounded in the present and/or some exercises that can help them do that?
Bill: I think one of the things weve spoken about in one of
these TalkBack segments was Gestalt therapy and I think all
of us were a little influenced by Gestalt therapy. We came up
during that era and there was an emphasis on Lose your
mind and come to your senses. So, one of the ways to come
back to the present is to focus on the senses.
... one of the ways

to come back to the
present is to focus on
the senses.
I will just give everyone a simple case example: We had someone come into our clinic a couple and she
had been sexually abused by her father when she was younger. They were hitting a rough patch because
she would, in the middle of sex, all of a sudden freak out and be right back in the sexual abuse situation.
Her husband was, of course, quite disturbed about this and he wasnt abusing her, but she would react
as if he were.
One of the things we discovered is that they made love in the dark, and so it was very easy for her to
imagine that this wasnt her husband that this was her father. So, a very simple thing we did was to have
them turn on the light so she could look at her husbands face while they were making love; she could
distinguish between the present and the past: This is the present. You can see the person right in front of
you.

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When you bring people back

to the sensory experience of
the moment... through smell,
taste, touch, sight and sound,
any of those senses you
bring them into a present
moment of awareness.
22
The other thing we had her do, because some people are
more tactile than visual, is just touch his face while they
were making love and that kept her grounded in the
present.
Sometimes the amygdala part of your brain will hijack

you and bring you back to an earlier experience that is
enough associated with the present that you start to lose
track of where you are. You lose track of who you are,
who you are with, and what you are doing. When you
bring people back to the sensory experience of the moment obviously you can do that through smell,
taste, touch, sight and sound, any of those senses you bring them into a present moment of awareness.
It is not a mindfulness approach as much as it is just waking up to the present rather than falling into the
trance of the past.
Ruth: Now to you, Joan, lets pick up on that. We often think of fear and anger as coming from the right
side of the brain. Can you help us identify some exercises that we might use with patients whether we are
physicians, or therapists, or teachers, or maybe even coaches that can help people go from the right brain
to the left brain, or where they might feel a little more in control?
Joan: Sure! Marsha brought up a term that is called the left
shift and she credited Richard Davidson with that because there
has been so much brain researchSo, lets look at the right - the
right brain is very sensory and very connected to the amygdala
and some of the survival circuits.
... wake up to the

present rather than
fall into the trance of
the past.
Some of Davidsons research has been very interesting because he finds that people who are anxious and
depressed have a lot of right activity going on; it is correlated with fear. So, they have had to make that left
shift trying to get to the left side of the brain. I have loved his stories, his research about Tibetan Buddhist
Lamas who have (been measured with) a thirty percent increase in activity in the left prefrontal cortex.
What I have found in working with people is that understanding the brain and understanding what a right/
left shift is, does something cognitively. It gives people maps so that they can actually make that shift.
To identify this, for example, I have often used imagery where I have people imagine that their brain is
a house, and if they are going into the right side of the brain, there is something they are afraid of, some
kind of old fear.
... understanding
the brain and
understanding what
a right/left shift is...
gives people maps
so that they can
actually make that
shift.
By simply looking around there on the right side of the brain and
saying I will pick up on what Bill said This is my husband
Im making love to and yet Ive got a picture of my father in there
in the right side of the brain. By looking around for three or four
anchors and, once again, the multisensory part is really important
and saying, I am feeling the fear thats in my bodyI can feel
my breath closing up. I can feel my heart shutting down. I can feel
the butterflies in my stomach. I can see what this is related to. But I
can simply make a shift into the left side of my brain by imagining
that I am walking through a door that goes from the right to the

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23
left and now I am in the left side of my brain. What am I actually seeing, feeling, touching, tasting over
here on the left?
And still picking up on the wonderful story that Bill told a minute ago I see the beautiful face of my
husband. I can smell the wonderful scent, that wonderful fragrance that is only his. Or in another situation
you would have another association with this. I can feel the feelings of safety, comfort and being in the
present moment and what is associated with that for me
When I do this exercise for myself (this is only minimally embarrassing to say on air!) in the left side of
my brain, I see my poodle, Milo, who is such a significant source of comfort, affection and safety, that
right away, all of my senses completely get engaged in him. So it takes a little practice.
What is on the left side of your brain? What is going on in the right side? Can you imagine these clearly
enough that you can actually walk into the left side of your brain and make that right to left switch? That
is what can make a big difference.
Ruth: Thanks. Now back to Bill. I like the idea of giving someone a hug as a way of increasing oxytocin
and getting it going, but as practitioners and maybe as teachers also that is something that we have to
be careful about. What else can we do to get oxytocin going?
Bill: I think the Milo method is a good method, and that
refers to people having pets in their offices. I had a student
who was writing a book about this; she was a psychotherapist,
had a pet in her office, and that pet would crawl up on the
laps of people. (Obviously, for people who were allergic, that
wasnt a good idea!) But, a dog or a cat can help a person.
Joan has talked about that that people connect to pets and it
releases oxytocin. I think that is a good one.
Here is the other thing that we have as human beings as we
are talking about the brain here we have mirror neurons.
We can look at other people hugging; you can watch movies,
show clips, or have people imagine that theyre being hugged
and it often has a very similar kind of response.
What is on the left side

of your brain? What is
going on in the right
side? Can you imagine
these clearly enough
that you can actually
walk into the left side
of your brain and make
that right to left switch?
You can use the imaginal brain and you can use the mirror neurons to watch other people. If I have a client
who is very isolated it is a pretty common thing in this society, that people are lonely and isolated I
have them watch movies where people are expressing love and affection, and/or I have them get a pet or
become a volunteer at the pet shelter to get some access to a little oxytocin juice.
You can use the

imaginal brain and
mirror neurons...
to get access to
oxytocin...
Ruth: Years ago, when I was seeing patients, I had a cat that
would often join the session. His name was Wilhelm Reich Dr.
Reich. It was fascinating how people responded to that. They
would say, He likes me. When it was appropriate, I would just
goof with them and say, Well, hes my supervisor.

www.nicabm.com
24
One last thing and we dont have a lot of time but, Joan, lets look at a bad breakup. We have all had a
time when we have been socially rejected what are some things that we could do there?
Joan: That is such an important question. Marsha is so wonderful when it comes to understanding love
and relationships. I think the most important thing when you have been rejected or you have had a breakup
for any reason is to have people to talk to so that you dont generalize from: This person doesnt want
me to Oh, poor me nobody wants me. Im going to go eat worms.
I think the single most important thing, for all of us, is to have
friends, or a therapist, or a parent somebody we feel totally
safe with, someone with whom we can express the full range
of our feelings - about that breakup and all of the emotions
involved, including the grief.
One of the problems I think we have in this society is there is
never enough time, it seems, to express grief. We think we are
supposed to get over things. But its so important to express
that grief - to get that out and then to have somebody reflect to
you, I understand.
... the single most

important thing, for all
of us, is to have friends,
or a therapist, or a
parent somebody we
feel totally safe with,
someone with whom
we can express the full
range of our feelings...
And then, here is something just as important to say, What have you learned from this relationship? It is
a little bit, Bill, like your take on storytelling: you need to be able to tell another end (to the story), because
frequently after a breakup, you are saying to yourself, Nobody loves me. Itll never get any better. Im
not desirable. Ill never find love. But to be able to say, Boy, Ive learned something. This is great and
its going to set me up for an even better relationship when Im ready these are all big helps.
Then, of course, if you have a dog or a cat, they are such great people to complain to!
What have you

learned from this
relationship?
Ruth: Absolutely! I am sorry, we are out of time again. I know on the

Comment Board many people have been saying that they wish that this
section of our calls could go longer and we will have to look at that
next time.
To everyone on the call, and to Joan and Bill: thanks for being here
tonight and take good care. I will see you next week.

www.nicabm.com
25
About The Speaker:

Marsha Lucas, Ph.D. is a licensed psychologist and neuropsychologist,
and has been practicing psychotherapy and studying the brain-behavior
relationship for over twenty years. Prior to entering private practice,
she was a neuropsychologist on the faculty at the Emory University
School of Medicine.
She has a special interest in the practice of mindfulness, especially
in how it stimulates the brain to grow new, more integrated circuits ~
which may be at the heart of well-being, including emotional balance
and resilience, enhanced relationships and friendships, and greater
empathy and connectedness.
Dr. Lucas currently practices in Washington, DC. She is the author of
the recently released Rewire Your Brain for Love: Creating Vibrant
Relationships Using the Science of Mindfulness.
Featured Books by Speaker: Marsha Lucas, PhD

Rewire Your Brain for Love:
Creating Vibrant Relationships
Using the Science of Mindfulness
Click HERE
to Purchase Now!
Find out more about this and related programs at:

www.nicabm.com
www.nicabm.com
About The TalkBack Speakers:

Joan Z. Borysenko, PhD, has been described as a respected scientist, gifted therapist, and unabashed mystic. Trained at Harvard
Medical School, she was an instructor in medicine until 1988.
Currently the President of Mind/Body Health Sciences, Inc., she
is an internationally known speaker and consultant in womens
health and spirituality, integrative medicine and the mind/body
connection. Joan also has a regular 2 to 3 page column she writes
in Prevention every month. She is the author of nine books, including New York Times bestsellers.
Bill O'Hanlon, LMFT, is a dynamic, inspirational speaker and

prolific author (over 30 books so far) who helps motivate people
and organizations to determine what they are meant to be doing
and to remove the barriers to succeeding at those goals.
Originally trained as a psychotherapist, Bill has become known
for his collaborative and respectful approach, irreverent humor,
storytelling, clear and accessible presentation style, and his
infectious enthusiasm for whatever he is doing. He teaches
seminars, leads trainings, writes books, coaches people and
offers websites, podcasts, blogs, web-based courses, teleclasses
and audio and video programs.

www.nicabm.com
26

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