Psychological detoxes

Our detoxes fall under three categories; Physiological, Psychological and Emotional/Motivational.

Aside from body detoxes, the other type of detoxing we've explained is of the emotional/ motivational type. Here we'll explain what a psychological detox is and how it differs from an emotional detox.

It’s primarily the current equilibrium of motivations - some innate, some acquired - that keep us orientated towards the rewards that we believe, and experience, to be on the particular path we’re currently on. We're not doing what we do for no reason.

But the other major factor involved is our beliefs regarding reality - our model of reality - as that is our map we’re referring to when navigating reality. We have objectives that percolate up from our motivations but how, or if, we can satisfy those objectives depends on our understandings of causes and effects. Clearly, the more accurate those beliefs - the more detailed and accurate our model of reality - the more potent are our decisions, thus actions. If what manifests from our actions tends to be as expected we’re able to competently navigate/manipulate reality to achieve our objectives/ satisfy our motivations.

Satisfied motivations equals happiness although not all motivations are equal as regards their ability to generate the delicious feelings we call happiness and different motivations experience the same reality very differently. The obvious example is that what our ego seeks - experiences pleasure and pain from - is very different than what is emotionally pleasurable/painful hence the eternal tug of war between them. One seeks fields to graze from that exist down one path, whilst the other is nourished from fields that are much more abundant down another path. One ‘horse’ is pulling our carriage in one direction, while another is pulling in a different direction.

Often, it’s a tangled mess making the first obvious step, should the status quo be unsatisfactory, to sort out that mess. We do that by stopping, unhitching them all and see what remains after they’re not being fed for a few days. Our core, innate, motivations/instincts are not going anywhere as they’re hardwired in, but the bulk of the accumulated ones will vanish leaving us reconnected with our core selves.

‘Magically’ we feel a lot better - many of the contradictions no longer exist - and we tend to find we were already in abundance with the issue having been the accumulation of random motivations and their disparate demands. If 10 of our ‘horses’ are dissatisfied with what’s here, while 10 are happy we’ve got a lot of ugly flavours in our cocktail polluting the pleasant flavours. Choose a different path and we’ve now got a different set of dissatisfied motivations kicking up a fuss. The problem traces back to too many motivations and/or that they’re not aligned.

Less is more.

We’re going to be doing something, going to be taking steps and those steps add up taking us here or there.

Our steps are our actions which flow from our decisions. We have our objectives in one hand and then devise strategies to achieve them. The potency of our strategies are limited by the possibilities we believe exists - our options - and then by how realistically achievable those options are, whether they actually will deliver the rewards anticipated, plus our ability to execute.

Our decisions are heavily influenced by our understanding of this reality thing we find ourselves within. The more detailed and accurate our understanding/ model of reality is, at least as regards whats relevant, the more potent will our decisions, and then actions, be.

If we’re referring to a wildly inaccurate map we’re going to get lost.

A psychological detox is about sorting the wheat from the chaff. Returning to core landmarks we have strong evidence actually exist, and deleting all the childish scribbles that are still there covering up what’s underneath.

Typically, just as we don’t examine and sort through our motivations, we also don’t tend to sort through our relevant beliefs. They’re just there influencing us, but how they got there, who put them there and whether they’re accurate, or at least useful, is rarely questioned. We’re then like drones on autopilot never taking over the controls ourselves.

It’s not about exchanging one set of rigid beliefs for another. It’s about seeing them as the tools, as the recipes, they are and shifting focus from high-fiving them to high-fiving the reality/taste they produce. Our species doesn’t have the ability to know the truth so we put that illusion aside and instead acquire useful beliefs. We can now upgrade our tools, can change the recipe and so quickly generate the reality/taste desired.

Strength is fantasy, time is illusion

Instead of being stuck with the one recipe, the one ‘right’ template, we then desperately try and squeeze ourselves into, we can throw that out and select one that fits better. Taken far enough there’s no templates, there’s just recipes. We’re not this or that, we’re not making solid what is actually fluid. Terrible for our ego but it does as egos do and simply aligns with what it sees in our mirror.

We feel no lack/dissatisfaction not having what we don’t want. If we feel we lack nothing we have everything we want. If we have everything we want we, by definition, are on a very high level of happiness.

Go along that spectrum far enough, go to the ‘Buddha’ pole, and we’re just chilling under a tree in some forest feeling fantastic. Some food, shade from the sun, and if there’s no lack at all there’s nothing to do. Buddha symbolises the extreme end of the spectrum, that nothing can be everything at one pole and everything can be nothing at the other. It’s not that we should, or could, get to where Buddha was, it’s that the spectrum exists and that, generally, less is more.

Psychological, as the name suggests, refers to brain processes. Our brain is effectively our interface between our motivations and the environment. We seek this and that from the environment, while also seeking to avoid those experiences we don’t like. We're also smart enough to know there's many more moments we'll experience in the future. Instant gratification is offset by our understandings of causes and effects and how we believe our present decisions/actions will impact what we're experiencing in the future. Be it now or later, happiness is, by definition, feeling good/pleasant. Thinking we should be happy, believing we deserve to be happy, doesn't mean much if we're not feeling happy. Clearly, though we’re typically loath to admit it, it all boils down to pleasure and pain. Motivations motivate via pleasure and pain. What other rational possibility is there? Whether we believe our life ends after a pleasant, relaxing retirement or we move into an eternal Heaven they're both very pleasurable.

It's worth understanding/accepting this as we can then more readily orientate ourselves towards, and directly access, the actual experiences/feelings we seek. Around 90% of delicious serotonin is actually produced in our gut with just 10%, or so, produced by our brain. It's complicated, and nowhere near fully understood, but the point is our brain is our computer, our navigator. It's like our car that can take us to a lovely reality, but we then have to get out of the car and experience it directly instead of just through the car window.

As defined by our particular set of values, we may want to be good and noble, but that want/motivation is pleasurable and the alternative ( ‘being’ bad ) is uncomfortable/painful as we experience it. Status is a pleasant feeling. Being applauded feels good, being booed feels bad. If, bizarrely, our wiring was reversed and we felt pain being applauded and pleasure being booed we’d be orientated very differently.

If Pete wants to be good/noble/ have status - feels pleasure from those beliefs - and giving to charity is what good people do then he’s motivated to give to charity. Cool. If he doesn’t believe that, if he believes only idiots give to charity then he’s not going to give to charity as that would mean, according to his values, he’s an idiot. Typically, feeling we’re an idiot is a painful, unpleasant, low status feeling that we avoid.

One could reply; ‘ ah but giving to charity makes the world more pleasant for everyone so it is a noble thing to do’. If we agree with that cause and effect theory/belief and we value the same thing - the world being more pleasant for everyone - then indeed we’ll agree with that statement. But, unless we fancy ourselves as some type of God, us agreeing with something doesn’t make it true and many adults do not particularly care how pleasant other peoples lives are. They don’t value that. They value the quality of their lives and probably those in their particular in-group - family, friends and other similarly motivated people - but others, including those baddies who are beneath them? No.

How can we define ourselves good and noble unless some others are not? How can we have status unless others, at least some others, are beneath us? If they’re baddies do we really want them to feel pleasant or we do want them to be punished - made to suffer pain - for contradicting our values?

Do we want Donald Trump to feel pleasant? Will we feel pain if he suffers pain, or dies, or will we rejoice - get pleasure from - his pain/death?

Some people get all tangled up psychologically due to their inability to be honest with themselves, to accept reality, including themselves, as it is/they are. They shake their fist at the universe, demanding it be as they want it to be and so invite in ugly flavours such as frustration, anger and even hate. Then they wonder why they don’t feel good. The strategy of delaying happiness till the universe aligns itself with the notions swirling in our heads is a very poor one as we’ll find the universe doesn’t particularly care what we think. Why would it?

Don’t seek to move the mountain

Just move yourself. Taoist Truism

The mountain not to our taste? We can grab our shovel and spend our time furiously trying to level it to make it as we want it to be. That’s one option. Another option is simply move ourselves to a reality that we like. Alternatively, we can change our motivations - what we like and don’t like - so we enjoy and appreciate what the mountain offers. We can also mix and match - a bit of column A and a bit of column B. But deliberately pouring ugly flavours into ones cup is a bit stupid. Doing so, and then complaining about how the resulting cocktail tastes is even more foolish.

Sure, we have egos and it’s typically our status hungry overgrown ego that demands we deem ourselves superior and - magically -that we know what’s best for the universe. That our definition of ‘best’ suspiciously aligns with what we ourselves prefer is ignored. Others are selfish, but not us right?

Should we accept the reality that we’re not actually some superior being armed with a superior array of senses, astronomical IQ, and vast experience to sort the wheat from the chaff, but that we’re just another homo Sapian - ‘wise’ ape - we become humble, flexible and pragmatic. Our ego sulks for a time, but that's a price worth paying. However, we still have to take ourselves from A to B. If we want to exchange our present reality for a much more pleasant one we need to traverse the terrain between the two.

While an emotional/ motivational detox aligns us with our emotional motivations thereby facing us in the right direction, that on it’s own is rarely enough. Sometimes it is, sometimes people are already in an oasis and the problem is their inability to enjoy it given accumulated contrary motivations.

We can drown in the midst of plenty.

We doing something, moving ourselves in one direction, or another, even if we’re sitting on the couch. All those little steps add up and take us to one reality or another. If we want to get to the reality we want to experience we need to be consistently moving in that direction otherwise we’re probably just going in circles.

When I look at myself

I don’t see the man I wanted to be

Somewhere along the line I slipped off track

One step forward and two steps back

Though our motivations determine our orientation - what we're seeking to experience from the environment - it's our brain that determines our decisions thus actions. It's decides our strategies to achieve our objectives. We refer to the model of reality our brain has put together. How else are we making decisions? Rolling dice?

Again, wanting something and then getting it are two different things. We have to have the ability to make it happen in reality. If we need to navigate reality we need to accept reality otherwise we’re bumping into that which we don't know/ refuse to accept is there and avoiding that which isn’t actually there. Even if we're on a fruitful track we're going to wander off given our model of reality differs too much from the reality on the ground.

There's a fiction and a space between

you and reality

write it down but this doesn't mean

you're not just telling stories.

We're all 'telling stories' given our species doesn't have the ability to know the truth. Our limited array of senses can only perceive a small slice of what's out there and our subjective primate brain can only process what our senses can perceive. Additionally, our brain can only process a very limited amount of data simultaneously therefore it unconsciously filters that incoming avalanche of data according to relevance. Even if all us humans, on this little planet, deemed something the truth doesn't make it the truth. How can we possibly know it is? Who or what stamps it ' the truth' and how can we know he, she, or it knows?

The more you know, the more you know you don't know.

'You have to be knowledgable to know you're ignorant'

Fortunately, we're not 'dancing through the daisies' because we 'know' the truth. We're dancing because we're feeling great. Beliefs and values are just recipes with the taste being what's relevant. Think we already know and what should be fluid and provisional becomes rigid and functionally useless. We're focusing on, and consuming, the menu instead of the meal. The set menu becomes all there 'is' and we never access the buffet beyond it.

Ideologoy is a porcupine ....

Ideology is very easy to identify; Just ask 'why' a few times and it's obvious there's nothing underneath. The belief is just floating there unsupported by any evidence except perhaps more layers of values deemed the true and right ones. 'I believe this is true because I believe the supporting values are true'. Cool, why do you believe those supporting values? Where did they come from? Who put them there? Again, if the clusters of beliefs and values in our brain work, if that recipe is generating a delicious taste that is believed to be sustainable then that's great. It may be scientifically dubious, but if it works, it works. We don't fix what isn't broken...

However, if we need to change recipes, if we need to get from A to B, then the model of reality that our brain has constructed, needs to be reasonably accurate or it’s useless. An inaccurate map is worse than no map because at least we know we have no map and so don’t boldly stride forth until we do our homework.

Again, no one has the truth. It’s not so much about right and wrong beliefs as it’s about useful vs useless beliefs. It’s all just recipes after all. Generally, scientifically accurate beliefs are going to serve us better than the ones installed by our culture, schooling etc as their objectives are different. How many classes on happiness were you offered at school? Obviously our schooling programs us up to charge down the cultural mainstream path which, if it’s in good shape, tends to work out fine. However, once a civilisation has passed its zenith, once it’s in the dying stage of its life cycle, the mainstream path it has to offer tends to be substandard. It’s potholed, with the low hanging fruit long gone. The reality doesn’t match the shiny brochures anymore. I see the 250 th United States Anniversary is in a month or so, but there's no enthusiasm. Donald Trump is the President. The average lifespan of a civilisation is around 200 to 250 years. and by looking at the United States past and present, we can each decide where it is in it's life cycle. If we believe the ship is going down, why would we stay on it?

It is what it is. We can't change the world and even if we could we're just changing it to suit our preferences. Yet, delusions aside, what do we know? Not much, is the honest answer, but hopefully the assorted motivations, beliefs and values we've accumulated make this life thing a very pleasant experience.

Boiled down: while an emotional detox runs a comb through accumulated motivations a psychological detox runs one through our accumulated beliefs and values. We seeking to remove that which is hindering our ability to realise a high level of happiness or at least an improved level of happiness.

Given we're holding onto many of our current beliefs and values because they make us feel good, an emotional detox is always the first recourse. Once emotional satisfaction kicks in, once we have that buffer, we no longer care too much about the relatively insipid ego satisfaction. Once we don't need to 'be' superior, we don't need those beliefs and values that 'make' us so. They then naturally drop away and it seems weird we ever held them in the first place. We worry about controlling what we can control, not injecting ourselves with ugly flavours because the larger reality is as it is.

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Hopefully, the above explains psychological detoxing well enough. I've tried to boil it down to a manageable size as no one wants to wade through a lot of pages. But, condensing it is not as easy as I thought it would be and necessarily involves cutting corners. Here is an extended version if anyone is interested.