You're a Miracle (and a Pain in the Ass): Embracing the Emotions, Habits, and Mystery That Make You You

by Mike McHargue

helped me grow comfortable being “me” for the first time in my life—an

challenges me to show up with her in friendship—not

Friend, whatever your attachment style, whatever wounds you carry, whatever trauma has shaped your growth—it is not a liability. The pain I’ve endured has made me incredibly sensitive.

that same sensitivity has become one of my greatest strengths.

humans are social primates, and I don’t believe there is any path to health and wholeness that can be taken alone.

at each party the background music got louder and louder until it wasn’t background music at all, and then people would start dancing.

“Hey, don’t worry about it. You’re just left-brained.” What they mean is, “You’re a logical, awkward nerd.” I know they mean well, but it drives me crazy when people say that.

The idea that the right brain is creative and the left analytical is, ahem, dated in neuroscience. But it’s simple and accessible, while also feeling applicable to life.

simple and accessible beats accurate every time.

Here’s a more accurate idea: The right brain thinks holistically, while the le...

the right brain sees a forest, while the left brain sees trees.

(By the way, both rational analysis and artistic creativity require a choreographed dance between the hemispheres. Just to lay that myth to rest.)

In the late seventeenth century, the left brain launched an all-out war on its counterpart,

set the cultural expectation that analytical, left-brain thinking was best.

There is nothing higher than reason.”

The Enlightenment led to rationalism, modern science, and an ever-increasing suspicion of cultural traditions and emotions.

Capitalism is a wildly left-brain way of running an economy. Only a reductive economic view could prioritize “shareholder value” every three months over the long-term viability of our soil, or the climate that allows economies to exist in the first place.

Post-Enlightenment culture has rewired our brains, leading to incredible advances in science and technology.

But these advances also came with the cost of isolating people from each other and from the ecosystems that make our lives possible.

What good is it for a man to have strong quarterly earnings but forfeit the ocean?

In many ways, the United States of America is the ultimate example of a left-brain culture.

individual liberty and self-sufficiency.

The left brain is dominated by “top-down” processing, in which the neocortex takes the onus to coordinate—and dominate—activity.

The right brain, on the other hand, is more focused on a “bottom-up” approach, allowing the instinctual and emotional centers of the brain to integrate into all forms of processing.

our right brains excel at relating to other people and understanding how our actions impact our world.

Humans are social primates. Like trees, we are wildly interdependent for not just survival but the quality of life. But our left-brain world tells us to see ourselves as individuals, creating disconnection and disembodiment as sad as a lone tree in the middle of a field,

This self-imposed sense of isolation often leads us to hide our pain

that fear is born from a worldview that trains our brains to take everything apart.

Our conscious experiences incorporate relatively little of what happens in our brains.

The GNW model defines consciousness as whatever information makes it into our working memory—the network of brain structures that includes the prefrontal cortex, anterior temporal lobe, inferior parietal lobe, and other, less famous brain structures.

integrated information theory. The IIT model hypothesizes that our conscious experiences arise, not in our working memory, but in the parts of our brain where nerve signals become sensations.

the gentle caress of a lover—something that we not only feel, but experience in a deeper way.

neural correlates of consciousness (NCC), and are located in the temporal, parietal, and occipit...

guess what happens when we zap the portions of the brain in the GNW model? Not a damn thing.

Team IIT argues that sensation is the foundation of consciousness, while the awareness facilitated by the GNW is simply a tool employed by our consciousness.

The frontal lobe may be our narrator, our CEO, or our zookeeper, but the sensations that actually facilitate consciousness occur in t...

“Maybe both is happening at the same time.” It seems to me that the play between sensation and agency is precisely what it feels like for me to feel conscious.

as I’ve learned more about the brain and gotten more in touch with my body and my feelings, I’ve become more aware of the limitations of left-brained human agency.

I’ve started to view the prefrontal cortex less as the brain’s boss, and more li...

the prefrontal cortex is never the exclusive seat of our conscious experiences. Biologically speaking, humans can’t live anywhere but in our bodies.

greater emphasis on cognition or embodied sensations,

I can turn any issue into a set of ideas that are open to identification, classification, and debate. As I do so, I can appear both “reasonable” and “calm.”

I take out the trash, pay my taxes, and ask “Did he do what the officer said to do?” in response to news of a police shooting.

I have learned that the niceness that makes my life easy also makes the lives of my friends very difficult. Which friends? The ones who are not white, straight, or Christian.

The niceness that is so often seen as the glue of our culture,

means the voices are dismissed if they are “too emotional” or “mean.”

“niceness,” which is to say, distancing ourselves from uncomfortable feelings, becomes a veneer that masks the cruel and inequitable foundation of our civilization.

SELF-SUFFICIENT.

ACT TOUGH

BE ATTRACTIVE, BUT THOU MUST NOT WORKEST ...