{"id":202,"date":"2007-04-25T12:15:00","date_gmt":"2007-04-25T12:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beyondblue\/2007\/04\/long-loving-look-at-real.html"},"modified":"2007-04-25T12:15:00","modified_gmt":"2007-04-25T12:15:00","slug":"long-loving-look-at-real","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2007\/04\/long-loving-look-at-real.html","title":{"rendered":"A Long, Loving Look at the Real"},"content":{"rendered":"

In order to make a decision, you have to perceive a situation correctly. Which is why I’m unable to deliberate when I’m depressed: I can’t see. With the amygdala<\/a> and hippocampus<\/a> regions of the brain suffering cell shrinkage and death–spreading a message of panic throughout my entire nervous system–I’m positioned worse than a deer in headlights. <\/p>\n

I have to resist the “fight or flight” command from my brain’s “fear system”<\/a> (the amygdala)–which holds unconscious, anxiety-based memories–and to give the job of analyzing my world to the more sophisticated parts (the upper regions) of my brain.<\/p>\n

In other words, to make decisions (or at least good ones), I have to learn how to see correctly.<\/p>\n

My theology professor, Keith Egan, used to tell his students to take a “long, loving look at the real.” Every day he’d give us that instruction for a class called “Exploring Beauty.” (No, we didn’t look through the Victoria’s Secret catalog for homework.) It stuck–this loving look at the real stuff. Whenever I’d see a classmate at the dining hall, I’d ask her if she’d taken her long, loving look at the real yet that day (as if it were equivalent to a workout or shower).<\/p>\n

But it’s true that in order to choose A over B and C, you have to perceive A, B, and C correctly. First, you have to train your mind to see reality. Then you have to get comfy with reality. And finally you begin to love reality. <\/p>\n

I’m as far away from that last sentence as most college boys are from marriage plans–reality ain’t all that pretty to these eyes. It still hurts too much. BUT I think I am getting better at recognizing it–much like I can recognize my daughter’s cry coming from the nursery while I’m on the treadmill at the gym. And that’s great news for a person who puts decision-making after folding laundry on her list of most enjoyable activities.<\/p>\n

P.S. I sent Keith this blog post, and he replied: “Alas–you didn’t recall my line from Eliot: “Humankind cannot bear very much reality.” So I guess we are supposed to go easy (everything in moderation, even moderation) with the long loving looks at the real.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In order to make a decision, you have to perceive a situation correctly. Which is why I’m unable to deliberate when I’m depressed: I can’t see. 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