Building a Culture of Empathy

[mariamma]

Originally Posted by Nomad

i dont think you're a deluded crazy person or pulling dreams outta the air, thin or not. i just grind my teeth at the idea that chemistry rules our lives. i believe 100% in the power of neurotransmitters. i'm not an idiot. i just cant get behind the whole if you have too much or not enough of xyz hormone you'll do this or be that. i think it's exactly the opposite: our lives rule our chemistry.

neurotransmitters are part of the human recipe. existential memory (experience, culture, self-talk, etc) is the other part. mix the two and people are capable of almost anything to a lesser or greater degree. add in a support system, trial and error experimentation, determination, passion and paradigm shift and the end result is a person who encourages certain behaviors in their neurotransmitters not neurotransmitters that encourage certain behaviors in a person. people become accustomed to the circumstances they create in themselves.

we feed what we need.

I hear what you're saying. You explain the difference between having an emotion and DEALING WITH an emotion or directing the energy. Let me ask, how much support do we get when we change the course of our lives? When we change the direction hormones and neurotransmitters? Men get very little support. It is possible and many people practice redirecting emotions. It's just not generally supported but accepted, especially when it lowers emotional energy or re-focuses it on others in a beneficial way.
When we have a stress response (or any other hormonal response) it usually lasts 90 seconds. But the 'feelings' will last....longer....2 hours, 2 days, however long we experience that emotion.
Vasopressin is a hormone involved with love. When you see someone you love and have that swooning feeling...that's vasopressin in action. That 'swoon' lasts 10 seconds, 30 seconds, however long but the love continues. It goes thru peaks and troughs. It continues on BECAUSE WE PUSH THE EMOTION THAT WAY. When love fails, it probably is because we did not continue the emotion or we had become unbalanced. Dopamine runs love in the brain. Taking an SSRI (serotonin) can make STAYING in love difficult.
I believe we are saying the same thing. If one looses control of self, it probably will involve dopamine. It doesn't mean if one has X amount of dopamine, one will lose control of self. It just makes it very difficult. Not everyone is strong of will.