I do not recall who, but someone once said, "You get what you give." I have wondered about the expression, "It is more blessed to give than to receive." Personally, I like to receive . . . . especially, if what is given is something I like or want. But, I have come to think that when we give something to or do something help others, that very act is noticed by other parts of our brain mind. There is something very human - and extremely important - about expressing a sadness, a joy, a worry, a concern to someone who is present and listening. I lectured to my general psychology last week on sensation and perception. One of the concepts that confuses students (perhaps all of us) is how we are only capable of focusing our attention on a small subset of what's "out there." Scientists, like Stephen Kosslyn, suggest that 90% of what we perceive as "out there" is constructed in our mind from past experience, present expectations, emotional state, etc. So, before I make myself even more confused than I am when talking about this, my point is that when we share something from inside our mind-brain, we have given ourselves a gift. That is to say, an opportunity to see how the other person reacts to it, to hear ourselves with our own ears, to be aware of other senses noticing all of this. In other words, this is a sort of feedback affecting many different areas in our brain mind. That is to say, more of our brain-mind is brought to bear, paying attention, and communicating via divergent neural networks. If we keep something to our self, it probably occupies a small area of neurological real estate. It is said that when we are on the 5th stage of sleep, called REM, odds are we are dreaming. We are paralyzed in REM, but our brain is - paradoxically - as active as if we are wide awake. A somewhat controversial treatment modality, Eye-movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR), exploits that (the creators say), so that more of the brain's neural networks are sharing an experience. Sorry for the excessively long presentation of what is a mere theory on my part. I bet you have had the experience of showing caring and concern for someone or of loving someone, and somehow, felt you had gotten something in return. The problem I have yet to work out is that when I have given something and it becomes clear that I was being used by the other, it evokes very different emotions. I have not yet figured out how to make another feel beloved unconditionally, even if it turns out that they deceived me or took advantage of me.
