Blog | Neuromythology

You're Breaking Up

You're Breaking Up

We use the phrase “you’re breaking up” too often these days to simply mean (or occasionally just pretend) that an electronic signal between us is no longer sufficient to sustain communication. It is often used to refer to the ending of a relationship, as if the only way a relationship ends is if it is broken. Margaret Mead, the famous anthropologist, once said “all three of my marriages were successful” With a Daughter's Eye. Sometimes the ending of a relationship can be the

Shame On You

Shame On You

Shame and pride are second order emotions. They are really emotions that are about other emotions. Shame is an inborn script that attenuates the positive effects of interest, excitement, or joy. It is called into play when there is something problematic with the expression of these positive emotions, a kind of “you’ve gone too far,” or other serious mismatch of expectations to events. When you are in the midst of interest or enjoyment, shame or humiliation will reduce them. Y

History of Love II: Religion and Eros

History of Love II: Religion and Eros

"Love cannot be disembodied even in its most sanctified forms, nor is it without sanctity even in its most fleshly." Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain Mystical spirituality has never been absent a powerful component of eros. I was a reader a few years ago for a delightful doctoral dissertation accepted in 2009 by the Faculty of Theology at the University of Tartu, in Estonia, entitled “Eros and Mysticism: Are Mystical States of Consciousness Evolutionary Byproducts of Sexual R

History of Love I: Myths of Love

History of Love I: Myths of Love

One of my favorite Greek myths is that of Eros and Psyche. Eros was a god, the son of Aphrodite. He is a handsome young man, not the infantilized version of the Roman Cupid we all know. Psyche is mortal, but so beautiful that she makes Aphrodite, after all the goddess of love and beauty, jealous. So she sends her son to make Psyche fall in love with a hideous creature. Instead he nicks himself with one of his arrows, and falls in love with Psyche himself. He has the gentle Ze