Okay, I'm not doing so well today. Mike's regular hugs helped me to regain balance. He didn't just hug me; he sent me all his love and affirmed me in a thousand ways. There was a program on NPR today about Sweden's problems where it is the ideal to live alone. People talk about dark thoughts overcoming them. I wonder if this is universal.
When I got to Bikram, Jeff came up to hug me. He offers that to a number of us. These hugs are usually aloha hugs, per functionary greetings. When I told him I really need a hug today, he leaned into it and sent me good vibes. I said how much I missed Mike and sobbed once or twice. It helped. Doing the class helped too.
Why would we sink into negative thinking if we are alone? To begin with, I'm sure this isn't true for everyone. Some people retire to the wild and live happily. Well, maybe I'm thinking of a book I read about someone who lived in a desert setting alone. Of course, he wrote a book, so mentally, he wasn't alone. He was reaching out to others. Also, I don't know how long he stayed out there.
Back to why we would sink into negative thinking: I thought I wrote about this already. Maybe not. As you may already have realized, I think in terms of evolutionary psychology a lot. I ask, "How would this behavior have helped us survive in the period when our brains circuits were formed?" "How would negative thinking promote our chances of survival?"
My thinking is that if we found ourselves isolated, totally alone, in the hunter-gatherer period, something had gone wrong. Either we were physically lost in the wild when we got separated from a group, or we had been banished from the tribe for some social infraction. Either way, it was a life-threatening situation, and we had to think of a way to solve this problem. Since I am not lost in a physical wilderness, I must have offended the tribe members. I have to think, "What did I do wrong? How can I get back in their good graces?" Ergo, I set in on negative thinking. Since I haven't done anything wrong and I haven't been exiled from my tribe, I don't have a real-life circumstance to contemplate. I have to fish around for negative things to think about myself. Remember, if early man couldn't figure out how to get back into their good graces, he was as good as dead. No one could survive out in the wilderness alone forever in those days. Maybe thirst and hunger could be addressed, but when would he sleep? Who would keep watch and protect him from wild animals? What if he injured himself? He was doomed.
I have read some books which tell of people who get lost for extended periods in the wilderness, but these folks had modern-day weapons, and they weren't out there forever. I confess I don't know enough about how the hunters of early America functioned. I have a feeling there are stories of survival that will contradict my theory.
