Happiness: The Old Wisdom Curbing the Worry Dog
by Ken Wilson

Happiness happens in the brain. New research on happiness indicates two practices of focused attention--gratitude & meditation--help brains to be happier. This corresponds to old wisdom: Phil. 4: 1-9

The brain isn't a static piece of equipment.  It's a phenomenally complex computing network with an open source operating system.  Every day the brain is in the process of programming itself.

Above all, brains are wired to survive in a dangerous world. What percentage of your direct ancestors did not survive until child-bearing age? Zero. Every single one had a good enough response to threat to survive at least until breeding time, and passed their genes on to you.

This is why your brain has such a powerful alert system: why fear, anxiety, worry, stress, tension, come so easily.

The Stess Response

Only problem: alert system tends to overdo it; guard dog starts bark-ing when there are no real threats; keeps everyone awake; PTSD, the extreme case. Alert system wears out the body prematurely.

But old wisdom says, and new research confirms, we can override the tendency toward fear-anxiety via prayer & meditation that incorporates a form focused attention.

The stuff of our text: Therefore, my brothers and sisters, you whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm in the Lord in this way, dear friends! I plead with Euodia and I plead with Syntyche to be of the same mind in the Lord. Yes, and I ask you, my true companion, help these women since they have contended at my side in the cause of the gospel, along with Clement and the rest of my co-workers, whose names are in the book of life. (Phil. 4: 1-3)

This dispute between two church leaders, Euodiea & Syntyche threatening the peace of the church. Paul saw a need for more teaching on prayer with focused attention. 

Paul wants them to do a little mind work [be of the same mind];
to reset their inner clocks to the love & harmony hour. 

The unhappiness evoked by a stressful situation like this resides where? In our brains. "The mind is its own place, and in itself / can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven." --John Milton

The situation is "out there" but the stress response is "in here." Our little guard dog is barking, our worry dog is whimpering; defenses up; BP/ HR up, hands cold, hyper-alert to signs of threat.  

Paul then invokes the happiness wisdom that pertains: Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. (Phil. 4: 4-7)

Ever heard this? God doesn't want us to be happy necessarily he wants us to be joyful. Say what? Translation: He wants us to be devout, religiously happy, a special form of happiness that isn't necessarily happy.  Response: Boohonkey!

There's not a difference between "rejoice" and "be happy". 
Yes but "in the Lord"--what does that mean? Sounds narrow.

Let's break it down. Where's a good place to be happy? How about where you are? Where are you? Let's say "the universe."  Good. "Be happy in the universe." But where's the universe? Or rather what's the bigger context for the universe? We don't know for sure. We haven't investigated the whole universe yet, let alone the bigger context. By the sixth sense called faith we understand the universe itself and every quark, boson, electron, muon, is in the hands of God, who is bigger than the universe.  "in the Lord" = in the hands of God, who holds all things in his hands. Broadest possible frame.

Yes, but what about all the crap that happens in the universe in the hands of God, that makes it's way to planet earth, and the state of Michigan, and to my particular zip code? Lousy weather, lousy economy, loved ones struggling, marriage in a funk, my mother just found a lump in her breast…. What then Mr. Happy Clappy Man?

"…in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

Prayer refers to the God-ward orientation of the heart when we need to have a heart-to-heart with God.  Petition refers to the requests we make in the heart-to-heart with God.  And thanksgiving refers to a particular form of focused attention that we practice in the praying.

Two important prayer skills: 1) ability to verbalize what's bothering us to God--make our requests known. [Sometimes this alone helps curb the worry dog] 2) ability to focus attention on something other than the source of anxiety-fear. 

For years I only did the first. It wasn't enough to cub the worry dog! Prayer time had become the time to focus on my problems, needs, troubles (and some of yours.)  Felt like "pious anxiety time" much of the time. Prayer became a drudgery too often.  It didn't help as much as it might have in the happiness department.

But there's another way to do prayer and petition: with thanksgiving.
Surround your asking with the practice of focused attention on those things you have reason to be thankful for. [We have more things to be thankful for than we focus our sustained attention on.  The focus itself is an integral part of the gratitude. We have to stop to be thankful] 

And in that focused attention, our stress response, our worry dog is curbed and our mind is able to think, "maybe I'm not alone; maybe there's help; maybe we--God and I and the others who care about me--can get through this together." 

[Finances, anxiety, prayer; gratitude for board--don't have to figure this out myself--board meeting, Lynne….]

"The peace of God that transcends understanding--that goes beyond your grinding analysis of the situation, your mulling over the  threat, your anxious rehearsing of the threat--will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

Will guard our minds from the inner guard dog trying to guard us, but with all that barking, actually makes it worse, sometimes. Like a guard dog barking at the mailman instead of an intruder.  Even when it is an intruder….you're alerted already, calling 911 but the operator can't hear you because your guard dog is barking!

This is not prayer theory for Paul but his steady practice. "I thank God for you, whenever I remember you in my prayers." He worried about the churches, but he kept worry at bay by praying with thanksgiving.

You can try it on an emergency basis. But it's better to treat this practice like yeast that you knead into the  lump of dough that is your prayer life.  Make it a habit to pray this way--combine asking with focused gratitude as often as you ask.  [Remembering loved ones 3 years ago…] 

Focus on what you're thankful for even if all you can be thankful for is the goggles that keep the stuff that's hitting the fan from getting into your eyes!

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy —think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you. (Phil. 4: 8-9)

Now he turns to a more general practice of focused attention. Don't dwell on the bad, dwell on the good. Make a concerted effort to dwell on the good. 

Of course there's a part of brain--the stress response part that says, There's very little that's good, as a matter of fact.  Mostly what you have are threats around here, and that's why I have to do so much barking!

Is that true?  That's for us to decide.  Based on the evidence, you can make the case either way.  But there's also a sixth sense called faith. One that takes evidence like Jesus of Nazareth into account.

If by this sixth sense we discern that God, ultimately, is good, then the universe he created, for all it's threats to our safety is good. And we, for all our threats to our own safety and safety of others have a share in the goodness of God and his universe. And life, for all its distress, is good.  (By the discernment of this sixth sense!)

If God is ultimately good then focusing on the good isn't naive, isn't Pollyanna. Isn't what some corny-prone people do to make them feel better, but the saps don't realize it's all a big fiction.

To focus on the good…..to look for it, and once you've spotted it, to attend to it, is to catch a glimpse of the goodness of God.  

What kind of thinking? NASB "let your mind dwell on [ponder] these things."

Turns out the practice of focused attention is one of  the factors responsible for health benefits of meditative prayer.
[March 1, part of next IJBS, 2 hour meditative prayer training]

During brain imaging studies of monks & nuns practicing meditative prayer, the part of the brain responsible for focused attention--frontal lobe--is especially active.

Meditators are focusing attention on a word or phrase associated with God, sustaining that attention, and when thoughts wander returning to it. The simple act of focusing the attention and returning to this focus of attention when the mind wanders is part of the beneficial response of meditation from a neurological point of view.

"whatever is good….let your mind dwell on these things": a form of focused attention.

So this is a practice that informs our prayer.
And this practice of prayer can inform the way we live in the world.

Empowers & equips us to be on the look-out for the good, while the guard dog is on the look-out for the bad.  So we get a little more balanced view of the world!

Perhaps for some, it's automatic, but for most it takes intentionally focused attention on the good.

Have you ever really enjoyed something that others don't enjoy?
Opera maybe.  Or NASCAR. Don't you want to say to the person who doesn't enjoy what you find so enjoyable, "Let me show you how to enjoy this….you're just not paying attention, you're missing the beauty, the fun, the pleasure."   

I don't enjoy NASCAR so I did a little experiment. What do people see in it? All I see is monotony. But they see something else.

They see, perhaps, a metaphor for life.  A race--with a beginning, middle, end.  But it's over in three hours. And you can sit in one place to watch it. And it's got drama: dangers to overcome, winners-losers. And teamwork--the pit stops and the crew working together. The inter-locking interdependencies: car on driver, driver on car, car and driver on the pit crew, everyone on everyone else.  

And I imagine the sensory input. Like I enjoy sitting in front of the bass speakers. Whoosh. In Nascar the smells. My wife loves horses and barns, and she learned to love the smell of a horse barn, which, if I'm not incorrect, is the smell of hay and horse urine and horse excrement.  So there's probably a way to learn to love the smell of the burning tires and the oil and grease and all that. 

I'm almost there! I'm almost seeing the good in NASCAR!

We do have the capacity to look for the good in things. 
Paul urges us to use this capacity. It's linked to our happiness.  

This is a way to pray. And this prayer informs how we see the world--beyond the eyes and ears of the inner guard dog. And seeing the world with this other set of eyes, our brains have a better shot at happiness.