I want to explain how your brain runs on default to create negative emotions in your life. It is a coping skill you developed, and probably also one that was modeled by your parents. Just like theirs did to them.
I will explain how emotional tendencies are both inherited through genes, and how at a cellular level we become addicted to the vibrations from neurotransmitters and the energy they produce (feelings).
It all makes sense from a survival standpoint, if we aren’t dissatisfied or in fear of danger, we won’t progress or stay safe. Right?
This is what our primitive brain wants us to think. And 95 % of our 60-70,000 thoughts come from these subconscious programs in our primitive brain.
But by educating ourselves, we can evolve our brains and think on purpose. Not relying on old thought and feeling programs, and opening up to feeling every emotion because living in fear does not serve us.
When you think about how life has treated you unfairly and blame others for your unhappiness, you create neuropeptides that make that vibration of emotion in your body. A physical manifestation of your thought.
When our brain is functioning on default, we look to the past to interpret how we should think and feel about the future. Our memories are charged with feelings. Only the most emotionally charged occurrences are stored in the brain long term.
So even thinking about a memory from the past will trigger the molecules that cause that same feeling.
When remembering a situation where you felt victimized, you create chemicals that cause feelings of victimization in your body. You may remember how your parents divorced and your mother was working so much she barely had time for you. More chemistry creates more feelings.
You start to look for examples to reinforce your thoughts about the world. I would probably be more lovable if I hadn’t gained 20 pounds. (Chemicals dropped). That binge eating I have been doing is probably because my parents made me clean my plate and gave me an abnormal relationship to food. Feeling super victimized now.
Say this pattern of blame and victimization continues for years. You continue to find examples of how life is not fair. And like a snowball, the thought-feeling loop gains momentum as you focus on it. The neurochemistry is strong. And automatic. And feels normal, comfortable, familiar. More of your brain and neural circuitry is devoted to this feeling you practice and find evidence for.
When we have neurotransmitters or neuropeptides at elevated levels, due to thinking the same way over and over, the new cells produced have more receptor sites to accomodate all of the chemicals. It begins to require more and more chemicals to reach the level of threshold. This is what Dr Joe Dispenza refers to as being “addicted” to certain emotions.
It is now easier to see why some people struggle with the same things over and over again in different relationships they find. Someone could be addicted to feelings of shame. She may have inherited neural pathways from her mother. And then produced many of these chemicals and fired these series of neurons repeatedly in childhood.
She may be seeking, at a chemical level, situations which create shame.
An area of the brain, the reticular activating system is entirely devoted to seeking out examples of what our brain already believes! It would be overwhelming to our brain to process a bunch of information that questions our view of reality all of the time.
Just like you can focus on just looking for yellow cars and not notice how many cars of other colors there are, she looks for examples everyday of why this program is right and she should feel ashamed. She finds them.
When she finds examples in the world she thinks more shameful thoughts, she produces more chemicals of shame. The thoughts provide the cells with the chemical balance the receptors have grown to expect. This is how the body controls the mind.
Neuroscience has now shown that the areas of the brain that are triggered by guilt and shame are the same as the reward centers.
Probably because that can be beneficial for survival. If we feel bad about things we do that may get us kicked out of our tribe, we will probably survive longer.
This thought-feeling-thought loop becomes our autopilot.
Not only do we continually look for situations to reinforce our thoughts, we also behave in ways that create more of those results in our life.
If someone is feeling shame about being a bad mom, she will not be showing up as her best self, or showing up at all. When feeling a negative vibration you can not act in a positive way. Then she will have more evidence that she is a “bad mom”. And gets more of the feelings she has become addicted to.
As we stop having new experiences and activating new neural networks, we begin to rely more on using the same circuitry as a default throughout our days and lives.
Just like a road with increased traffic, the cells begin to suffer overuse. With more demand, the cells are reproduced more quickly and cheaply. Plus default setting is to live in fight or flight is taxing for our body to maintain long term. Often we don’t sleep well, (high alert!) and don’t give our cells the time to rest and repair as they should. This is what causes disease and aging- to our cells and ultimately to our bodies.
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