A highly emotional state, or a cocktail of feelings, is fertile ground for development of our personality, and the more we feel these feelings, the more embedded they become.
Those repeated emotions go on to become part of our tapestry that we define as "who we think we are", or our
neural infrastructure. Modern science also tells us that a highly emotive state is where we are most open to the power of suggestion. Advertisers, movie producers and sales people are way ahead of the game here. They understand the more emotionally moved we are by what we are been sold, the more "buy-in" they get from us.
Our relationships are also a good mirror of this. Falling in love would be the most powerful of relationships we can ever experience, where our internal world gets rocked by a cocktail of hormones, leaving us open and vulnerable. Awesome if the significant other's intention is equal to our own, but if not then we can find ourselves caught up in something unhealthy. In extreme situations this situation can lead to physical or emotional abuse where the intention is to control rather than love. So what does neuroscience say about finding ourselves stuck in situations like this? What do we do when we are immobilised by our emotions, leaving us denying our own logic?
Sadly, children have no choice as their brain is in development, but as adults we certainly do have choices. Firstly there is nothing wrong with you if you find yourself in this situation, you are simply responding as nature would have it. When we are significantly moved by something or someone our attention attaches to who or what was the cause of that feeling, creating the belief that we then "need" whatever it is that has so deeply affected us. Hence why so many shut down emotionally and/or mask feelings as it's too painful to really face being vulnerable. Not too many have the courage to go there, yet it is through vulnerability that growth can occur.
Drug suppliers, legal or illegal, understand this about us as well: they know that any human being finds it hard to break any sort of dependency even when it's an unhealthy one, and all because of that first initial highly emotional state that was ignited in the very beginning. Modern science tells us that the way to break that circuitry is to simply create another highly emotive state equally as powerful with another set of thinking/feeling/acting. My mahi is working with people to re-programme, or re-create that feedback loop to create a new mind map, one which is more conducive to the sort of life that they really deserve and one in which they are no longer the victim of but rather the creator of. Our habits are ours alone to own, no one can change them but ourselves and my role is to support people breaking the habit of themselves.
For more conversations about our thinking/acting/feeling cycle seek me out on Facebook and/or register for a workshop as part of La Fiesta, February 24. Find the event on www.facebook.com/1on1onone/ or text or message me. www.carlascoachingforhealth.com