Rewire Emotional Addictions
Did you know that we can become addicted to emotions?
All emotions create chemistry in the body. The stronger the emotion, the bigger the dose of its specific chemistry.
When we experience an emotion frequently, the receptors on our cells get used to having big doses of those chemicals.
For example, anger creates a lot of chemistry designed to help us fight, such as adrenaline.
If we feel angry a lot, our cells get used to a steady dose of adrenaline. Having a lot of adrenaline coursing through our veins will start to feel normal.
The body will want a continuous “hit” of those chemicals. Without that hit it will feel out of balance, like something is missing - just like what happens with being addicted to any other substance such as drugs or alcohol.
So the brain will be primed to look for all the habitual things that trigger anger - the specific people, situations, thoughts, memories.
The same is true for all the survival emotions, such as fear, guilt, shame, depression, anxiety.
If we feel them a lot, our brain and body get addicted and then are wanting to create more of those emotions to feel “normal.”
The problem is that our bodies are designed to feel the chemistry of survival emotions only in short bursts - to cause us to take some action for our survival - not to be in those emotions the majority of the time as is common for many people in our stressful modern world.
When we’re frequently marinating in the chemistry of survival emotions, it’s very hard on our physical, mental, and emotional health.
Fortunately, we can unlearn our emotional addictions.
Start by noticing which survival emotions you feel often.
Choose one, and start noticing what triggers that emotion in you - what specific people, situations, thoughts, memories?
When your brain starts going down its familiar path to create that emotion to give you the familiar dose of chemicals, can you interrupt that pattern and redirect?
No emotions are “bad” but some (such as love, joy, gratitude, trust, inspiration) are definitely are more health-enhancing than others.
The less time you spend in survival emotions and the more time you spend in the chemistry of those uplifting emotions the healthier and happier you’ll be.
Love,
Liz
P.S. If you’re dealing with a serious and/chronic physical or mental health challenge, it can be helpful to be in a structured brain rewiring program.
The teachers/programs that have made a huge difference for my health and happiness are:
Dynamic Neural Retraining System: www.retrainingthebrain.com
Primal Trust: www.primaltrust.org
Dr. Joe Dispenza: www.drjoedispenza.com
I don’t receive a commission from these programs, I just want everyone to know about them because of the truly groundbreaking work they are doing!
