Healing Emotional Trauma – Part 4

Neural Nets And Habit Formation

Every experience we go through, leaves an imprint on the mind, the strength of which is based upon the intensity of the pain or pleasure involved. This imprint becomes the platform from which our daily thoughts crystallize and grow. With repetition there is habit formation and ultimately bondage. When an event is emotionally charged, everything else fades into the background, the logical mind shuts down, and the new message bypasses the logical, protective and critical mind and goes straight into the subconscious. It is the unresolved wounds inside us that are helping to generate these painful experiences.

The brain is made up of brain cells called neurons. These neurons have small branches that reach out and connect to other neurons to form a neural net. Each place where they connect is integrated into a thought or a memory. The brain builds up all its thoughts based upon the ability to learn and remember the relationship between unrelated items. 

Emotional Responses Are Associated With Past Experiences

The thought and the feeling of anger, for example, is stored in a vast neural net. Our concept of anger, however, is made up of many other different ideas. Some people, for example, may associate anger with losing a competitive game while others don’t feel angry if they lose whatsoever. Others may react in anger when they or someone else is late, or is disorganized and so on. The key to remember here is that we associate the anger response with a past experience.

If our parents scolded us for leaving a mess there is a high probability we will not tolerate disorder when we grow up. And so, we begin to realize just how much of who we are is not us at all, but instead our mind’s way of grouping together ideas and concepts based on early experiences that now shape our personality in adulthood. In other words, any information that we process, that we take in from the environment, is always colored by the experiences that we’ve had in the past, and our subsequent emotional response is connected to the emotions we associate with that same experience.

Have you ever wondered just how someone with an angry disposition seems to find themselves in situation after situation that tempts them to react in anger? The same can be said for people that are sad, shy, lonely, fearful, or any number of other temperaments. It is as if we are creating a pattern where we attract more of who we are into our daily lives just to experience more of the same. This, of course, makes it extremely difficult to change and rise above our insecurities and old behavior patterns. 

The Power of Neuropeptides

Actually, this fascinating phenomenon can be illustrated through our biochemistry. When we experience an emotion, the hypothalamus releases neuropeptides, or chemical signals used by neurons to communicate information, into the bloodstream. Incredibly, there is a neuropeptide for every emotion. Along the outside of the cells are billions of receptors, which are receivers of new information. The neuropeptides attach to the receptors, setting off a whole series of biochemical events within the cell, some of which even cause changes in the cell’s nucleus.

Neuropeptides are extremely powerful chemicals that are very addictive. In fact, the chemicals we manufacture within ourselves as humans are much more powerful and addictive than synthetic drugs. An individual may be just as addicted to anger, fear, depression, sadness, controlling others, or their insecurities as a person can be addicted to alcohol, opioids, heroin or cocaine. The cells in your body become addicted to this particular neuropeptide and literally call out to your brain to satisfy their craving. 

Furthermore, we become addicted to the people or environment that trigger the respective emotion in us. In the example of anger or depression, an individual would start feeling angry or depressed and then invariably start thinking about why they are feeling this way, causing their brain to secrete more anger or depression neuropeptides, which are hungrily absorbed by the cells in our body. 

Every time these cells split and multiply, they will create new cells with more anger or depression-related neuropeptide receptors, bringing about more and more craving for anger or depression. We can see how repetitive cycles of emotional addiction are created and perpetuated. The more ‘negative’ neuropeptide receptors a cell has the less ‘positive’ receptors there are room for. With each replication the cells of the body grow weaker until illness results. Everyone is literally emotionally addicted to their past. 

Our Past Dictates Our Emotions

Our past is all that we have as a reference point to dictate our emotions. Therefore, unknowingly we are continually reliving and recreating our past. When you practice an emotion over and over again, your nerve cells begin to have a long-term relationship with that emotion. For example, if you get angry or anxious on a daily basis, you will change your brain chemistry in such a way that you begin to crave these states of being. Your neuro-receptors will begin to expect to be fed by these negative emotions and, eventually, your personality will adopt them as your core traits.