Do you find yourself getting caught up
in unpleasant emotions or feelings more than you'd like? Are you
ready to move past them, or better yet through them in order to heal?
OK then, STOP! I know what you're thinking, easier said than done.
STOP is a favorite technique I learned in the teachings of Deepak
Chopra. First, I'll explain how to STOP, and then I'll give you a
little bit of a background on how it works.
S- Literally means stop, or in other
words, take a moment to pause and
T- Take 3 deep breaths.
O- Observe what chemical reactions are
going on in your body. Then,
P- Proceed in a positive direction.
It's important to stay in a place of
non-judgement with yourself during this process. There can be no
negative self-talk about the feelings you are experiencing. Accept
them. You're human. When dealing with my depression and bouts of self
harm, I learned that we are constantly creating our experiences. Our
current emotions are not what we will attract in the future, they are
an expression of what we are attracting right now. When we perceive
negative emotion, it is a symptom of resistance in the flow of our
life force and creating what we want. In other words, we are buying
into thoughts that are not true to our core being.
How does this relate to
us biologically?
The brain is comprised of tiny nerve
cells called neurons. These neurons have itty-bitty branches that
reach
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| Neural network |
Nerve cells that do not
fire together, no longer wire together. They lose their long-term
relationship each time we interrupt the thought process that produces
a chemical response in the body. When we start interrupting and
“Observing” the effects it takes, we are no longer the emotional
person that is responding to our environment in an automatic or
irrational way. Those nerve cells that are connected start breaking
their long-term association, and re-associating according to how we
“Proceed”. So stay positive, and create new long-term
associations that make you happy!
An example I can give
is with the concept of love, which is stored within this vast neural
network in the brain. We build the concept of love from many
different ideas. By adulthood, most of us have had our glitches along
the way and are operating in an emotionally detached place, as if
today were yesterday. We are not operating as an integrated whole,
and have transgressed to an earlier time when we are operating from
an emotionally reactive place or in a state of disconnection. When I
was at my lowest,
I connected love to
disappointment. When I thought about love, I practiced the memories
of pain, sorrow, anger and even rage over my relationship that was
falling apart. My rage was linked to hurt, which was linked to my ex,
which then connected back to the emotion of love. Add to this the
information I had stored from other adventures in life, and I had
refined and built a reality based on how I saw the world outside of
myself. The cycle kept repeating itself.
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| memories in neural network |
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| neuropeptide |
Why do we get stuck in these ceaseless
cycles? Our bodies are protein producing machines. In the hypothalamus, we make small-chain proteins called peptides, and
assemble them into neuropeptides or neurohormones that match
emotional states that we experience on a daily basis. There are
chemicals for anger, sadness, victimization, lust, joy, and love.
There is a chemical that matches every emotional state, and when we
experience an emotional state in our body, the hypothalamus will
unhesitatingly assemble its peptide and then release it through the
pituitary gland and into the bloodstream. The moment it makes it into
the bloodstream, it makes its way to any number of different parts in
the body.
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| Receptors on a cell |
Along the outside of
each cell are receptor sites that are receivers for incoming
information. This alchemy causes biochemical events which can change
the actual nucleus of the cell. Then cells reproduce based on this
cellular memory. This begs us to ask, “Are some emotions good or
bad?” Emotions are designed to chemically strengthen the things we
have put into our long-term memory. That is why we have them, they
illuminate the brilliance of our existence. It is our addiction to
our emotions that is the real problem. One of the most important
things we need to remember when we are addicted to emotions that are
destructive in nature is that it is not just psychological, it’s
biochemical as well.
Think about this: heroin uses the same receptor
equipage on the cells that our emotional chemicals use. If we can be
addicted to heroin, we most certainly be addicted to emotion.
So who is in the driver’s seat when
we respond to our emotions? We are. We are not our thoughts that
spark our theatrics. I can show you this in a very simple way. Think
of an apple, now think of a triangle, and finally think of the
happiest day you've ever had. You are no more that apple or triangle
than you the negative things you believe about yourself or your life
when you fall prey to turmoil. (As I type this, I look up at the TV
and see children bobbing for apples. I love synchronicity!)
I believe the mind/body correlation is
incredibly important. So the next time you find yourself in negative excitement, pause for a couple moments to take a couple deep
breaths, and observe what is chemically happening in your body. For
example, Are you feeling anger? Jealousy? Disappointment? Where is it
located in your body? How are you experiencing it? Is it a ball in
the pit of your stomach? What is it doing to your heart? After
accepting that you are experiencing the emotion in a state of
non-judgement, proceed positively! What's positive? It is anything
constructive that will build you up. What did I do? When I thought of
love and the feelings of depression would set in, I would stop and
think of my Grama Betty singing You Are My Sunshine to me. That
always brings a smile to my heart. I know that if I can do this, you
can too. Go ahead and STOP already!
In Love <3
