What are the causes of so many negative emotional states we seem to carry with us each day in our bodies, minds and spirits? One of the causes is we are usually stuck in the past, in our subconscious mind, and this shapes who we are today.
Most of the time in life we are responding on a subconscious level as though today were yesterday and we develop these automatic, knee-jerk reactions. Have you ever had the experience where maybe as a child you did not feel heard by your family and now as an adult when someone does not give you their full attention you become overly angered. Maybe you feel disregarded or rejected just as you did when you were a child and instead of telling the person how you are feeling, you overreact by yelling at the person or walking away from them. You may ask yourself later, “Why did I get so anger earlier? What was that about?” What was happening is you became angry because you felt hurt inside (a core hurt is usually the motivator behind anger) and the neurons that were wired long ago are now firing and you are responding as if today was yesterday. When we respond to this internal stimulus we keep rewiring the same neurons in our brains (associative memory). Once we do this, we are then responding to the emotions that come out as a result of this wiring (thoughts) and once we jump on the train of emotions we are off and running.
When we get caught up in our emotions there is a feedback loop. The emotions e.g., (fear, anger, depression) feed the physical response in our body (anxiety/panic/stress) which feeds the thoughts (I am not worthy, I am not good enough) which loops back to the emotions. The key is to stop before you react, take a deep breath and notice your thoughts. Reality check with yourself and remind yourself you are not same little boy or little girl, that you can decide now you want to react differently, knowing you have complete control over how you will respond to a given situation. Knowing this alone can greatly increase your self-esteem and self-worth and calm any negative emotional state you may be experiencing. May joy be with you every day!