Like I said, you can choose to be happy, because you and your brain are so smart.
The cerebrum, the newer part of your brain (relatively speaking; it wasn't born yesterday) is more technologically advanced than the reptilian, where the emotion of fear is born.
If you begin to plow the field of fear as it becomes feelings (that is, as your cerebrum begins to process the original emotion), you can think about and route it out. You'll notice something fascinating: your brain may disguise what is really your fear as anything but. It might wear a three-piece suit of reasonableness, or it might turn into a "Waldo," so well hidden in the fibers of your other thoughts and feelings that you'll miss seeing it there for what it truly is.
Whose brain is it, anyway? It's not fear's brain, even though fear is tough. It's got to be; it has a tough job of keeping you safe. It just doesn't know that, in your technological world, not everything you're afraid of is a "fight or flight" situation. (Imagine yourself inviting a cave-man or -woman to visit your home full of DVDs and IPODs.)
Get in there and fight for yourself. Interrogate those feelings until you know you've shown them who's boss.
It is you, isn't it?
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Monday, September 1, 2008
Like I said, you can choose to be happy (2)
It works something like this. After fear's job of protecting us is passed, the emotion - fear - becomes a feeling in our newer, more technologically advanced brains. Said another way, your brain now has the time to wonder about what just happened.
This is when it gets interesting. You might be a person who denies your feelings, or one who "flies off the handle" at the prospect of a new feeling.
What you always are, though, is a human, able to think about your feelings. That means you are always able to decide how you're going to deal with them. It's just the way you're made.
If you take some time to ask the feeling about itself, you may eventually discover you're afraid of something. If you're brave enough to do that, you may also discover:
* you don't have to be afraid of whatever it is
* you don't want to be afraid; and
* most importantly, that the fear itself is evaporating while you're thinking about it (or writing about it, or talking about it, even to yourself).
I like to write about my fears, to interrogate them thoroughly (cross-examining them like a lawyer). When I do, they always disappear, leaving me free, again, to be happy - if I choose.
If it sounds simplistic, it is...and, well, it isn't. Because fear is an emotion designed to keep us safe, we have an investment in it. Sometimes we choose to hold onto it for seemingly no reason at all. If we can use our brain power over our fear, we've achieved quite a lot!
This is when it gets interesting. You might be a person who denies your feelings, or one who "flies off the handle" at the prospect of a new feeling.
What you always are, though, is a human, able to think about your feelings. That means you are always able to decide how you're going to deal with them. It's just the way you're made.
If you take some time to ask the feeling about itself, you may eventually discover you're afraid of something. If you're brave enough to do that, you may also discover:
* you don't have to be afraid of whatever it is
* you don't want to be afraid; and
* most importantly, that the fear itself is evaporating while you're thinking about it (or writing about it, or talking about it, even to yourself).
I like to write about my fears, to interrogate them thoroughly (cross-examining them like a lawyer). When I do, they always disappear, leaving me free, again, to be happy - if I choose.
If it sounds simplistic, it is...and, well, it isn't. Because fear is an emotion designed to keep us safe, we have an investment in it. Sometimes we choose to hold onto it for seemingly no reason at all. If we can use our brain power over our fear, we've achieved quite a lot!
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