Have you experienced a situation where one comment seems to set off a very different reaction to what you were expecting?
Perhaps your husband walked in the room and asked ‘ are you wearing that today?’ and suddenly WW3 begins, as the comment seemed to trigger different emotions in you, and you didn’t even recognise them, but suddenly you are now crying saying, ‘see I knew I was fat and not pretty!’ Or maybe on Facebook where a benign comment triggers a barrage of angry retorts and you being de-friended and you left feeling like….. What was that about?
Well, there is a good reason for it, a scientific reason, and once you understand the puzzle and learn how to unravel it, you can walk in healing for yourself and also have a greater understanding of others behaviour. Its called the science of neuroplasticity, or as the heading said, ‘feelings that fire together wire together’. In other words when a situation, or an emotion, a thought, a smell, a sound or even a saying associates with something, then every time this thought, feeling etc is experienced in the future, it associates with the first experience.
This is why you can say a benign statement to someone and suddenly they are in an emotional turmoil, because to you the statement was congenial, but to them it sparked off feelings from their past, and they then behave and react in a certain way.
Neuroplasticity is used in marketing because they know the power of it. For instance years ago when you flew Thai Airways you were given an orchard? Why? Because hopefully every time you smell an orchard in the future it would remind you of the airline. Have you ever heard a song and it takes you back to your first love, your school days, your first dance, your wedding day etc? This is neuroplasticity.
The thing is when used in the right way it is harmless and causes no unwanted emotions, but when these feelings are wrapped around negative experiences, then thats when we have issues!!
Lets go back to the comment from our husband. Many times during our childhood negative comments are made to us, they trigger different emotions and unconsciously what happens is years later when one of those same emotions is triggered again, ALL the emotions that we experienced as a child suddenly come up and we react.
Let me give you an example: When I was 5 years old I had a birthday party and my sister who was 10 years older was to do all the games. Suddenly all the attention was on her, my friends thought she was awesome and I felt, ‘rejected, unpopular and a failure.’ As years went by every time one of my friends went to an others friend house without me, for example, suddenly fears of failure, hurt, rejection, anger, lack of confidence would surface, and I not even realise why all these emotions would come up, but I then had certain behaviour that would go along with these emotions. I refused to stick at anything for example for fear of failure and other emotions would trigger at unrelated times.
Why did it happen……… feelings that fired off my neurones as a 5 year old were now wired together as an adult, and though the event was over, the feelings and behaviour were not.
Often I hear people particularly in church excuse bad behaviour by saying, ‘ they act like that because they were hurt by leadership etc’ and this is the reason for aggression, strife, gossip etc. The thing is it isn’t the hurt from leadership really, as we are adults and we should be mature enough to handle insensitive remarks, it is the fact the remarks and actions from the leadership, though hurtful, were usually not the real issue, the real issue is that a neurone was fired off in our brain and past emotions are wired into that one neurone and so this is why a barrage of emotions suddenly appear.
If you have the chance it is best not to mollycoddle the person when they have a reaction, but see where the emotion was first triggered, and how it wired with other feelings, and how you can help them can rewire their neurones for the future.
This is good leadership. When a leader has identified his own wiring and is then able to help another rewire their feelings in a positive way and create growth for all.
Paul though he had no knowledge of neuroplasticity was able to bring future science into his day, very similar to how Jacob was able to bring genetics into his business centuries before DNA and genes were even discovered. Paul said in Romans 12v 2 ‘be transformed by the renewing of your mind.’ When you meditate regularly you build synapses and synaptic networks in the brain, or put simply as the mind changes, the brain changes, or the brain takes the shape of whatever it rests upon. So as we meditate on the Word of God we are building a new synapsis and you are changing the wiring. When we meditate ( and oh how we do) on the negative comment, hurt, situation etc ( and let others meditate on it by ‘sharing’ it with us) we are reinforcing the old wiring, not understanding that those present situations are because of past wiring and still allowing our brain to reflect on the past unconsciously.
Again Paul says put those things that are behind, behind, because Paul had actually tapped into the power of the age to come and was able to tell us what neuroscience has only just caught up with.
So next time a situation triggers in you a negative response, stop, look and think when was the first time I ever felt that emotion? This will answer where the neurone was first triggered, and then through meditating in his Word, AT THAT POINT, I change the wiring, change the response and create a new emotion next time that situation happens again.
Be Blessed
Amanda
www.wellsministries.com.au
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