Preparing for the extraordinary
I’ve always enjoyed learning how things work, that’s why I majored in Electrical Engineering and Telecommunications. Lately, I’ve developed an interest in learning how the brain works and its interaction with our body. More recently, I learned that although our emotions are processed in our brain, more precisely in our limbic brain, the sensations are felt in the body. In other words, our body feels that which our brains know.
All our senses hook us up to the real world, to a three dimensional reality where things are physical. When we’re dozed off on the couch watching TV late at night and hear a noise in the kitchen, our brain perks up and shifts our attention to what’s going on. When we accidentally touch a hot plate that just came out of the oven, our brain directs our full attention to what’s causing that burning sensation. When we’re in the elevator and smell that amazing reek of curry, our brain wanders into the possibility that it’s coming from our place. When we see our favourite food in the fridge, shove it in our mouths without any consideration and it tastes sour, our brain goes from excitement to frustration in the blink of an eye. In all cases, our senses perceive something in our environment, our brain interprets it as either pleasant or painful and it signals back our body to react appropriately.
Thus, all emotions we feel are bodily sensations of the communication between our senses and the meaning our brains give it. However, if the brain assigns certain meanings to certain feelings, we should be able to choose a different meaning if we see fit, right?! If you ask an Olympic athlete, for instance, whether he/she was nervous or anxious before the main event, they will 100% of the time respond that they were not nervous, but excited instead. On the other hand, if you’re about to walk out on stage to give your first public speech, you might as well feel nervous or anxious or fearful. Although we interpret those emotions differently - we judge them as either positive or negative in our mind - they have the exact same physical appearance. Our muscles get tense, we start breathing a bit shallower, our hearts race, we sweat and all our attention is on the future.
Furthermore, when our senses signal the brain, the brain activates certain neurological networks and they release chemicals back into our body. These chemicals are supposed to take our body back to homeostasis, relaxation and balance. Also, these chemicals induce electrical activity which translates into motor functions such as dropping the hot plate. We can then say that our brains have the unique ability to process electrical information and produce chemistry (hormones). Therefore, our thoughts (meaning we assign to events in our lives) are translated into hormones in our body. For instance, whether we come across a dingo or a crocodile in the jungle or whether we think about that coworker who presses our buttons very easily, our brains signal the adrenal gland to release some hormones in order to allow us to fight, run or hide away from the situation. Whether we see a hot sheila/bloke at a nightclub or whether we remember the amazing sexual experience we had last week, our brain will communicate with our sexual glands and they’ll release some hormones to make us have a physical experience of those thoughts. In cases which we don’t release/consume those hormones, they get stored in the body in the area of the associated gland. So, whether we had a sexual arousal or we didn’t address the conflict with our coworker, the associated hormones will either remain stored or continue to be produced which will obviously hinder the optimum operation of the body.
In a nutshell, whatever we feel in our body is supposed to enhance our intellectual understanding of a situation for better or worse. I’m not delusional enough to suggest that you stick your hands on a hotplate and think that it’s not burning or that you do something stupid to the hot guy/gal. I’m suggesting, though, that if we became aware of our bodily sensations in a safe environment and rehearsed the reactions we want to have when such emotions come up, we may significantly impact the way we behave in our lives. If we change our mind by rehearsing the attitudes we want to have, we will begin to create a life where our intentions are more likely to match our attitudes and our thoughts equal our actions. As we would have begun to become the person we’re meant to be, we will be able to create meaningful relationships, purposeful careers and ultimately happier and healthier communities.
