Next Week’s Reading & Reflection

The Mind Encodes Beliefs in the Brain

Beliefs form based on relational experiences, and then the brain encodes dangerous experiences physically as unhealthy thought trees and destructive neural pathways, or it encodes healthy beliefs as healthy thought trees, and constructive neural pathways. We won’t explain all that here, but if you want to learn more about this, we can give you some great resources. (Check out anything and everything on Dr. Caroline Leaf)

What’s important to know is that these beliefs encode physically in your brain - and they do this DEEP in your brain. So that means they aren’t easy to identify or pull out. 

What does “deep in your brain” mean? 

Sometimes we think of our brains as these computers with great intellectual processing power to make connections and learn. We hope you feel that way about your brain at least! But only 15% of your brain is working with cause and effect “logical” thinking and executive cognitive function. Only 15% of your brain speaks English (or any language for those of you who are multilingual!) 

This logical area of the brain is on the left front side of the brain, which is the end of the line when it comes to brain processes. Meaning, we process logically LAST. 

Fun Fact: This logical, left frontal part of the brain is the last part of the brain to develop in children. And it’s hardly functional AT ALL until age 3 and a half to 4 years old. So for you parents who’ve found yourself arguing a 3-year-old about a nonsensical thought, now you know, they don’t have a logical brain yet. (Check out the book Whole-Brain Child)

This place deep in our brains where we process things first is called the Limbic System. It’s a collection of structures in the brain that work together to process emotions, survival instincts, and automatic processes. It carefully records all things survival-based- food, sex, and safety (be it physical, emotional, or relational.) And it affects our emotional processing, our hormone production, and our instinctual responses. Our limbic system is the place where we encode our beliefs about what is safe, who is safe, and what is not. It’s the place where we process our experiences before ever putting them into words. (simplepsychology.com)

And this is why our beliefs drive our behaviors. 

Our limbic systems are our safety guard dogs.

They help us learn how to survive in dangerous situations and stay prepared for them in the future. And danger isn’t just lions, tigers, and bears, right? It’s anything related to food, sex, and relational, emotional, and physical safety. 

Just like with a guard dog, the danger doesn’t have to be exactly the same for the limbic system to sound the alarm, all it has to do is be REMINDED of the original danger, and the defense systems will light up in the brain. A guard dog barks viciously at anyone knocking on the door, not just dangerous intruders, right? 

In week 3, we’ll talk about what we experience and ways we cope with this response. But first, let’s give you an example of what this looks like in real life.

So let’s say an elementary school teacher berated me in front of the class for talking too much and called me rude. 

This event would be dangerous. And because it invoked shame, I probably wouldn’t talk to a trusted adult about the incident. So instead of being helped to reframe what my teacher did, I might form the belief that “Adults in authority/ or teachers don’t like me” (there are many beliefs I could form, like “I am rude when I talk” etc, but let’s use this one about teachers as an example.) 

So as a child, I would store this belief in my limbic system to help me avoid future danger, in hopes I wouldn't have to relive a moment like this and experience shame again. So this might mean that later on, I may feel panicked when I go to talk to any coach or teacher, especially if they reminded me of that original teacher in countenance or looks. And this could keep me, subconsciously, from asking for help, addressing problems the coach or teacher needs to know about, or it could keep me from important growth moments and mentorship! Why? All because my limbic system was remembering the original event and was primed to believe this similar one would be dangerous too. 

Now, this wound is not written in stone. It can be written over with an experience that reteaches the limbic system that teachers are safe. After all, our brains are always changing, and always able to rewire, no matter the damage. This may look like a coach or teacher celebrating me publicly for my questions, or another authority figure praising my talkativeness, or it could look like another authority figure reframing the event for me. Even the original offender, if she or he apologizes and works to regain trust, can reframe this experience over time. Then the wound could be rewritten. 

But until it is, I would continue to operate out of the belief that “adults or teachers don’t like me” that was encoded in my limbic system. The deep brain would do this to protect me from feeling the shame again, but obviously, this would have terrible consequences for me around coaches, teachers, professors, and perhaps bosses. This encoded belief would negatively affect my life and work choices and would keep me from advocating for myself. 

Until the limbic system experiences safety in the same area where it previously experienced pain and fear, the wound remains an unconscious and influential part of how we function and survive in this world.

Self-Reflection: Looking Back

1. Let’s take a look at yourself from a bird’s eye view. Or, if it helps, picture yourself just like in the movie  “Inside Out”, like you are in the brain control tower looking at your core memories. (the things that have stored themselves in your limbic system). Reflect on some of your formational experiences and see how they relate to food, sex, physical or relational safety.

2. Based on your self evaluation from last week, what were your top 3 struggles? What do each of these struggles relate the most to: food, sex, or safety (relational or physical)?

3. Did anyone in your family (of origin) struggle in a similar way? How did that affect you? 

4. Did you have any experiences of pain or shame around any of the above, especially early in life?  

5. What did that experience teach you about the world? How did that affect you long term? 

Dangerous Emotions

Ok, so we see how that works, then? Beliefs encode into our brains and that affects our behaviors. 

Now, what’s SUPER important to note is that the brain doesn’t just associate past painful situations with danger. This good old guard dog inside of us actually associates certain EMOTIONS with danger.

To rephrase: our instinctual brains remember certain EMOTIONS as dangerous. 

So to keep us from this danger, our limbic system tries as hard as possible to SQUASH the danger- the emotions- before they lead to something worse! Does that seem problematic, or what? Why does the brain do this? Surely that’s some kind of malfunction, right?

Well, we are programmed to associate certain emotions with danger because of the biological threat they represent. 

Let’s start with fear. The emotion of FEAR can lead to the danger of PANIC. 

You ever have a panic attack? What’s it feel like? Like you’re being chased, like you can’t get away, like the walls are closing in. One study showed that from 2009-2011 there were about 1.3 million anxiety-related ER visits. In another study 58% of ER visits due to chest pain were anxiety induced or related and NOT cardiovascular. Panic is very real in the body. Panic quite literally presents itself as potential death. 

So what does the limbic system do? It starts overreacting to fear so it never has the chance to turn into panic. 

How about RELATIONAL TENSION? The emotional experience of relational tension can lead to the danger of ABANDONMENT.

The limbic system, especially at a young age, equates abandonment with death. And that’s because if you're abandoned when you're young, you can't survive. We were born dependent on others, and remain that way. Therefore, avoiding abandonment is a survival issue - and the limbic system can do that by avoiding the relational tension that leads there. 

Next is embarrassment. The emotion of EMBARRASSMENT can lead to the danger of TOXIC SHAME.

Most psychologists agree that toxic shame is somewhere near the root of every problem we have. Toxic shame is formed when someone says YOU are wrong - not what you did was wrong… but YOU are wrong. YOU are bad. YOU are unfixable. The limbic system will do whatever it can to avoid that feeling… because it feels like death.

Likewise, the emotions of DESPAIR or SADNESS can lead to the danger of DEPRESSION.

This is one of the reasons why anxiety and depression are so closely linked… even though they are completely different neurologically. Depress means to slow down or inhibit… and anxiety is all about speeding up. And that’s because limbically, anxiety is a way of speeding up the body and brain in a desperate attempt to outrun depression. And the fear of depression is overwhelming, because depression is an inability to function properly. And that is a real danger. 

Unfortunately, when our emotions trigger a survival response from the guard dog in our brains, this creates a big problem! Why? Our emotions are God-given tools, even the negative ones. Each one has an important role to play in our lives. We need to be able to recognize and feel our emotions in order to change. I know, some of us hate emotions. Sorry… but here’s the upside of them.

Fear can literally save us, because some things are terrible for us and we should be afraid of them! We should be afraid of our babies choking so we cut up their food smaller and watch them while they eat. We should be afraid of really big snakes! Fear can keep us and others alive. 

Relational tension alerts us, as it signals to us that we hurt someone we love, or that we crossed their boundary, or it tells us that the relationship needs work! That tension can help us repair the relationship, and get back into the tribe or the family.

Embarrassment cues us to learn what is unhelpful in certain social settings, or it teaches us that a person or group of people are unaccepting, shaming, and therefore unsafe. 

Heightened anxiety gives us the ability to act swiftly, with great attention. It signals our brains to release extra dopamine, which blocks out background noise in our brain and says something is dangerous, something is important, and I need to focus on it at the expense of other things so I can act accordingly. 

And sadness connects us to God and others. Crying releases stress immediately after you release tears, calming your sympathetic nervous system. And when you show your sadness to others, and dare say cry in their presence, this releases oxytocin, a bonding hormone! Sadness shared connects us deeply with each other and can drive us closer together.  It can allow others to care for you and gives opportunity for deeper attachment.

All of these point to a crucial reality: PAIN. IS. NECESSARY.

Pain is always a signal that something is out of alignment. Something is off inside of us. It’s a message and an opportunity to fix something, attend to something, and change something. 

So when our limbic system is so scared of encountering these emotions, and works to squash them, well, we miss out on the message that pain is trying to communicate to us. Unfortunately, that’s not all we miss out on. When our guard goes up, something else happens. We become resistant not only to experiencing negative emotions, but also positive emotions. 

Have you ever felt this feeling of protecting yourself? Have you ever felt true joy around someone while you were protecting yourself? Of course not. Because once our guard is up, we don’t get to pick and choose what emotions we experience! We minimize all of them.

Another way to visualize this is to think of our emotional lives as a pool. A 2-foot pool is safe, but you never get to swim, have any real fun, and there’s usually a kid-pee in there. A 10-foot pool is dangerous. But you can go off the diving board and actually have some fun. The depth is delightful.

I realized this was happening to me when I was upset with my spouse, but I had to attend to the kids and make them breakfast. When the 3 year old began joyfully showing off his cool new balance trick, and looked to me for approval, I had to fake enthusiasm. “Wow, bud, so cool!” Normally, I’d think it was adorable and legitimately enjoy the kid being so proud of himself! Today, not so much. I was shut down and had no ability to have real joy. And dang, with kids that’s EXHAUSTING! 

When we are guarding ourselves against certain emotions, we end up in a pretty shallow pool. 

But there’s good news here in that our shallow pool doesn’t have to stay that way!

No matter how long our guard has been up, how badly or how many times we’ve been wounded by people, Jesus can and will HEAL our wounds and HEAL our brains (the place we encode our experiences in beliefs). 

The real Jesus binds up the broken hearted. In technical talk and thanks to what we’ve learned about these amazing brains we have- He rewires the neural pathways to lead to LIFE! 

Self-Reflection: Pain in Action 

6. When has pain in your life driven you to make a hard change? 

7. When has pain driven someone in your life to grow and become better? 

8. What are some things that you do to escape, run from, or numb out pain in your life currently?

9. How adverse are you to physical pain?? 

10. What about emotional pain? Do you tend to face it or run from it?

11. What were you taught about emotions from your family of origin? Did your family model accepting emotions, or encourage squashing them? 

12. What would you guess is your emotional depth this month? Why? 

13. Where/when/with whom do I feel the most joy?

This Week’s Risk

Identify something painful that you are “running from” (avoiding thinking or talking about or numbing) and share that with someone this week? The point is not to face the pain necessarily, but just share with someone safe what you are trying to avoid, and why. Share this with God too, and ask him for wisdom to move towards it in the future.