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DR JOHN DEMARTINI - Updated 9 hours ago
At some point in your life, you may have found yourself highly emotive, reacting strongly to some perceived event or stimulus that didn’t seem entirely rational to create such an emotional response. Yet if you looked a little deeper beneath the surface, you may have found that there was likely a previous experience in the past that remained unresolved, and this new stimulus reminded you of that earlier event, and as a result, up comes an emotion.
This may indicate how your past could be underlying some of your emotional reactions in the present moment.
So let me unpack that a bit.
There is an area in the lower subcortical part of your brain called the amygdala. Anytime you have a stimulus, some event or some experience that you perceive to be positive or negative, the amygdala assigns an emotional charge, or what is called a valency, to that experience.
If you judge the experience as being POSITIVE or NEGATIVE, that charge is then stored as an episodic memory in the hippocampus, which is another internal nucleus of the brain. Not only does your hippocampus record it as an episodic memory, but it also records the detail: the place, tim, content, context, direction, distance, and location. The result is that the event is now stored as positively charged, or negatively charged.
Say, for example, that you have had an experience in the past that was, in your perception, extremely painful, and you have not yet identified or acknowledged the potential upsides to it, then the hippocampus stores that episodic memory as a trauma, a tragedy, a turmoil, a terrible event. A negative without a positive. Unless you recognize the benefits, positives or upsides to the event - that experience can remain there valent and unresolved. And if you keep seeing only the downsides and not the upsides, then it just sits there, festering away, stored in the hippocampus as a negative event.
Now, any association that reminds you in some way - the sound, the sight, the texture, the feel, or whatever it may be - that links back to an earlier event can trigger the SAME emotional reaction you once had, simply from a colour, it’s touch, a sound, or a smell.
Let’s say that you had an experience where you were infatuated with and saw all the positives and none of the negatives, all the upsides and none of the downsides. Perhaps that individual wore a particular cologne or perfume, a certain odour or fragrance. Then, years later, you meet somebody else with that very same scent, and up come those old positive emotions and memories.
That is because your amygdala assigned a positive valency to your hippocampus, and it was stored there. When a new stimulus resembles it, that stored memory may be reactivated, compounded, and dramatized in the present moment.
So you may find yourself reacting more intensely to something new, when it is likely reminding you of something old. It is like the dog salivating when the bell rings, because of the repeated association between the bell and eating.
How to Dissolve and Neutralize the Trigger
If you can isolate that original event, you can go back into it and ask a new set of questions. The quality of your life is based on the quality of the questions you ask, and the questions you ask can make you conscious of information you were previously unconscious of.
For example, if you had an event where you were conscious of the DOWNSIDES and unconscious of the UPSIDES, you can ask: How specifically is this event, at the moment of this stimulus, helping me in my life? How is it helping me spiritually, mentally, in my career, financially, in my family, socially, or physically? How is it helping me fulfill what is most important, most meaningful, or highest in priority in my life?
When you ask and answer those questions, when you stack up the advantages, and when you hold yourself accountable to look until you see them, you begin to neutralize the original event. Now, instead of having a trigger, a hook, when somebody reminds you of a previous event, it becomes NEUTRAL. It has no lingering impact.
The result is likely that the new stimulus is no longer associated with something painful from the past, and you don’t have that same reaction. To put it differently - when you balance the equation, you release it from the hippocampus memory and it moves into more cortical areas, particularly the prefrontal regions of the brain, where you have greater reasoning, foresight, and self-governance. As a result, you will tend to feel as though you are more governed and back in control instead of out of control.
Emotional Baggage and the Weight of Intrusive Thoughts
To recap what we have covered: anytime you assign a valency to an event - that is highly positive or highly negative, instead of neutral charge, any of the associations connected to it - the smell, the taste, the feel, the contact, the touch - can become a trigger. Later, when you encounter another stimulus with any of those same associations, it may trigger the same emotional response, dramatized from the original event.
So, your past can have a real impact on your emotional reactions today. That is one of the reasons why the past is often called your emotional baggage. You carry it with you. It weighs you down, almost gravitationally, and can hold you in a kind of bondage.
Anything you infatuate with - where you see only the positives without the negatives - occupies space and time in your mind and runs you, creating intrusive thoughts. Anytime you resent something and see only the downsides without the upsides, the same thing happens. It occupies space and time in your mind and runs you with intrusive thoughts.
Insomnia is often the result of these highly valent memories. They run through your mind at night, keeping you on alert. Why? Because when something is highly polarized POSITIVELY, you tend to fear losing it. In your brain, it represents PREY - the fear of loss of that which you seek. And when something is highly polarized NEGATIVELY, you see it as PREDATOR - the fear of gain of that which you are trying to avoid. Both keep you vigilant, staying awake as though you need to guard against starvation or against being consumed.
So the reason you may struggle to sleep is essentially because of the intrusive thoughts created by these highly valent systems stored in your subcortical hippocampus or subconscious mind.
How Your Subconscious Stores the Past
Your subconscious mind is essentially the amygdala and the hippocampus. These are the new neural correlates for what was once referred to as the subconscious mind. Anytime you carry baggage from the past, it is highly likely to affect you in the future.
What is actually there in reality, and what you believe you are experiencing in the moment, may not be the same thing - because of the baggage you bring with you when you have a new perception. This is why you may sometimes go berserk and overreact to something that, on the surface, seems trivial. You may even ask yourself, Why did I overreact to that? It is because the new stimulus reminded you of things that were stored back there - highly polarized episodic memories that you never neutralized and cleared.
That is one of the reasons I conduct my signature program, the Breakthrough Experience. I show people how, through the Demartini Method, you can ask precise questions that uncover the lineage of your baggage and allow you to clear and dissolve it. Instead of being an automaton, reacting blindly to misinformation and stimuli, you move into governance. You see both sides simultaneously.
When you see both sides of an event and bring it to neutrality, you don’t have these emotional reactions. But the moment you are valent - highly positively or negatively charged - you are likely to react.
In other words, anything in your past that has not been neutralized becomes your baggage. Anything you judge, whether it is more positives than negatives, or more negatives than positives, is a judgment - and that judgment is what weighs you down.
Dissolving Your Buttons and Regaining Control
To see both sides of an event simultaneously and in balance is to love it. When you truly love something, you are less likely to have these emotional reactions. But when you hold judgments - when you carry polarized perceptions and valent stored perceptions - you remain vulnerable. You function almost like an automaton, reacting to stimuli. Anything that reminds you of the past can pull you into a positive or negative response.
That is why people say, “You push my buttons.” But your buttons are your buttons. They are simply reminders of what you have not yet neutralized or held yourself accountable to neutralize.
The Demartini Method at the Breakthrough Experience will help you dissolve the buttons, the hooks, the triggers, and the subconsciously stored baggage from the hippocampus - those highly polarized episodic memories that keep you vigilantly alert with the fear of loss of prey or the fear of gain of predator.
Anything you label as positive represents prey. Anything you label as negative represents predator. Your body and mind react in survival mode to anything that reminds you of those events. Anything you haven’t loved runs your life until you love it. That is why I give people tools - to help them identify and dissolve those charged perceptions.
What is remarkable is that once you neutralize it, the same stimulus can appear, and you no longer react. You are in control. You regain authority over your perceptions, your decisions, and your actions - if you know how to balance them. Anytime your perceptions are imbalanced, the external world runs you. Anytime they are balanced, you run you.
That is what the Demartini Method offers: sets of questions to dissolve the hooks, the triggers, and the buttons from the past that continue to impact your reactions today.
I have shared this model with you so you can see how your past may be influencing your present reactions. And in doing so, to know that you have a solution if you want it.
If you don’t mind being triggered again and again, then you can keep letting those buttons run you. But if you would prefer to dissolve them - so that you run you, and you live with self-governance - then come to the Breakthrough Experience. There I will show you the methodology, teach you the questions, and help you become conscious of what you have been unconscious of. That way, instead of being reactive, you become proactive, poised, present and powerful.
To Sum Up
- Your amygdala assigns an emotional charge, or what is called a valency, to your experiences.
- Your hippocampus records episodic memories together with detail: the place, the time, the content, the context, the direction, the distance, the location.
- Anything that is polarized, where you perceived more negatives than positives, or more positives than negatives, is stored in the hippocampus as an episodic memory.
- Your past can have a real impact on your emotional reactions today. That is one of the reasons why the past is often called your emotional baggage.
- When something is highly polarized positively, you tend to fear losing it. It represents prey - the fear of loss of that which you seek.
- When something is highly polarized negatively, you see it as predator - the fear of gain of that which you are trying to avoid.
- Anything in your past that has not been neutralized will most likely become your baggage.
- To see both sides of an event simultaneously and in balance is to love it.
- Anything you haven’t loved runs your life until you love it.
- Anytime your perceptions are imbalanced, the external world runs you. Anytime they are balanced, you run you.
If you would love to learn how to master your emotions, dissolve your triggers, and take command of your life, I would love to see you at my next Breakthrough Experience. There, I will show you the methodology, guide you through the questions, and help you transform your perceptions so you can live with greater self-governance, balance, and power.
Are you ready for the NEXT STEP?
If you’re seriously committed to your own growth, if you’re ready to make a change now and you’d love some help doing so, then click on the LIVE chat button bottom right of your screen and chat to us now.
Alternatively, you can book a FREE Discovery call with a member of the Demartini Team.
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Important Notice:
The content shared in this blog is for education and personal development. It is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any psychological or medical conditions. The information and processes shared are for general educational purposes only and should not be considered a substitute for professional mental-health or medical advice. If you are experiencing acute distress or ongoing clinical concerns, please consult a licensed health-care provider.
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