How can we stop the “worry circuit”?
Welcome back to another in the series of blogs about how our brain automatically alters our story and reality.
In our brain there is an actual “worry circuit” that is there to help us focus on genuine risks and gives us cause to feel concern so we do something to reduce the risk of a real problem for us.
The worry circuit automatically alters our focus and thoughts, that is its purpose.
If our early conditioning gave us lots of reasons to worry, our perspective may be that we are vulnerable to things happening “to us”.
If we were conditioned to worry too much, it is generally because we learned an affect of fear or apprehension that may not have had a basis in reality. This is an affect we picked up from a parent that had anxiety and fear. Conditioned fear is passed down easily. It is time we got rid of this fear so other generations can live a better life.
The problem for us is that if our conditioned fear makes us worry, we feel vulnerable and experience our life as a nightmare. Sometimes we feel fear and do not know why, as in a nightmare where something is chasing us that we are unable to see.
When we are awake we look for what is causing our fear and often continue looking until we find something. The problem for us is we add “how we feel about something” to what we see to get the value and meaning it has for us. If we are anxious we may be irritable, tense, in pain from guarding in our body and more without being in touch with how we feel. If we add how we feel to how we feel about someone, when we are anxious….yikes. Even if we are at the effect of an illusion, we do not know this is happening. Our brain does not like to focus our attention on how we feel inside when we are on alert.
The worry circuit is supposed to help us focus, not feel vulnerable. When we feel things are happening to us, instead of feeling we have challenges we enjoy, the theme to our life becomes similar to Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz. Dorothy, the Tin Man, Scarecrow and Cowardly Lion all were paralyzed by fear and felt vulnerable, not capable.
The place that creates this feeling of vulnerability is very powerful, the neural traffic from this part of our brain to our verbal brain is like a super highway and the neural traffic from our verbal brain to the operating system of the brain is like a small country road. Our thoughts are an afterthought to the feelings the operating system of our brain creates within us.
When we rewrite the non-verbal information that creates our fears, we move the nightmare we live, our illusions and anxiety is gone. The “worry circuit” can now operate the way it was intended, to help us focus for something short term to get it accomplished.
Addendum to the above:
In a situation where someone has O.C.D. it is helpful to both rewrite how they feel about themselves in the situation, as well as have something positive to accomplish instead of worrying, so the circuit can calm down.This usually involves finding a hobby to do instead of repetitive behavior.
