I was walking my dog Tammy this morning and feeling at Brain State 1. The sun was shining, the children in the schoolyard across from our house were playing, but most importantly, I had just cleared another Survival Circuit.
We all have this neural clutter at the bottom of our brains, and with each deep Cycle that changes these emotional circuits, we get a little slice of heaven. It's a natural high like none other, perhaps the gift of our genes that rewards us for rewiring the past.
The power to clear away neural clutter
I bring this up because I'm thinking so much about the power that the tools of EBT give us, so that we don't have to keep repeating the past, because we can choose to learn the tools, to be in community, and to all begin to clear them together.
There is a strong pull to stick with our Survival Circuits. We cannot connect with the deepest part of ourselves (achieving neural integration) and a stress overload circuit at the same time. The challenge is that the brain has a negative bias. The prefrontal cortex tells us, "Of course I want to be happy, healthy, vibrant, and free" but the reptilian brain says, "Don't separate me from my Survival Circuit." The brain prefers to repeat the past and even convinces us that this feels good.
Last evening in an EBT Weekly Workshop, I listened to a participant discover her "I get my safety from being bad" circuit. It's counterintuitive, but the brain tells us that this circuit is our joy. More and more I realize that in the EBT Community, we need to be clear: choose Circuits or Sanctuary. We cannot connect with the deepest part of ourselves and a Survival Circuit at the same time.
Celebrating our post-rewiring natural high
One big benefit of rewiring is that post-rewiring high that I was enjoying this morning. As I walked along the street with my dog, I was gifted by our shared genes with a level of joy that we can't get any other way.
That's something worth writing a blog about – and worth sharing with other EBTers. The EBT techniques are new to many people, and the power of emotional rewiring is receiving more recognition. We can now lean into stress, process our negative emotions into positive emotions, and get that high.
As EBT catches on with more clinicians and with the public, perhaps we will ask one another over coffee, "Have you had your post-rewiring natural high yet today?"
The "post-rewiring natural high" is a special kind of Joy Point! Please share this idea of celebrating our emerging power to rewire the past – and revel in the warm glow inside that we are taking charge of our lives in a new and fascinating way. The reward? A surge of joy and a glow in the body. If you have not learned the EBT techniques or joined the community yet, try out the tools. Experience that joy!