The mammalian brain yearns for connection. Each time we use the emotional tools, we strengthen the seven core circuits of emotional evolution. As conceptualized in the EBT program, they are an integration of Erikson's 8 Stages of Man and neuroscience. It is through moments of intense connection that our unconscious memory system changes and we have a deep knowing that:
The 7 Circuits of Emotional Evolution
I do exist.
I am not bad.
I do have power.
I can do good.
I can love.
I am worthy.
I can have joy.
Stress tells us the opposite, and those circuits block our emotional evolution, which means we need to rewire them. The essence of the EBT Program is to learn those tools and to use them – getting started with the tools and then taking the 30-day basic course. Then we move on to raise our brain set point, the most powerful thing that anyone can do. We use the Advanced EBT Courses to do that, one for each of these circuits, so we have a secure connection within.
As day by day, we use the tools and the program, we can begin to exhale. We can process whatever comes our way (even though sometimes it is hard). That power gives us hope and we start looking for the next great thing to come our way. We have that security inside and with enough vulnerability to be present to the gifts that come our way as if they arrive out of nowhere!
A need fulfilled
The ones that reach me enough to make me shudder at the generosity of life are when I have a profound need. The need itself does not matter – it could be for something that others would think of as trivial. Or, it could be a situation that everyone might agree was gut-wrenching, such as putting to sleep a beloved pet or grieving the loss of a parent or a child. What is important is that the need was sitting there.
It was residing somewhere in my body, perhaps in my big toe, my gut, or even, my throat, but it was there. I didn't know I had it there, but then something occurred, and instantly I recognized the need, and at the very same time that precise need was met with such multi-layered abundance that I felt awe.
A cure for loneliness
I think of that as the loneliness cure. What do we do when it happens? I try not to talk about it, as the talking can activate the memory, and then pass it through the neocortical mind, after which the hippocampus stores the changes made by that conscious experience, thus changing the memory.
As Igor Mitrovic often says, "The safest memory is the one you do not remember." So the loneliness cure may be to connect to the deepest part of ourselves and clear away the blocks to development caused by stress wires, then hold in our bodies the wordless knowings of the unique experiences that make us know that there are deeper meanings to life and that sometimes when we least expect it . . . they reveal themselves to us.
Those moments can stay with us forever as undisturbed memories do not change. They are ours for good. When we sweep through the negative emotions that arise even on the best of days and connect to the deepest part of ourselves, we feel cured of loneliness, which amounts to being aware of a tinge of it, and then smiling wide.
We are not lonely! We feel the glow of connection that nobody can take away from us. And we deepen that glow, the endorphins rushing now, and appreciate the grace, beauty, and mystery of life!