Any emotional situation that takes us out of the present and into the past means that whenever the same kind of emotion crops up later in our life we return to the past for our reference point. If that point was at age three, we find ourselves behaving like a three-year-old. We feel childish and we behave childishly. Even worse, we condemn ourselves for being stupid or immature and through our mental self-talk; reinforce the problem while desperately searching for a solution.
Whenever we feel deeply stressed our brain and body goes into a fight or flight response. It’s good if we can actually fight or run away, but most times we just freeze emotionally. Our ‘frozen feelings’ are the cause of this ‘glitch’ in our learning process. We know we should be able to make a positive change, but that doesn’t change anything. With a sense of helplessness we fear the future and self-doubt rules our lives.
The process of change need not be traumatic. We need to understand that whatever pain we experienced in the past because of which we made certain choices, were the only recourse we had at the time. We couldn’t have done any better because we didn’t know how to. But we should realize that was then and this is now! We can get help from trained professionals and learn to unblock the negative emotions fused in our past that affect our positive future. We can choose to choose again. It’s up to us. It’s our movie! -The Times of India
The writer is the co-founder, AJNA Centre for Learning, Pune. E-mail: ajnacenter@yahoo.com. Website: www.ajnacenter.com
