Hopper: Gaining awareness of the neural pathways in your brain
If you are suffering from a limbic system impairment in the brain, identifying how this impairment expresses as various symptoms will assist you in understanding it.
This awareness will equally assist you in changing the neural pathways that keep your brain and body stuck in negative patterns.
A limbic system impairment can express as physical, psychological and emotional symptoms which can be unique to each individual.
Our focus of energy is consumed with our body, the environment and time.
We always seem to be in a state of high alert as we focus on physical symptoms while trying to avoid the external triggers that we believe are causing the symptoms.
The brain and body become conditioned to this stimulus-reaction pattern.
Through repetition, this pattern becomes unconscious and the body then becomes the mind.
When stuck in this impaired neural pattern, you may find that you have a distorted sensory perception to touch, pain, smell, sound, taste or light.
You may also notice that you have repeating negative thoughts that are filled with worry, anxiety or fear.
You may find that you are emotionally over reactive or you may experience unwarranted and extreme mood swings.
Feelings of dread, worry, panic, fear, anger, resentment, anxiety, hopelessness or sadness are also common.
And when you are in this state, it is easy to understand that isolating behaviours go hand in hand with a limbic system impairment.
However, what we need to realize is that the resulting repetitive thoughts, feelings and behaviours are all symptoms of the impairment itself.
To effectively change these patterns it requires that we step into the observer aspect of self and monitor our mind and body.
In order to do this we need to turn our focus away from symptoms of illness and bring our focus of attention inward, stepping into the curious and loving observer of self.
It is in this unique human reflective ability that we have the power to harness brain function.
Various forms of trauma are usually the cause of limbic system impairment.
The repetitious negative cycle of thoughts, feelings and behaviours that accompany this trauma are symptoms of the impairment itself that re-enforce this trauma cycle and faulty brain pattern.
Within our unique ability to become the observer of self, we can indeed act back on the brain and change brain structure and function.
However, rewiring your limbic system in some ways is akin to defying gravity as we learn to discern the signals from our brain and begin to question the whole notion of pain itself.
With consistent focus and repetition, we learn how to inhibit the neural pathways that keep the limbic system in a state of hyper reactivity.
As we learn to repeatedly think, feel and behave in ways that are greater than the trigger and reactions—we weaken the response to the stimulus and build new and healthy neural pathways in the brain.
In this process, we are slowing down or preventing the body’s internal chemical reaction to the trigger, which suppresses or blocks the body’s reaction.
In your ability to discern and examine your unique triggers—rather than automatically react to them—you are creating new pathways in the brain that lead to greater physical, psychological and emotional health.
For more information or to register your interest in upcoming programs, please go to www.dnrsystem.com.
Annie Hopper is a core belief counsellor and brain retraining specialist.