Posted by noa on March 1, 2003, at 14:47:26
In reply to Re: My literal mind can't grasp this., posted by Tabitha on March 1, 2003, at 3:36:57
Does make sense that way, true. But I feel there is a caveat. I think what we think is important, but the brain is important too. Those of us with such sensitivites (the Flaming Amygdala Gang?) have brains that (either because we were born that way, or from lots of hurts early on, or both) produce feelings automatically in response to triggers and cues, even before we are aware of it. The amygdala jumps into action in danger situations much quicker than the thinking part of the brain ever can, and with us Flaming Amygdalas, this happens in situations that maybe the "man on the street" might not consider dangerous, but they do signal danger to us because of our experiences and sensitivities.
So, I don't really see it as our thoughts causing our feelings perse. However, thoughts do play a role. We can learn to recognize the Flaming Amygdala signs and symptoms, become more attuned to them, and be aware of them earlier in the process (this involves tuning into body signals, I think). And we can work on building a kind of "Emergency Thought Response Action" (just made that one up--you like?) to try to deconstruct the flaming amygdala's construction of the story of what is happening, and delay the automatic response, the automatic judgments about what it going on, the conclusions we tend to draw so automatically. the ETRA can also get us to mobilize better coping strategies--and this is where the Choice part really comes in, I think. We can choose to learn better coping strategies, we can choose to use our better coping strategies once we learn them, we can choose where to put our energies--ie, into the old patterns, or into trying to take better care of ourselves.
Wow, I don't know where that came from. Hope it makes sense.
poster:noa
thread:204842
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20030203/msgs/205054.html