Do you have a narrative about yourself that is negative? Where do such limited narratives come from? How do the minds shape these limited and untrue narratives that have the power to impact us? We can become defeated from within.
When we are born, a myriad of experiences shapes neural connections or pathways in the brain. We are born with a ton of neurons and every experience builds connections. A hug or a smile when the child toddles or smiles builds neural connections of affection and love, positive feelings. Conversely, a negative experience or many negative experiences may shape negative neural processing and wire us for the negative. We may then say only negative words about ourselves in future situations when wired for the negative.
Neural connections are like tracks in the dirt. The more you drive over the track, the stronger or more pronounced it becomes. Or, using the metaphor of muscles, the more you use or condition a set of muscles, the larger and stronger they become. So, positive experiences matter to these neural connections. We are conditioned by experiences in the environments and our processing in the brain.
How can we change negative stories we’ve developed about ourselves that impact sensitivity to fear or rejection? How can we build up positive neural connections instead? Our brains can be hard-wired with tracks or pathways for the positive or the negative. Awareness of emotions, awareness of that internal dialogue or broken records in the mind and opening up can help. See this animated short: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VP7R_WIm6-M
Be kind to yourself. And, open up to someone (church pastor, family, friend, counselor, group) and be vulnerable about your broken records so feelings can be labeled and then processed more positively. You are worth it, and your emotional needs should be met. You are not alone. If you have tough emotions, a great text line is to text HOME to 741741. It’s run by volunteers who want to hear your emotional needs and help. Negative pathways, the negative stories and words we talk about ourselves (limited, narrow narratives) can be changed to ones that are fuller and more positive.
Please know that God is always with you and for you. We can always turn to Him, too. His power is in us. We are all part of a bigger story. Read Joshua 1:9. You are greatly loved and never alone.
Retraining negative pathways will be discussed in the next blog. Let’s start training those positive muscles! We can do this!
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