Totally Understanding the Emotional Brain

All internal or external events that occur in your life are interpreted by your brain. If in fact we have positive feelings about a life event, that's equates to a Non-Problem Status. And so we really only need to worry about life dramas when they create a negative emotion. Why? This article, the first of seven, will help you understand why.

Now, I'm going to share with you the importance of using your emotional brain to realize how your body reacts to events.

Randy Pausch, a 47 year old college professor, who recently died due to pancreatic cancer, said, "Experience is what you get when you don't get what you want". What is your experience of the events in your life?

Dr Mike Gosling says, "Life is a series of events. Every event is an opportunity for change. It's from the most painful events that you change the most." Do you agree with Dr Mike?

Every event in your life that happens, is interpreted through your brain. External events are received into your brain through our five senses and we are also constantly busily examining our internal environment- what's going on inside of our brain and body - to assess and to work out what's going on in our life.

If in fact we have a positive feeling about a life event, that's a Non-Problem Status. Because when good things happen to us, it's not a problem to us, we don't care. In fact we feel good about it.

And so we really only need to worry about life dramas when they create a negative emotion and when we have a negative experience. Why?

Every single negative experience that we have will result in us accumulating stress, because every single emotion, every single negative emotion that you have, is actually an Adrenalin response.

It's actually our body producing a stress response - producing a chemical because of the fact that our brain has interpreted some form of danger to our well-being. Some form of threat.

Let me explain a little bit more. If I were to draw for you a cartoon sketch of a cross-section of our brain, the two major parts of the brain that are useful to know about is a section that lies just above the brain stem called the Limbic System and the Cortex, the thinking part of the brain.

The Limbic System accomplishes all the feeling in the brain. This is a primitive part of the brain - and animals have a Limbic system - and it is responsible for our preservation instinct.

The other part of the brain, which does all of the thinking, is the Cortex. Human beings have a very developed Cortex, therefore we have a larger brain than most animals. The Limbic System and the Cortex are constantly inter-reacting with one another.

The Limbic System is the part of the brain that assesses first, all the different senses that come into the body, through sight, sound, touch, taste, smell.

If you're tasting something, that experience is first assessed by the Limbic System for danger to determine whether or not there is anything about what you are sensing that is going to create a threat to this organism that it's looking after.

That's all for today. In my next article I'll share with you the story of the zebra; how it uses its brain to deal with danger or threat. Are we like the zebra? Its all part of what I call The Science of Emotional Wealth. So be sure to keep an eye out for my articles.

The material in this article is only provided for information and may not be construed as medical advice or instruction. No action or inaction should be taken based solely on the contents of this email.

Had enough of feeling overburdened with life dramas and wish you could get back a feeling of being in control? Do you know that when you're stressed it's hard to concentrate on reading books? Get Karen Gosling's complete series of 12 one-hour DVDs and audio CDs on surviving life dramas for you to watch and begin to release your pain and release your pain and create a life without drama.