Having a Heart in a Sometimes Heartless World
Day 187 – The neurology of emotion
Scripture focus: In fact, this pickpocket is looking for any opportunity to wiggle his way so deeply into your personal affairs that he can walk off with everything you hold precious and dear. And that’s not all – when he’s finished stealing all your goods and possessions, he’ll take his plan to rob you blind to the next level. Rick Renner’s amplified translation of John 10:10
In Dr. Caroline Leaf’s book, Who Switched Off My Brain? she asserts that every memory encoded in our brain is attached to both thought and feeling. Irwin McManus asserts the same principle in his book, Soul Cravings. Leaf takes the concept further by teaching us that memories encoded without emotional attachment are virtually erased by the glial cells. I never heard of such a thing! But according to her, when we sleep, the glial cells act like vacuum cleaners for the brain, cleaning out debris. Evidently, a memory with no emotion is like dog hair on a white tile floor – it will be swept away.
When we get stressed out, the amygdale shouts an alarm. This gets the attention of our mid-brain, and it begins to cry out for survival. A freaked out mid-brain cuts itself off from the neocortex, the “thinking brain” and soon we’re in the midst of a full blown craving. What do we crave? - whatever our body has learned to accept as a shortcut to better feelings.
All this activity in the brain creates an opportunity to lose our place in God’s story. Cut off from the reasoning part of our brain, emotionally hijacked, we will quickly lose our way. We’ll start making expedient choices rather than excellent ones. We’ll begin to rationalize and justify our emotional responses to daily events. Soon, we’ll be completely convinced that we’re the smartest people in the world. Our sense of entitlement and “right” will be so strong that we won’t even consider that we might be wrong! And the glial cells complicate matters.
While we’re nursing our wounds, obsessing over the rightness of our ways (and the wrongs of others) – we are not emotionally present to see God’s blessings, grace and mercy in our day. We will miss the kindness of others. We will fail to notice that in the midst of our emoting, others responded to us with restraint and kindness. Without noticing these things, our brain encodes the encounter without emotion – and that night, the glial cell will come in and suck the memory out of your brain. You know what you’re left with? A series of very emotional, angry memories – further justification for why you feel you can act like a jerk. The information that might help us pause to prepare or reconsider our strongly felt beliefs, is erased from our memory banks – further hardening our stance. Scary, isn’t it?
Take note that we are completely unaware that all this neurochemistry is creating the perfect storm for losing everything we hold precious and dear. We think we’re sharing our feelings – when instead, we’re stomping on others. We think we’re fighting for a cause – when instead, because we’re fighting - we’re losing our ability to love others. We think we’re right – when instead, the better question would be – are we in right relationship?
But that’s not all. While we’re emotionally hijacked and making a mess of things, the thief moves in for the kill. There’s more going on in our life than just our bad behaving. Our self-centered (more chemistry than character) perspective is like leaving the doors to our homes unlocked with a big note on the door – “Steal here”.
This is serious business.
Recommended reading: 1 Chronicles 1 and 2 in the morning; Acts 23 in the evening
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