I have long struggled with my emotions and my intellect. Part of my journey has been believing I could overcome and manage things by myself, on my own. And part of that process was to deny and control my emotions, as much as possible.
There is also an element of my Christian training which encouraged me not to trust emotions, with a diagram using geometric shapes. The ball was emotions; the rectangle, faith; and the triangle, fact.
I could draw the various configurations for this--but my diagrams don't reproduce well in this blog format. Suffice it to say that faith was the rectangular foundation at the bottom; with fact (the triangle) placed on top of faith; and the ball (emotions) balanced on the pinnacle of fact.
When I googled this concept, interestingly, I got several Christian explanations, some of which differed from each other; but all put emotions last. This tells me that what I was taught, must be a mainstream Christian concept.
As Christianity is a major underwriter of Western culture, I would surmise it is part of Western culture to discount emotions. To what extent is this healthy, and part of being socialized? To what extent is this unhealthy, leading to physical disease and mental illness?
Going back to the brain: the limbic system houses some important components involved with emotions and long term memory. I might, as a layperson, loosely or clumsily think of the limbic system as the seat of the emotions.
The amygdala
When I first started thinking about our brains perhaps working against us, I was reading AdaptAbility by M.J. Ryan. She talked about the amygdala being an old part of the brain that constantly scans for danger; being velcro for negative perceptions and teflon for positive.
Immediately I thought: This isn't good. If my own brain is picking up more on negative things than positive, how can I be faulted for being depressed, or even suicidal?
The amygdala is involved in our impulse to fight, flight or freeze.
In reading through Wikipedia, I realize this small almond shaped portion of the old brain, present in both hemispheres, is a very complex piece of equipment. It is at this point in the discussion I would like to call in a neuro scientist; but I think even if I were able to do that, I would get differing ideas and conclusions.
What I'm getting from what I read, is that yes. Sometimes our brains, especially the older sections, in their vigilance to protect us, may over do it.
Perhaps one of the most important things to know about the amygdala, is how it contributes to the formation of our long term memories through emotional links.
So then. Are our emotions friend or foe? Are our brains working against us?
To be continued...
There is also an element of my Christian training which encouraged me not to trust emotions, with a diagram using geometric shapes. The ball was emotions; the rectangle, faith; and the triangle, fact.
I could draw the various configurations for this--but my diagrams don't reproduce well in this blog format. Suffice it to say that faith was the rectangular foundation at the bottom; with fact (the triangle) placed on top of faith; and the ball (emotions) balanced on the pinnacle of fact.
When I googled this concept, interestingly, I got several Christian explanations, some of which differed from each other; but all put emotions last. This tells me that what I was taught, must be a mainstream Christian concept.
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Going back to the brain: the limbic system houses some important components involved with emotions and long term memory. I might, as a layperson, loosely or clumsily think of the limbic system as the seat of the emotions.
The amygdala
When I first started thinking about our brains perhaps working against us, I was reading AdaptAbility by M.J. Ryan. She talked about the amygdala being an old part of the brain that constantly scans for danger; being velcro for negative perceptions and teflon for positive.
Immediately I thought: This isn't good. If my own brain is picking up more on negative things than positive, how can I be faulted for being depressed, or even suicidal?
The amygdala is involved in our impulse to fight, flight or freeze.
In reading through Wikipedia, I realize this small almond shaped portion of the old brain, present in both hemispheres, is a very complex piece of equipment. It is at this point in the discussion I would like to call in a neuro scientist; but I think even if I were able to do that, I would get differing ideas and conclusions.
What I'm getting from what I read, is that yes. Sometimes our brains, especially the older sections, in their vigilance to protect us, may over do it.
Perhaps one of the most important things to know about the amygdala, is how it contributes to the formation of our long term memories through emotional links.
So then. Are our emotions friend or foe? Are our brains working against us?
To be continued...
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