think one way in order to override how they feel inside of them. They
consciously think one way, but they are being the opposite. When the mind
and body are in opposition, change will never happen.
Memorized Feelings Limit Us to Re-creating the Past
By definition, emotions are the end products of past experiences in life.
When you’re in the midst of an experience, the brain receives vital
information from the external environment through five different sensory
pathways (sight, smell, sound, taste, and touch). As that cumulative sensory
data reaches the brain and is processed, networks of neurons arrange
themselves into specific patterns reflecting the external event. The moment
those nerve cells string into place, the brain releases chemicals. Those
chemicals are called an “emotion” or a “feeling.” (In this book, I use the
words feelings and emotions interchangeably because they are close enough
for our understanding.)
When those emotions begin to chemically flood your body, you detect a
change in your internal order (you’re thinking and feeling differently than
you were moments before). Naturally, when you notice this change in your
internal state, you’ll pay attention to whoever or whatever in your external
environment caused that change. When you can identify whatever it was in
your outer world that caused your internal change, that event in and of itself
is called a memory. Neurologically and chemically, you encode that
environmental information into your brain and body. Thus you can
remember experiences better because you recall how they felt at the time
they happened—feelings and emotions are a chemical record of past
experiences.
For example, your boss arrives for your performance review. You notice
immediately that he looks red faced, even irritated. As he starts speaking in
a loud voice, you smell garlic on his breath. He accuses you of undermining
him in front of other employees, and says he has passed you over for a
promotion. In this moment you feel jittery, weak in the knees, and queasy;
and your heart is racing. You feel fearful, betrayed, and angry. All of the
cumulative sensory information—everything you’re smelling, seeing,
feeling, and hearing—is changing your internal state. You associate that