repeated exposure to the bell without the food dwindled their
neuroemotional response. They stopped salivating because the bell became
a sound without any associative memory.
Catch Yourself Before “Going Unconscious”
As you run through a series of situations in your mind’s eye in which you
stop yourself from being the old self (emotionally), your repeated exposure
to the same stimuli (mentally) will, over time, weaken your emotional
response to that condition. And as you consistently present yourself to the
same motives of the old identity and notice how you automatically
responded, you will become conscious enough in your life that you catch
yourself from going unconscious. In time, all of those associations that
turned on the old program will become just like the dogs’ experience of the
bell without the food—you no longer knee-jerk back physiologically to the
neurochemical you, connected to familiar people or things.
Thus, your thought about a person who makes you angry or your
interaction with the ex-boyfriend can no longer tug on you because you’ve
mindfully stopped yourself enough times. As you break the addiction to the
emotion, there can be no autonomic response. It is your conscious
awareness in this step that then frees you from the associated emotion or
thought process in your daily life. Most of the time, these reflexive
reactions go by unchecked by you because you are too busy “being” the old
you.
It is important that you rationalize beyond the barometer of your feelings
to understand that these survival emotions are affecting your cells in
adverse ways by pushing the same genetic buttons and breaking down your
body. It raises the question: “Is this feeling, behavior, or attitude loving to
myself?”
After I say “Change,” I like to say, “This is not loving to me! The
rewards of being healthy, happy, and free are so much more important than
being stuck in the same self-destructive pattern. I don’t want to emotionally
signal the same genes in the same way and affect my body so adversely.
Nothing is worth it.”