A month ago, my daughter, who is now grown and has a life of her own, moved back into my town, and I am in rapture. My “joy circuits” are firing overtime and inspiring me to do such things as make a pumpkin pie (after all, it’s January, not December) and ask my husband Walt to drop it off to her, along with a bowl of freshly whipped cream.
Yet I wonder if rapture would have come knocking at my door if I had not cleared now hundreds of those “stress circuits” that lurk in everyone’s emotional brain, including mine.
I think not. My Perfectionism Circuit would probably be activated, turning my attention to what is going wrong, and my “I am not worthy” wire, coupled with my old Shame Circuit, would fill me with enough self-doubt to make me squabble with her or, at least, obsess about all the ways I could spoil this glorious time of renewed closeness.
In the world of emotional brain training (EBT), all thoughts, emotions, and behaviors are just circuits, and those that cause us stress, we rewire. I’ve done my fair share of that rewiring, enough so that with this good fortune of my daughter moving back into town plus all that rewiring of stress circuits into joy circuits have changed my entire imagery of how the world works.
In the past, I was so rational. We all have two kinds of circuits, the homeostatic, health-promoting ones and the allostatic wires that have us careening out of control, causing problems to materialize in every domain of life. Our job is to notice when we feel bad, use the EBT app, and spiral up to feeling good – with the byproduct of making small but important progress toward wiring our brain to favor optimal health and an abundance of the seven rewards of a purposeful life: sanctuary, authenticity, vibrancy, integrity, intimacy, spirituality, and freedom.
Now, I think of all those nasty, traumatic experiences in my life that were stored as stress circuits in my amygdala, not as my “emotional baggage,” but as small suitcases full of joy bursts, patiently waiting for me to unleash them. The inevitable pain of life is more like potential energy pulsating with the opportunity to unleash its power and grandeur. Inside me, I have this storehouse of joy.
The question becomes, how much joy can I tolerate? Is there such a thing as being “over-joyed?” That’s a question for another day. Right now, it’s enough to hold onto the image of my entire being as one of joy potential. Instead of being on guard about what calamity will appear in life next, why not imagine that behind each stuffed negative emotion and stored wire from trauma past, we are sporting a multitude of brain circuits that can hardly wait to unleash their joy on us?
If I still had my Food Circuit, the thought of that would send me to eat a piece of pie even though my belly is gently full from lunch. Instead, I can tolerate knowing that thinking about my joy potential will have to wait. For now, I’ll savor the joy in the form it comes to me in this moment. That, itself, is a joy.
