How We View Life.

I am certain that very little actually happens in life without some consequence that has the potential to have a lasting negative effect on our whole being if it remains unhealed.

Just grabbing that quote from my last rambling session because I want to expand the thought. Scientists have discovered that if a child is smiled at, cared for, and comes to believe that she is the 'apple of her parent's eye' in the first year she will grow a nice large joy center in the prefrontal lobe of her brain. On the other hand if a child is not nurtured properly she will learn to live out of the amygdala which contains among other things the fear centers of the brain. The child with a well develped joy center will view life from that place of comfort. On the other hand the child who has not had the pleasant experience of knowing his parents love and care in that way will learn to live out of the fear centers of the brain...always looking for danger. It really doesn't take a wild imagination to figure out how these two scenarios would play out in a person's life.

How do you view the world and the people around you? Are you predominantly fearful or confident? Are you optomistic or pessimistic? Do you face lifes challenges with anger, worry, or apprehension? Or do you welcome challenges, compromise in difficult circumstances, believe that no matter what happens things will somehow work out ok in the end? Much of the way we perceive life is based on how we have experienced life as infants and children.

To change the subject a bit... I was reading in Dr. Colbert's book "Deadly Emotions" that they have now discovered that the heart has cells that actually have the ability to feel and think in ways that are similar to the brain. How entirely cool is that! Reminds me of the scripture, "Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks." He says most modern thinkers believe that the old archaic language and thinking of the past was inaccurate and that all thinking and feeling originates in the brain. I will have to look up the quote from the book later and perhaps post it. Oh I think it is becoming more and more clear to me just HOW beautifully and wonderfully we have been made.

Back to my original thought...Are we stuck living out of the experience and brain development of our infancy? The good news is God has designed us in such a way that our joy center can continue to grow throughout our lives. People around us can deposit joy into us through their love, acceptance, smiles, etc...It is maxed out when it grows to be 35% of the prefrontal lobe...that's a big part of our brain totally devoted to JOY. So fear not if you didn't happen to get what you needed as a baby.

Dr. Colbert also talks about chosing your thinking patterns. Just because your childhood taught you to look at life from a certain perspective doesn't mean you have to continue looking at life that way. He also says the best way to ward off disease is to keep a positive attitude and get rid of toxic emotions quickly. You see, we are in control of our minds, our minds are not in control of us. Remember Ekhart Tolle saying something about learning how to be an observer of your mind? Guess it is good to be OUT of your mind.

Ahh we have an amazing God who has given us everything we need to really LIVE if only we listen and learn 'how' from Him. Perhaps even our bodies are speaking to us through its malfunction about what needs to change in our spirit (conscience, intuition, and communion) and soul (mind, will, and emotions) in order for us to find abundant LIFE. He did say He wants to preserve us blameless spirit, soul, and body. If we think that what is happening in our bodies is completely separate from what is going on in the rest of us we have perhaps missed a pretty big component of the whole picture of what causes illness and what keeps us ill.

Hmmm!