Hot Chocolate Anyone ?

[Smc]

@Former-Member yep was talking to you, glad I got it wrong. 😄

[Former-Member]

@Smc  quite seriously....    I am glad you cared enough to ask.   I really don't know what to do with that, long time since I've had anyone care for me enough to bother.  Thank you.

[Appleblossom]

@Anony18 You are always keeping active .. its nice to hear

@Faith-and-Hope its beautiful when families have associations that go way back

@Former-MemberI am getting used to my endless little crushes .. I think lots of women .. and men .. have them .. I figure if there is someone truly interested in me then he will have to make it very obvious. To me it is a sign that there are good decent interesting people on the planet .. and thats not a bad thing .. better than hating everyone you meet ...but I had early dissociation abandonment and attachment issues.. so am more used to detaching than most ... 

@Smc Good to see you about .. feeling the weight of wisdom in your brevity .. and humour

For when we need a bit more 

[Faith-and-Hope]

😊. @Former-Member ..... I am, to all intents and purposes, a single mum .... and as my baby dragons are grown they would ordinarily be more independent than they are .... but circumstantially that's what we've got.

But this year is much more laid back than the last few years, as my youngest has just graduated high school, and now with WH away, I'm taking a very leisurely approach to everything .... so it's a bit of a luxury to be able to jump onto the forums here and there as much as I am.

💜

[Former-Member]

I'm watching Dr Beauregard...    I want to share this really great stuff with you people.  He is doing scientific experiments and groundbreaking work on neuroplasticity and it's effect on emotion and behaviour.  He has a master's in psychology and a PhD in neuroscience.

Anyhow.. let me try to convey why I find his work so ...   like awesome 😛

He is doing proper scientific research, which include his own scientifically evaluated experiments.  He wanted to find out the effects of a set of variables on the brain so he set up an experiment which would fall under the ACT banner I guess.  It can be seen as acceptance and commitment.  But He guided the subjects involved and it wasn't actually under that but it was the science about it.

So let me try to explain more clearly using the actual experiment he carried out.  For his control group he chose a group of people with strong arachnophobia.  So this would be their emotional response, the irrationality if you like but based on passed experience so they had memory activation also. 

Initially he measure their brain activity on scans, when they were showed spiders.  Obviously they had very strong responses. Panic responses to even pictures of spiders.   He found that the amygdala, hippocampus that are strong components in emotional response were very active.  ie the limbic system (emotional system) of the brain.  Which you would expect since they had uncontrolled emotional response to the spiders.

Now what he did was organise and insectologist from the university of Montreal to educate these women on how it was not possible for the spiders to hurt them.  That the spiders could not have the understanding nor the physiological or cognitive faculties to seek them out or hurt them.  This education was thorough and informative.  So over 4 weeks these women gained enough insight and information to come to understand their fears, to ACCEPT it was not rational because they were provided unequivocal evidence of it.  Once they had been explained, in a no nonsense scientific informed way.  After one session each week for 4 weeks they were all able to hold a giant tarantula in their hands.  Which is a pretty spectacular result.

So off they went back to the lab, had the pictures of the spider showed to them again, they had no activation in the amygdala, no activation in the hippocampus. Now the hippocampus is involved in memory.  So the phobia (emotional response) was connected to traumatic memory.

So there was a major reorganising of the brain function. This was because the new information, gave the women deeper understanding and acceptance that although they remembered the same events, they now had a rational understanding of it and it no longer affected them.  The scans proved their brains now worked in an entirely different way, just because they had been given good information that they believed and accepted so were able to move on.

Now I don't know about you.  But I see that as major.  Acceptance of their experiences and reassigning the nature of their trauma from them, commitment (they attended the sessions)...  and voila.. they came out of it the other more informed and accepting of their past experiences.

Hello.. isn't that what we all want for either ourselves or those we care for who are having effects from past trauma?  I know I sure do!

[Former-Member]

oh @Appleblossom  That glass of wine looks soo good...   I really do want one now..  I just typed up a huge post...  but I was just so excited by what I was watching I had to share....  but now yep.. I sure could drink that and with a nice cold fruit platter... hmmm mmm yes please!

@Faith-and-Hope  ok.. now you have explained your situation.. I'm getting the picture..  I cannot imagine it, well I can but it would only be imagining...  but yes I do see why you are in and out and busy organising everything.  Thank you for that, I have a much better picture of your situation now. 🙂

_________________

I've managed to have myself about 34350088 browser tabs open at the moment and I'm confusing myself all over the place...   but anyhow...   I so need a confused pic.... so off to get one  😛

[Faith-and-Hope]

That is awesome @Former-Member ... ❣

I believe in the plasticity of the brain, and the ability of newly learned behaviours / thoughts / responses to surplant older ones that no longer serve us, a orocess I have been referring to as "overwriting" here on the forums .... but I also know that the depth of traumatic experiences affects our "inner family" of sub-personalities ,.... the group of our parts that contributes to our whole dynamic as an individual.

According to that field of thought then, the overwriting needs to be agreed to by our "inner family", which requires inner dialogue .... for instance a strong Inner Critic may need convincing that the changes are necessary and a good way to go,

I hope this is making sense ....

Effectively what you are talking about is taking the "inner family" into a teaching situation to quite specifically and powerfully create that overwrite of traumatic harboured experiences, and shift it from an emotional memory storage to a facts-based memory storage.

[Former-Member]

yep @Faith-and-Hope...   he actually starts out his lecture with the sum of the parts making the whole.

I think what you are saying is what I am talking about but just different words to describle the processes involved.  It's like an apple by any other name is still an apple.  We have limited words to use and a lot of these concepts are emotional and 'felt" so we all seek different ways to explain the same understanding and concepts.

I can feel what you are saying, and I feel it because I see the same understanding just using different terminology.  It's the understanding that is important.. the "I get it"..  and it's in the feel of someone's wording, if it is resonating with them in the intended way.  Works the other way too, if it resonates within yourself.  Well that's how it works with me, is what I should say.

[Faith-and-Hope]

Love ❤️❣ the wine and cheese image @Appleblossom ....; I wanna re-post it on the Art Class thread .... it really sings !!

Glad we're talking the same EI language @Former-Member ..... 😊💕

[Appleblossom]

Me watching Mr B too. @Former-Member