Yesterday I saw a good example that explained how the brain works when it comes to things like addiction.
Hold your hands up vertically palm facing and side by side, now make 2 fists.
The left side represents the logical side of your brain and the right side represents your emotional side.
When we’re triggered either sexually or in any other way like we’re angry, we’re feeling those emotions overwhelm us.
Now take your right fist and have it cover your left fist. That’s your emotional side taking over your logical side. That’s the overwhelm we feel when we’re aroused or angry or any other negative emotion.
It works the same way when we’re happy too, it’s just never a problem for us that we’re noticing it.
When we’re overwhelmed emotionally we act on those emotions. So if you’re triggered and aroused (the right fist covering the left fist) we act on those emotions.
We watch porn when we’re aroused, we punch the wall when we’re angry (for example).
Emotions drive our actions. We often mistakenly think that the trigger itself makes us act, but it’s the emotion or feeling we feel when we’re triggered that causes us to act.
What’s interesting is the logical side, the left side IS what causes the emotions on the right side. We see something and we think sexual thoughts, we make it sexual, because of our own wiring / programming from watching porn for as long as we have.
So it’s like our own wiring causes us to overwhelm ourselves.
Recovery among many other things is learning how to not let our emotional side overwhelm us. Not letting the right side take over so that we’re taking actions we don’t want to take.
Typically this is done by resistance. We feel aroused and we try to fight it. We push back, we fight, we do everything in our power to stop it.
We often lose this battle because the arousal emotions are stronger than the emotions & thoughts driving us not to.
This isn’t because we’re weak or because arousal emotions are truly stronger than non arousal emotions. It’s more that in our current state of mind, our current mindset, arousal emotions are stronger than the others.
Recovery is learning to accept that the arousal emotions are there and not fighting them. This is letting the emotions be there but learning to not let them overwhelm us.
Imagine your right fist only partially covering your left fist.
A big part of that is the re-wiring to make it so the arousal emotions don’t mean as much as they do. That re-wiring is using our logical brain to frame things differently so they don’t have as much power.
So for example, if you think, I’ll never quit porn, I’m too weak, I’m going to be this way forever, and that idea overwhelms you.
That’s the right fist covering the left fist, emotional overwhelm.
But if you open up to the idea that it may be possible to quit, that maybe someday you’ll figure it out. Then the right fist isn’t fully covering the left fist and from that place you can start to take the steps needed to recover.
Framing things differently or re-framing as it’s more commonly known is the work we do to see things differently. I call this thought work because we’re working on our thoughts.
This is what happens in therapy too. We talk and the therapist listens and gives us ideas and insight. They show us what we can’t see ourselves because we’re too lost in our own story and emotions. The right fist is covering the left and we cannot see that we may be able to stop.
That’s why it’s so good to do this work with someone else. We need outside counsel to show us what we cannot see.
