How often have you reacted to situations in a way that feels beyond your control? It’s as if you’re on autopilot, responding without thinking. This automatic reactivity often stems from ingrained patterns in your brain shaped by past experiences. Understanding how that reactivity is produced matters, because it shapes your emotional life and how you function in relationships.
How automatic reactivity gets wired in
Dr. Ceruto’s work identifies how automatic reactivity is produced and addresses it at that level. Our brains, through complex neural networks, form response patterns based on past experiences. These patterns can become so ingrained that they trigger automatic emotional reactions, even when those reactions may not be appropriate or helpful in the current situation.
People with low levels of neuroplasticity, or the brain’s ability to rewire itself, often find themselves trapped in these automatic reactions. They may feel at the mercy of their emotions, reacting impulsively to survive. Our family and upbringing play a crucial role in shaping these patterns. The neural networks we form in our early years often mirror those of our family of origin, leading to similar patterns of emotional reactivity.
Reactivity is our deep emotional system or an inherited emotional field from our family of origin. It’s when we say, “Our family is inside of us,” and often which we don’t feel very readily, that’s why it can be harder to get to. It can take different ways to become less emotionally reactive, heal, and mature that part of us.
Neuroplasticity offers a way to rewrite these neural patterns and break free from automatic emotional reactions. The goal is to raise neuroplasticity and enable the rewiring of the brain. We can reshape our neural networks and develop more adaptive responses by consciously identifying and understanding our automatic reactions.
Changing Neural Patterns
It’s important to understand that changing one’s neural patterns isn’t about suppressing emotions. It’s about developing a new relationship with our emotions, allowing us to feel them fully while understanding their origins and impacts. By doing so, we can better navigate our emotional lives and improve our overall well-being.
Many people believe that changing neural patterns is a quick and easy process. However, it requires consistent effort and practice. The good news is that even small changes in our neural networks can significantly impact our emotional reactivity.
To embark on the patterns, you need to commit to the process. It’s about more than just understanding the theory; it’s about applying it consistently. As you do so, you’ll find that you’re changing your reactions and forming a new relationship with life.
The Key to Becoming Less Emotionally Reactive
Approaches that work at the level of feelings address the output of the emotional system. The system itself sits deeper, in the limbic structures that generate a reaction before deliberate thought completes. This is a part of the emotional field. When you change the lizard brain, you change that dynamic field, ultimately changing your feelings and sense of self.
Dr. Ceruto’s work on emotional reactivity draws on natural systems theory, meaning it comes from nature. It’s how nature, cells, and animals interact. This is what’s called the limbic part, the intense emotional region of our brains. Then there’s the lizard brain part of us. This is the higher frontal part. When we change the lower brain, the top brain is less affected. Once achieved, we feel more sense of self and maturity and become less emotionally reactive.
As you already know, feelings are essential because they are how we navigate life. However, working to change this emotional system is most important for more profound permanent change for functioning as adults emotionally, behaviorally, and in relationships.
Observing Rather Than Absorbing
Some behaviors and feelings help us affect our deeper self, the lower brain. You can start by working on observing rather than absorbing. We often absorb other people and relationship systems, so our functioning remains immature and unable to change. We need to become less reactive and much more proactive in controlling our emotional responses.
If we can think more than we feel when interacting with people, we can become stronger and focus on what we need to do. Learn to listen more to others and resist absorbing the other person and their feelings. Try to think more and feel less. Identify and break the family of origin’s beliefs, values, rules, and roles. We challenge those with our sense of self, our authentic self. If it doesn’t match our family values, practices, and roles, we can begin to resist slowly, calmly, and maturely. Over time this will change our lower brain and our functioning. We will become less emotionally reactive and focus on achieving significant change or a personal transformation.
What changes when the pattern changes
Reaching a significant change in your instinctive brain will raise your level of self-differentiation and change how you function in other relationships, increase your awareness when you are pained, feel more confident, and become more emotionally independent and less emotionally reactive. This work addresses that vulnerability to overreact directly, at the brain system responsible for it.
Remember, your success in life and career is only limited by your vision and hard work! Faith and fear both demand you believe in something you cannot see. You choose. Becoming less emotionally reactive is a journey of self-discovery and growth. It’s a journey that requires patience, commitment, and the courage to confront the deep-seated patterns that have shaped your emotional life. But with time and consistent effort, you can rewrite your neural patterns, develop a healthier relationship with your emotions, and ultimately improve your overall well-being.
If you are ready to work on the pattern itself rather than its symptoms, the next step is a Strategy Call with Dr. Ceruto. Together you can build a healthier relationship with your emotions and improve your overall well-being, or if you are ready to make some changes in your life.
