[Neurons] 2019 Neurons #34 WHEN YOU CAN'T THINK

[Michael Hall]

From: L. Michael Hall

2019 Neurons #34

July 29, 2019

 

WHEN YOU CAN'T THINK

 

In writing about Executive Thinking and the cognitive make-over that we work
on in the Brain Camp, my focus has been exclusively on those states of
non-thinking- when you do not think.  I have focused on the mindlessness of
reactive thinking, automatic thinking, passive thinking, borrowed thinking,
etc.  Then someone asked me what about the people who can't think.  My first
thought was that they are just not thinking, choosing not to engage in the
effort of thinking.  But the person then talked about Daniel Goleman's
"amygdala hijacking" and states wherein one's emotions get so overwhelming
that one cannot think.

 

True enough, there are states wherein we experience emotional flooding
which, when they occur, a person literally and physically cannot think.
When emotions get strong enough and intense enough, they can flood conscious
awareness to such an extent that, at those times, a person "loses control."
Then typically that person may say things which he will later regret or do
things that she may later find extremely embarrassing.  Some people talk
about "seeing red" when they get so angry that they "cannot see straight."
Others have had the experience of actually losing consciousness and
fainting.

 

In such stressful moments, people literally cannot think.  I've seen it here
this week at NSTT as we challenge people as they engage in one of the most
stressful activities for we humans- standing up and speaking in public.
There have been moments when a person, wanting so much to do well and to be
seen as highly competent, gets interrupted by the person giving feedback and
for that moment of surprise or shock goes into a state of blanking out ...
unable to gather one's thoughts or words.

 

Now while thinking and emoting are not dichotomous functions and they do
operate systemically so that as thinking influences emotions so emotions
also influence thinking.  Given this, the intensity of one's emotions can be
amplified in such a way that they can become overwhelming.  In NLP language,
when this occurs then we say that the person begins to experience
state-dependent thinking, perceiving, remembering, speaking, behaving, etc.

 

With the intensity of emotions, especially the negative emotions, our
brain-body system is activated to respond.  And depending on a person's
level of development, the responses that occur often regress to much more
primitive responses.  As the sympathetic nervous system becomes increasingly
activated, a flood of energy may bombard the mind and take over a number of
processes including rational thinking, social consciousness, the more highly
developed coping skills, etc.

 

In The Developing Brain (2012), Daniel Siegael writes, 

"One's thinking or behavior can become disrupted if arousal moves beyond the
boundaries of the window of tolerance. ...   Outside the window of
tolerance, excessive sympathetic branch activity can lead to increased
energy-consuming processes, manifested by increases in heart rate and
respiration and as a 'pounding' sensation in the head." (281-3)

 

Depending on a person's "window of tolerance" and emotional development, the
person may become highly irritable, given to emotional outbursts, find
himself unable to gather his thoughts and talk very coherently, etc.  All of
this can be amplified by being physically exhausted, suffering from sleep
deficiency, emotionally worn-out, etc.  Enough about the problem.  We all
know about moments where it seems that we cannot think.  So what can we do
about such moments?

 

Here your meta-cognitive cortical capacities can come to the rescue.  After
all, you cannot control what you're not aware of.  So the simple step of
stepping back and identifying the moment starts activating the
parasympathetic nervous system.  It enables you to have a moment of
mindfulness.  "Oh that's what's happening!"  This is the "if you can name
it, you can tame it" idea.

 

For flexibility in responding, great self-regulation, embracing an
experience with acceptance initiates a subtle change.  That's because you
can then change what you're telling yourself about your experience.  And
that changes the meanings that you then apply to it.  You are meta-stating
yourself with some of the most profound states of all -awareness,
acceptance, seeking-to-understand, patience, etc.  and that sets the state
for critical thinking, mindfulness, resilience, and much more.

 

 

 

 

 

L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.

Executive Director, Neuro-Semantics

P.O. Box 8

Clifton CO. 81520 USA

www.neurosemantics.com   look for the special offer

 

Author of the stunning new history of NLP--- NLP Secrets.  

Investigative Journalism which has exposed what has been kept secrets for
decades. 

http://www.neurosemantics.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/NLP-Secrets-2_sml2.
png

 

 

 

 

 

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