How long have you been holding on to toxic emotions?
According to Harvard-trained neuroscientist, Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, “When a person has a reaction to something in their environment, there’s a 90 second chemical process that happens in the body; after that, any remaining emotional response is just the person choosing to stay in that emotional loop.”
Prolonged emotions that don’t serve you in a healthy way become toxic. It is the perpetual thoughts about the experience that prolongs the emotional response. It is also the personal meaning you attach to the experience that continues to trigger you and provoke the same emotions time after time and year after year. The problem with this pattern of thinking and feeling is that it keeps you stuck in your emotions. Your tendency to ruminate about the experience- your intrusive thoughts, flashbacks, and overthinking about the event re-traumatizes you by reinforcing the intense emotional response. Our minds learn through repetition and repetition builds retention. Holding on to negative emotions from your past does not serve you in a healthy way.