The Gift in You: Discovering New Life Through Gifts Hidden in Your Mind (16 page)

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
{TOXIC EMOTIONS AS GIFT-BLOCKERS}

Toxic emotions and toxic thoughts are intertwined and inseparable This is because our thoughts have an emotional component associated with them. All thoughts are emotionally charged, so when you bring a thought up into consciousness, you also bring up the attached emotion.

When you think, you will also feel.

As we reviewed earlier, there are only two types of emotion - love and fear - and all other emotions stem from these, each derivative forming its own chemical "signature," meaning each thought has its own chemical "signature." The result is that our thinking quite literally becomes "feeling" with a resultant chemical reaction in our brains and bodies.

The problem of gift-blocking begins when thoughts and emotions become unbalanced and toxic. If feelings dominate, a
neurochemical
rush can start to distort feelings in the direction of fear, which can result in stress.

Furthermore, the brain is constantly changed by each encounter and interaction, the depth of impact is determined by our emotions.

If you don't control these toxic emotions they will surge. And the surge will turn into a flood. Once there is a flood, it is very difficult to stop - emotions will saturate, run wild and become addictive. If they are not controlled, these fear-distorted emotional signatures will start appearing on everything you think about, on every choice and in every behavior and every action. This will affect your ability to think with clarity and will block your gift.

Here's an example: your husband comes home from work and he has that look on his face that says, "not right now." But you have so much to tell him; you really want to discuss several matters.

When he lets you know that he needs time, through distance and facial expression, you are surprised by how abrupt he seems and you immediately think you have done something wrong or that something bad has happened. Now, your mind starts thinking of all the bad things that could go wrong, and each of these things that could go wrong has an emotion attached to it.

Within the ten minutes it takes your husband to settle down in front of the TV, you have thought of seven or eight different scenarios of what's wrong, and these and their attached emotions are swirling and stewing in your mind. So you approach your husband with eyes flashing and the floodgates open.

Your surprised husband, who was peacefully mulling over the day's events while flipping channels, looks up to find you blocking the TV screen, which you have planted your feet firmly in front of to get his full attention. Then you pour out your concerns and fears and ideas - each with its own chemical signature - and some concerns get thrown in that you think of as you are speaking while the tears just fall out your eyes and the words pour out your mouth.

Your husband brings his own set of chemical signatures to the event as he moves from surprise to irritation . . . you get the picture?

Emotions out of control will completely block your ability to "think things through." Submitting to them causes chemical chaos in the brain and makes your mind foggy. You lose concentration and will find it really difficult to listen to anything anyone is saying or trying to say to you. And this goes for all emotions.

Take a moment to think of a time when you let your emotions get out of control and try to remember how you felt when it happened.

The soil of fear fuels those distorted emotions wiping out any decent control from the frontal lobe, unless we make the choice to stop and bring balance back again. Going through life on an emotional rollercoaster is a gift-blocking disaster.

That's why we must break the gift-blocker of toxic emotions by:

1. Using the balancing circuit between the frontal lobe and the
   amygdala
   to balance reason and emotion.
   

1. Using the discomfort zones to help identify these gift- blocking emotions.
   

1. Capturing our thoughts (as in toxic thoughts above).
   

1. Never doing this without prayer and the help of the Holy Spirit.
   

1. Rewiring.
   

It's clear that we need to break the cycle of gift-blockers. Even though it may seem daunting to truly operate in your gift, to truly live out who you were created to be, you need to recognize that you have been given authority over gift-blockers.

You are not a victim to toxic situations or toxic seeds that can take root. You can learn to walk in your gift. And you can choose to walk in the confidence that your gift is intentional and purposeful. You were not made for anything less.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
{TOXIC WORDS AS GIFT-BLOCKERS}

Are you paying attention to what words you are saying and what words you are receiving into your spirit?

Words reflect the thoughts and emotions of the speaker because every word was first a thought and an emotion. They are
electro magnetic
forces that cause real and lasting change both in the ears of the listener and you. And words really do cause pain. Researchers have shown that hurt feelings from words affect the same area in the brain - the
cingulate
gyrus
- as a broken bone or physical injury. So the old Scottish nursery rhyme of "sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never harm me" is most certainly not true.
³

Experts have also found that loving words help heal and rewire this pain. Words are the symbolic output of the exceptional processes happening on micro anatomical, epigenetic and genetic levels in the brain. They contain power to make or break you, your loved ones, your colleagues and your friends.

Are there words that have been spoken over you that have taken root and started blocking your gift? Perhaps you took an IQ test when you were younger and you were told you were average, but your brother or sister was above average. And this followed you into school and life. Or maybe you overheard someone say something about you, and you received that word into your spirit and made it part of you - the toxic words became toxic seeds.

When I think of these gift-blockers, I am reminded of Michelle. 

Michelle had a rare medical condition that resulted in gaining weight. This condition took almost twelve years to sort out, which was an emotional rollercoaster for her. In the early years while the cause and solution were being sought, Michelle overheard her grandmother one day saying she was very overweight and that she was worried about her because she was gaining so much weight.

This threw Michelle off balance completely because she was so hurt by her grandmother's comments. She viewed them as a betrayal from someone she loved and trusted and who, instead of loving her, was watching every bite of food she took and constantly giving her funny looks which made her feel ugly and not unconditionally loved.

The intention of the granny was certainly not that; it was just concern handled poorly. But in the eyes and ears of a five-year-old, this was a catastrophe and changed the way she saw her grandmother and their relationship. Even today, that young lady who has now been healed and is slim and beautiful and healthy, still does not have a good relationship with her grandmother and she struggles with toxic seeds that were planted long ago.

Those toxic words and toxic looks spoke into that little girl's life and added a burden to her mind she didn't need to carry. As an adult, she could talk it through with someone who understands and who can help her rewire, but as a child, she did not even know how to express it.

Toxic words can change a life forever. But words can also heal. So it will be necessary for Michelle and her granny finally to sit down one day and talk this through. Those words which brought death to a relationship can be replaced with new words that can bring life to the same relationship.

Maybe you have had words spoken over your life that have wired a toxic pathway that is blocking your gift from truly operating. Maybe there are words that have not been spoken over you and the lack of kind, loving, affirming words has wired rejection or pain into your thought clusters blocking your gift.

That's why we must break the gift-blocker of toxic words by:

1. Using the discomfort zones to help identify and acknowledge gift-blocking toxic words that have been spoken over your life and that have taken root.
   

1. Using the discomfort zones to help identify and acknowledge gift-blocking toxic words that you are speaking over yourself and/or others.
   

1. Rewiring.
   

1. Never do this without prayer and the help of the Holy Spirit.
   

Although we can't be sure of the words that will be spoken over us in the future, we can choose to accept them as a part of who we are or not. We also can choose forgiveness and to walk in love, rather than fear which is the root of unforgiveness and bitterness.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
{TOXIC LOVE AS A GIFT-BLOCKER}

Early patterns of relating and attaching to others can get wired into our brains in childhood and repeated into adulthood. We saw this in the
the
previous chapter in the story of Michelle and her granny.

Our relationships are a product of our personal histories and experiences and are not biological instincts. We fall in love and make true friends with people not bodies.

As God looks on the heart and inward appearance (1 Samuel 16:7), we should remember that we are created in His image, despite the world's emphasis on biology and outward appearance.

Some biologists going down the evolutionary strand say we are attracted to certain people because they exhibit biological traits such as an hourglass figure (representing fertility) and muscles (the ability to protect). When we look at the outward appearance only, it is a distortion of how our brains are designed to form relationships, and the consequence is that people's abilities to form lasting relationships are affected - "I am not beautiful or thin enough to be loved." "I 'love' her or him because he or she looks a particular way." This is empty and misses all the deepness and beauty of real love.

We are not designed for toxic love. Distorted toxic love is learned fear and completely blocks our gifts. Healthy love on the other hand rewires the brain, increasing our health, intelligence and happiness. When our love circuit fires, it is more difficult for the learned fear to fire at the same time. When we move into Godly love, things don't bother us as much and we simply love being in love.
⁴

Plasticity allows us to develop brains so unique from our responses to individual life experiences that it is sometimes hard to see the world as others do, to want what they want or to cooperate. It starts with making the choice to see people for who they really are; not to manipulate or be manipulated; to reach out to others in whatever way you can. As I have now said many times, choice is greater than any learned pattern of negative or selfish love. And as we choose to change to healthy love, dopamine and
oxytocin
increase and start melting down the old connections to prepare the way for the new ones.

Science is showing us that there is a massive unlearning of negative toxic thoughts when we operate in love. The brain releases a chemical called
oxytocin
, which literally melts away the negative toxic thought clusters so that rewiring of new non-toxic circuits can happen. This chemical also flows when we trust and bond and reach out to others. So love wipes out fear!
⁵

We also have another amazing chemical called dopamine that works with
oxytocin
. It flows as we expect and anticipate something and puts us on heightened alert to build new memories (as we imagine helping the person do well in a test, restore a relationship and so on) and gives us a thrilling surge of energy and excitement and confidence and motivation to carry on. And then as we actually help the person do well in the test, for example, endorphins are released that make us feel great. When we do good and reach out in love, God blesses us by helping our brains
detox
and increasing our motivation and wisdom thereby helping us negotiate life more successfully.
⁶

That's why we must break the gift-blocker of toxic love by:

1. Using the discomfort zones to help identify and acknowledge gift-blocking toxic love.
   

1. Choosing to change.
   

1. Rewiring.
   

1. Never doing this without prayer and the help of the Holy Spirit.
   

Isn't it amazing that we have been given the opportunity to renew our minds when it comes to love? God is faithful in all things. So, even when it seems incredibly difficult to make new choices, know that lasting change really is possible!