The Second Feedback Loop has five parts:
1. The full thought is converted into a chemical
2. The emotional response
3. The decision
4. The action
5. All of this information is converted to an electrical fact in the brain
Recall, the Second Feedback Loop is ONLY completed by the individual expressing their will to complete the Second Feedback Loop by filing away the information into their cortex. This information consists of: the stimulus, connecting fact, associated emotion, emotional perspective, action taken, and feelings about the action taken. There are three facts/actions and three emotions/feelings that are filed away into the cortex.
Now we see WHY connecting facts have emotions attached to them...they get filed away with emotions AND the actual facts/actions we took...which we can also feel good or guilty about.
Notice, this means that everyday, we are remaking our brain. Everyday, we either have a better or worse brain. Everyday, we are either improving our thought processes or damaging our thought processes. (This explains HOW Lucifer could be made perfect by God, yet end up with sin later...because Lucifer changed his thought process to one that allowed sin in. The same could be said for Cain.)
Not only does lacking this information in the brain lead to a damaged thought process, it turns out it can also lead to physical illness! HOW? WHY?
The Second Feedback Loop is completed in the rest of the body apart from the brain! For instance, the heart has a record of what action was taken. Also, somewhere in the body, there is at least one cell that has the same chemical (as was present in the hippocampus) with a record of everything that resulted from this specific stimulus.
Dr. Leaf shows in her book "Who Switched Off My Brain?" that the resulting stress from the body having a record that the brain is lacking causes the body to create toxic chemicals that medicine has been able to show leads to 87% of the illnesses that the individual experiences.
Let me be crystal clear: Medicine is finding out that our physical illness is actually the effect of an Unprofitable Thought Process. Medicine is finding out our physical well-being is actually the result of a Profitable Thought Process. (The Bible stated this thousands of years ago...)
The part of the brain that causes most of the problems during the Second Feedback Loop is the amygdala. Let's look more closely at the amygdala...
THE AMYGDALA
We saw that the amygdala is also a part of the "Unaware Brain". The Unaware Brain works according to all four of the God-given principles! We saw with the Emory University experiment, that the amygdala can override your conscious brain and cause physical movements! We also saw that Rehearsing can intentionally change the response of the amygdala. Let's look at another experiment that shows HOW the amygdala can be "rewired"...
Around the 2004 Presidential elections, a study was done with partisan Democrats and partisan Republicans. Each person was shown a set of contradictory statements by the 2004 Presidential candidates. The participants’ brains were scanned with M. R. I. The results were very telling…
When the Democrats watched the contradictory statements by Bush and the Republicans watched the contradictory statements by Kerry, their brains worked correctly. The reasoning part of the brain that detects contradictions was active and this caused activity in the parts of the brain associated with emotion. Basically, their amygdalas fired and they got really upset.
However, a completely different pattern was observed when the participants watched contradictory statements by "THEIR" candidates. The reasoning part of the brain was not active AND the area of the brain that reinforces reward was active.
Essentially, their brain was now "wired" to avoid detecting the contradiction. Weren't they aware they hadn't detected the contradiction? No. The part of the brain that rewards them for checking for contradictions still worked. The brain lied to itself! The Unaware Brain had been modified to give a good feeling for being objective when the brain in fact wasn't objective!
Think about this for a minute...the person literally believes (feels without guilt) that they have in fact checked for a contradiction in their candidate. Not only don't they think they saw one...they also felt GOOD about checking for the contradiction!
The activity in the brain was physiologically "rewired"...
We are in charge of our brains. Attempting to act apart from causality and non-contradiction (believing "we can't know or aren't supposed to know") is ACTUALLY an attempt to damage your brain. Encouraging others to do this is an act of destruction...it is evil.
Like in the previous section on the First Feedback Loop, when it comes to the Second Feedback Loop, there are a list of problems and solutions we need to be aware of...
1. Lacking information - The most obvious issue a person can have is that they completely lack the information in their cortex that their heart and rest of their body possesses. We saw that this is the cause of physical illness in 87% of the cases...and this number may grow as medicine continues to understand this issue.
Solution: Obviously, the person needs to finish the Second Feedback Loop from this point on in order to avoid greater damage. However, what can the individual do about past events? The person can find out from others what ACTUALLY happened during the events that they have missing from their memory (cortex). This will take humility. The individual needs to focus on understanding instead of agreement.
2. Amygdala moments - This is when the person's amygdala fires so strongly that they respond with a destructive emotional reaction. The amygdala is like a search engine. When we experience (either consciously or unconsciously) a stimulus, the amygdala searches for all the events that are associated with that stimulus. If it finds an event that has VERY STRONG emotions tied to it, the amygdala can take over the individual's physical actions.
Solution: Rehearse the event to find out what aspect set the person off.
For example, let's say a friend told me that he ALWAYS reacted negatively towards his ex when he picked up his son from her house. I would have him rehearse the event with me being his ex. He would close his eyes and we would have a conversation. Suddenly he would respond to me by calling me names. We would go back and rehearse the event, however, this time I would change what I said slightly. Maybe we would get the same response. We would keep doing this until he made it through the encounter without having an amygdala moment. We would then figure out that, for example, he felt she thought he was stupid. We would then rehearse an appropriate response. We may do this three times with me saying the "offending" comments and him responding with the rehearsed appropriate response. The next time he met with his ex, he will NOT have an amygdala moment. WHY? Because the amygdala doesn't know the difference between a "real" moment and a rehearsed moment...it is ALL real to the amygdala.
(There is a new technique used to treat people with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder that is gaining acceptance. The person follows lights with their eyes and does choreographed motions with both hands WHILE talking about stressful moments. Stressful moments are events that happened in which the person was NOT in control. What they are doing now is rehearsing the stressful events while being in control of two senses: sight and touch. This ties a sense of control to the moments when they did NOT feel in control. Imaging on the brain shows that the hot spots from high activity in the brain due to stress are GONE after doing this rehearsal treatment!)
The rest of these problems deal with the person's inability to complete the Second Feedback Loop.
3. Denial - The person denies an event has occurred shortly after its occurrence. The individual is stonewalling. They are actively pursuing comparative thinking and comfort. This person is attempting to damage themselves and it is NOT loving to allow them to continue to live in denial.
Solution: Fellowship with someone who is Fellowship with God. The person needs to be confronted in love as to the existence of the event they are actively stating did not occur.
4. Unwilling To State Their Will - The person won't state out loud whether their bad actions were good or bad. The person is not in denial. They have stated they did the action. However, the last bit of information that is encoded on the chemical in our short-term memory is OUR EMOTION about the action. They are actively pursuing comfort and contradiction. Again, this person is attempting to damage themselves. It is NOT loving to allow them to continue to avoid stating their will.
Solution: Fellowship with someone who is Fellowship with God. The person needs to be encouraged in love that they won't be criticized or judged for the action. The important point is that they state EITHER WAY (even wrongly) their will about their action.
5. Unable To State Their Will - The person can't decide whether their bad actions were good or bad because they have a contradiction. Most of the time, the person has a contradiction because one thought loop is being honest and objective while the other thought loop is trying not to be wrong.
Solution: Fellowship with someone who is Fellowship with God. The person needs to be encouraged in love that they won't be criticized or judged for the action. The person needs to choose whether they want to be objective or right. The important point is that they state EITHER WAY (even wrongly) their will about their action.
6. Too Busy/Emotional To State Their Will - The person keeps themselves occupied physically or ramped up emotionally to the point that they don't have time to think. This is a form of denial, however, this occurs after the person admits that the event occurred. This person is extremely defensive and will try to position themselves as the victim. They may make comments like: "I don't have time to think about small things", "I need to be about my kids or job right now", or "I'd love to talk about this but it makes me so angry that I am better off not thinking about it".
Solution: Fellowship with someone who is Fellowship with God. The person needs to be encouraged in love that they will be understood. The person really needs to be approached emotionally first. Trying to talk logically with this person will only make them more upset until they deal with the emotions.
SUMMARY
The First Feedback Loop is improved through more "technical" approaches: breaking the repeated loops, non-contradictory definitions for Words, bringing Resolution to complex concepts, and dealing with the emotions first.
The Second Feedback Loop is improved through more "relationship" approaches: understanding others, rehearsing with others, and Fellowship with someone who is in Fellowship with God.
The key to helping people is to improve their thought PROCESS.
A person with a Profitable Thought Process is able to:
-Complete the First Feedback Loop and express the full thought without ramping up through repeated loopings
-Repair bad AREAS because they complete the Second Feedback Loop and intentionally look for problem AREAS to correct (They pursue Growth and Contrastive Thinking.)
Next Section at Book Level: Counseling People To Think
Chapter Summary
Part III Table of Contents
Part I Table of Contents
