Guilty Until Proven Innocent

Lets use a real-life situation to illustrate what happens when we decide to

break from some memorized emotional state and change our minds. I
think we can all relate to one common state of being: guilt. So Im going
to use that to illustrate in practical terms how this cycle of thinking and
feeling works against us. Then well identify some of the efforts the brainbody system is going to make to remain in control and preserve that
negative state of being.
Imagine that you frequently feel guilty about one thing or another. If
something goes wrong in a relationshipa simple miscommunication,
someone unreasonably misplacing his or her anger on you, or whatever
you wind up taking the blame and feeling bad. Picture yourself as one of
those people who repeatedly say or think, It was my fault. After 20 years
of doing this to yourself, you feel guilty and think guilty thoughts
automatically. You have created an environment of guilt for yourself.
Other factors have contributed to this, but for now, lets stay with this
notion of how your thinking and feeling have created your state of being
and your environment.
Every time you think a guilty thought, youve signaled your body to
produce the specific chemicals that make up the feeling of guilt. Youve
done this so often that your cells are swimming in a sea of guilt
chemicals. The receptor sites on your cells adapt so that they can better
take in and process this particular chemical expression, that of guilt. The
enormous amount of guilt bathing the cells begins to feel normal to them,
and eventually, what the body perceives as normal starts to be
interpreted as pleasurable. Its like living for years near an airport. You get
so used to the noise that you no longer hear it consciously, unless one jet
flies lower than usual and the roar of its engines is so much louder that it
gets your attention. The same thing happens to your cells. As a result,
they literally become desensitized to the chemical feeling of guilt; they
will require a stronger, more powerful emotion from youa higher
threshold of stimulito turn on the next time. And when that stronger
hit of guilt chemicals gets the bodys attention, your cells perk up at
that stimulation, much like that first cup of java feels to a coffee drinker.
And when each cell divides at the end of its life and makes a daughter
cell, the receptor sites on the outside of the new cell will require a higher
threshold of guilt to turn them on. Now the body demands
a stronger emotional rush of feeling bad in order to feel alive. You become
addicted to guilt by your own doing.
When anything goes wrong or is awry in your life, you automatically
assume that youre the guilty party. But that seems normal to you now.
You dont even have to think about feeling guiltyyou just are that way.
Not only is your mind not conscious of how you express your guilty state
by way of the things you say and do, but your body wants to feel its
accustomed level of guilt, because thats what you have trained it to do.
You have become unconsciously guilty most of the timeyour body has

become the mind of guilt. Only when, say, a friend points out that you
neednt have apologized to the store clerk for giving you the wrong
change do you realize how pervasive this aspect of your personality has
become.
Lets say that this triggers one of those moments of enlightenmentan
epiphanyand you think Shes right. Why do I apologize all the time?
Why do I take responsibility for everyone elses missteps? After you
reflect on your history of constantly pleading guilty, you say to yourself
Today Im going to stop blaming myself and making excuses for other
peoples bad behavior. Im going to change. Because of your decision,
youre no longer going to think the same thoughts that produce the same
feelings, and vice versa. And if you falter, youve made a deal with
yourself that youre going to stop and remember your intention. Two
hours go by and you feel really good about yourself. You think, Wow, this
is actually working. Unfortunately, your bodys cells arent feeling so
good. Over the years, youve trained them to demand more molecules of
emotion (guilt, in this case) in order to fulfill their chemical needs. You
had trained your body to live as a memorized chemical continuity, but
now youre interrupting that, denying it its chemical needs and going
contrary to its subconscious programs. The body becomes addicted to
guilt or any emotion in the same way that it would get addicted to drugs.
At first you only need a little of the emotion/drug in order to feel it; then
your body becomes desensitized, and your cells require more and more of
it just to feel the same again. Trying to change your emotional pattern is
like going through drug withdrawal.
Once your cells are no longer getting the usual signals from the brain
about feeling guilty, they begin to express concern. Before, the body and
the mind were working together to produce this state of being called
guilt; now you are no longer thinking and feeling, feeling and thinking, in
the same way. Your intention is to produce more positive thoughts, but
the body is still all revved up to produce feelings of guilt based on guilty
thoughts. Think of this as a kind of highly specialized assembly line. Your
brain has programmed the body to expect one part that will fit into this
larger assembly. All of a sudden, youve sent it another part that doesnt
fit into the space where the old guilty part once did. An alarm goes off,
and the whole operation comes to a standstill. Your cells are always
spying on what is happening in the brain and the mind; your body is the
best mind reader ever. So they all stop what they are doing, look up
toward the brain, and think:
What are you doing up there? You insisted on being guilty, and we loyally
followed your
commands for years! We subconsciously memorized a program of guilt
from your repetitive
thoughts and feelings. We changed our receptor sites to reflect your mind
modified our chemistry so that you could automatically feel guilty. We
have maintained your internal chemical order, independent of any
external circumstances in your life. We are so used to the same chemical

order that your new state of being feels uncomfortable, unfamiliar. We

want the familiar, the predictable, and what feels natural. All of a sudden
youre going to change? We cant have that!
So the cells huddle up and say: Lets send a protest message to the brain.
But we have to be
sneaky, because we want her to think that shes actually responsible for
these thoughts. We dont want her to know they came from us. So now
the cells send a message marked URGENT right up the spinal cord to the
surface of the thinking brain. I call that the fast track, because the
message goes straight up the central nervous system in a matter of
seconds. At the same time this is happening, the chemistry of the body
the chemistry of guiltis now at a lower level, because youre not
thinking and feeling the same way. But this drop does not go unnoticed. A
thermostat in the brain called the hypothalamus also sends out an alarm
that says: Chemical values are going down. Weve got to make more!
So the hypothalamus signals the thinking brain to revert back to its old
habitual ways. This is the slow track, because it takes longer for the
chemicals to circulate through the bloodstream. The body wants you to
return to your memorized chemical self, so it influences you to think in
familiar, routine ways.
These fast track and slow track cellular responses occur
simultaneously. And the next thing you know, you start to hear the
chatter of thoughts like these in your head: Youre too tired today. You
can start tomorrow. Tomorrows a better day. Really, you can do it later.
And my favorite: This doesnt feel right. If that doesnt work, a second
sneak attack occurs. The body-mind wants to be in control again, so it
starts picking on you a bit: Its okay for you to feel a little bad right now.
Its your fathers fault. Dont you feel bad about what you did in your
past? In fact, lets take a look at your past so we can remember why you
are this way. Look at youyoure a mess, a loser. Youre pathetic and
weak. Your life is a failure. Youll never change. Youre too much like your
mother. Why dont you just quit. As you continue this awfulizing, the
body is tempting the mind to return to the state it has unconsciously
memorized. On a rational level, that is absurd. But obviously, on some
level it feels good to feel bad.
The moment we listen to those subvocalizations, believe those thoughts,
and respond by feeling the same familiar feelings, mental amnesia sets in
and we forget our original aim. The funny thing is that we actually begin
to believe what the body is telling the brain to say to us. We immerse
ourselves back into that automatic program and return to being our old
self. Most of us can relate to this little scenario. Its no different from any
habit weve tried to break. Whether were addicted to cigarettes,
chocolate, alcohol, shopping, gambling, or biting our nails, the moment
we cease the habitual action, chaos rages between the body and the
mind. The thoughts we embrace are intimately identified with the feelings
of what it would be like to experience the indulgence. When we give in to
the cravings, we will keep producing the same outcomes in our lives,

because the mind and body are in opposition. Our thoughts and feelings
are working against each other, and if the body has become the mind, we
will always fall prey to how we feel.
As long as we use familiar feelings as a barometer, as feedback on our
efforts to change, well always talk ourselves out of greatness. We will
never be able to think greater than our internal environment. We will
never be able to see a world of possible outcomes other than the
negative ones from our past. Our thoughts and feelings have that much
power over us