How Emotionally Charged Impressions are Created?

An interesting analogy to constructing a building

Have you ever wondered why you give emphasis to certain events in your life? Some incidents get imprinted on your subconscious mind while others just get forgotten. Different people have different incidents that they emphasize, and the reason is based upon the working of the subconscious mind.

A deeper analysis

When a child is born he has very few emotionally charged incidents. Of course, the pain of living in a peaceful environment in the womb to coming out in a world of uncertainties is a powerful incident that gets imprinted in the child’s mind but more or less the subconscious mind of the child is free of emotionally charged impressions.

As the child grows, he adds one incident after another to his subconscious mind that is associated with an emotional charge. These emotionally charged impressions then act as the reason for the creation of further emotionally charged incidents. Let’s try to analyze how these newly created impressions are formed.

When a person experiences an incident, the brain just tries to connect with similar incidents from the past that have an emotional charge associated with them. If there exists even one powerful incident from the past then the current experience also gets emotionally charged and is stored in the subconscious mind.

Example: Ram grew up in a conservative society where getting involved with girls before marriage was looked down upon. Ram was quite masculine and hence he had feelings of guilt as his tendencies were not accepted by society. This caused him to not stand out amongst his peers. He simply blends with his peers so that they do not go after the desires that might cause him to get uncomfortable.

Ram’s father was a rich man and possessed a luxury car. He would drop Ram in his car at the school. While riding in the car Ram would not like anyone to see him. He would put his head down all throughout the car journey and would have an immense amount of fear.

Later Ram grew up and became an artist. He would paint portraits that would look quite life-like. Once a person wanted to present him with a Ferrari car for his incredible work. This incident of someone providing him with a luxury car caused his subconscious to bring to the surface an incident from his past where he would feel uncomfortable riding in his father’s car. The incident that should have positive impact on him actually had a negative impact and Ram became fearful.

An analogy to building construction

Consider yourself to be the king of the country (mind). Initially, the country has very few cities and each city has a number of buildings. Each of these cities is like a group of emotionally charged impressions that are related to one other. One city might have impressions related to guilts concerning standing out amongst peer groups while the other might have impressions concerning fear of looking at the sensual scene. Each of these emotionally charged impressions can be thought to be like the various buildings in the city. The taller the building, the more emotional charge is associated with it.

When a new incident is experienced by a person then it is like the king (i.e the mind) wanting to see if any new building (impression) can be constructed or not. Based on the type of incident the appropriate city is selected. Then it is seen if that city has any tall buildings. It is against the pride of the king to create a smaller building in the city. If the city has tall buildings then the newly created building will be taller than them. This is how new buildings get added causing the person to store more incidents that are emotionally charged within his subconscious mind.

How to come out of this automatic mechanism

If a person does not want certain incidents to be stored within his subconscious mind then he should work upon the related existing impressions and remove the emotional charge by applying the process of catharsis and refinement of the inner child. Both these techniques ensure that the earlier tall building is demolished so that the next time the king thinks of constructing a new building then it need not be tall. As the other taller buildings get demolished there won’t be a desire within the king to create a very tall building (an impression associated with a high emotional charge) and the person can overcome the automatic mechanism of the mind.

Example: Ram has a storehouse (city) of various impressions (buildings) that concern his feeling of uneasiness related to standing out amongst his peers. He doesn’t want any more incidents to be stored within his subconscious mind that are emotionally charged causing him to have feelings of discomfort.

Ram applies the process of catharsis to his past impressions associated with his feelings of fear concerning activities involving the opposite sex. Thus, he was able to demolish existing buildings (earlier stored impressions) in the city and the newly created buildings need not be as tall (emotionally charged) as they would have been if he hadn’t performed catharsis. Ram also changed his belief that attraction towards the opposite sex is actually something that he should be happy about. Bringing these changes made Ram overcome his automatic mechanism of giving importance to incidents where he would stand out amongst his peers. He actually became comfortable leading his peers and was not hesitant to show off his success.

Conclusion

The earlier stored impressions in a person determine the formation of new impressions that have the same or higher emotional charge. This creation of a new impression in the subconscious mind is automatic. If someone wants to overcome this automatic mechanism then he should first remove the emotional charge associated with the earlier stored impressions and then change the belief so that no new impression gets created when faced with similar or related events in life. Life would then be more under your control.