Arnaud Question #14

 

Dear Joshua,

Last night I was inspired to watch a very interesting talk on YouTube about the "feel good" hormones: endorphin, dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin. In a nutshell, endorphin makes you feel good to cover pain. This is why I feel good after the gym. Dopamine is the hit you get when you reach a goal or cross an item from your to-do list. It is also created by consuming alcohol, drugs, checking our phones for messages, and gambling, and it's very addictive (which explained why I'm sometimes compelled to play online slot games!). Serotonin is the good feeling of safety we get in company, friendship, etc. And finally, oxytocin is the rush of pleasure we get from empathy and doing a good deed for someone.

Watching this made a lot of sense but it triggered several questions that I felt inspired to run past you. Are hormones the physical/chemical manifestations of our thoughts?

And, just like there are true and false desires, are there true and false good feelings? It seemed to me that the addiction created by dopamine is aligned with the old approach to life, whereas oxytocin is much more aligned with love... Ultimately, I guess, it all boils down to our thoughts and vibration?

With love,
Arnaud


Dear Arnaud,

You live in a physical world and how you operate in that world is guided by your approach to life. Certainly, you have a physical body and this helps you navigate your reality. You have an inner guidance system that also helps you navigate reality. You can choose to maintain your alignment and agree with your inner self on what you are experiencing in your reality. You can also choose to disagree. If you choose to agree, you feel positive emotion. If you choose to disagree, you will feel negative emotion. Your hormones are tied to your survival instinct, but work in much the same way.

If you do something that is of benefit to the survival of your body, it will release hormones indicating that you actions are good (as far as the survival of the body is concerned). If you do something that is not good for the survival of the body, you will feel physical pain. This, like the emotional guidance system, is not always utilized as intended. You can do things to bypass the guidance system. You can purposely cause yourself to feel negative emotion, by choosing the limited perspective. You can say that the conditions are wrong and try to change them yourself. This is an obvious example of not utilizing your guidance system to create the reality you prefer. It is the old approach to life. The same is true with your physical guidance system. You can cause yourself pain on purpose. If you have ever tried riding a skateboard, you know what we mean. You can also ramp up your good-feeling hormones by doing things that are not necessarily good for the body.

In a natural world, free from the pressures of your fearful society, you would naturally do things that were good for the body and avoid things that might harm it. You would pay attention to your physical guidance system. In the natural world, you would also pay attention to your emotional guidance system. You would seek to feel good and when you felt negative emotion, you would understand that this is a indication that a limiting belief exists within you. You would not blame the conditions, you would simply seek to analyze the fear and work to reduce the intensity of your limiting belief so that you could adjust your vibration to become a match to your desires.

Animals pay attention to their physical and emotional guidance systems. They do not seek to change the conditions either in their moods or the world around them. They accept what is and live in bliss. However, their desires are very basic in nature. Man has more refined desires and has the ability to choose perspectives. Man understands the nature of the universe and can process fear. It's just that most of you succumb to your fear and this feels bad. In order to feel better, you manipulate your hormones to distract you from how you feel. But your hormones can only be manipulated for so long. Soon, you will return to feeling bad. The only thing you can do is manipulate your fears by processing them and realizing they are mostly irrational and false. This is the new approach to life and it works with your built in guidance systems to allow you to create your own reality. It can be a reality you prefer, but you can't escape your guidance. Use it as it was intended and it will lead you wherever you want to go.

With our love,
We are Joshua

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