Neuroscience of Unforgiveness

1 Cor 13:5 - Love keeps no record of wrongs.

Unforgiveness may be a good place to test "rewiring" your brain. Everyone has been badly treated by someone who never cared to repent or make amends - leaving you with the baggage of unforgiveness. Even after making a sincere conscious effort to forgive, your nonconscious brain may continue to bring up a past issue again and again. That's probably because you only took care of part of the problem when you forgave - the spiritual part. There's also a physical part of the problem that needs to be addressed. Specifically, you may have allowed a toxic thought to grow in your nonconscious brain that continues to generate recurrent thoughts of the past offense. Activating the toxic thought gives your brain a temporary adrenalin surge as your throw another "pity party" for yourself. This temporary surge of "feel good" chemicals is why your nonconscious brain likes to recall the past offense. But it is only a temporary "high" that quickly fades and leaves you feeling worse than at the start. Stated differently, there is a physical addiction component to unforgiveness. The strategy to "unwire" the toxic thought is to deliberately trigger it. But instead of allowing it to ride the temporary adrenalin surge, manage the thought by associating it with negative feelings. To "wire in" the healthy replacement thought, do the opposite; deliberately trigger the healthy thought and associate it with positive feelings. If you keep this up long enough, your nonconscious mind will (hopefully!) dismantle the old toxic thought and grow a new neuron structure to hold the healthy thought.

Below is what I used for unforgiveness:

Pro - Healthy, Beautiful, Free, God
Con - Sick, Ugly, Captive, Me

I usedd personalized words or phrases that mean something to me:
Column 1 - Unforgiveness makes my mind sick; forgiveness makes it healthy. The choice is obvious!
Column 2 - Forgiveness is beautiful, unforgiveness is ugly. Jesus says that if I don't forgive others God won't forgive me.
Column 3 - Unforgiveness makes me an "emotional" captive to the past issue. I want to be free!
Column 4 - Some things only God can fix. So let go and let God.

Putting It Into Action - You know the drill by now. It takes a lot of repetition. It takes a lot of repetition. Did I say that it takes a lot of repetition? It takes a lot of repetition. All thoughts begin in temporary memory. It takes a full week for the nonconscious brain to realize that these things belong in long-term memory (the first hurdle!). During the 2nd and 3rd week the brain begins to grow the healthy new thought and dismantle the old toxic thought. But the new growth is fragile. If left alone at this stage it may not survive. During weeks 4 - 9 the new healthy thought is strengthened, stabilized with a protective myelin coating, and finally made part of your permanent long-term memory. Mission accomplished! Disclaimer: Some conditions (e.g. PTSD) may not respond to this simple approach and will require professional help.

Power Users - You cannot tackle all your issues at once. But you can work on up to three issues concurrently, provided that their start times are staggered by three weeks each. That is as much as your nonconscious brain can handle.