What Causes Stress: Formula for Creating a Negative Emotional Block

Do you want to know what causes stress or why you have the life stress that you’re experiencing?

This simple formula might be helpful:
EVENT + PERCEPTION

You start with an Event, which is neutral; it is neither good nor bad. You then filter it through your Mental Perception filter to compare it with everything that has ever happened before in your life (whether you remember it or not). Based on your past experiences, you will then assign your own meaning to the Event.

In order to create a Negative Emotional Block or make the Event be a stressor in your life, you have to add Intense Emotion.

So the formula then becomes: EVENT + PERCEPTION + INTENSE EMOTION

Here is an example of how a negative emotional block could be created. Suppose you’re walking down the street as a small child and a snarling dog lunges at you. The snarling dog lunging at you is the EVENT. You think that you are in danger. That is your PERCEPTION. You instantly go into the Fight or Flight Survival Response. Your heart is pounding and you feel Fear. That is the INTENSE EMOTION.

You have now created a “Negative Emotional Block”. From that moment on, every aspect of the event: every sensory perception - what you saw, heard, touched, tasted, smelled, and most importantly, what you felt, has been hardwired into your nervous system. And because it has been hardwired using your Survival back brain, you can’t process it logically through your thinking brain.

The formula is now: EVENT + PERCEPTION + INTENSE EMOTION = NEGATIVE EMOTIONAL BLOCK!

Each time you experience anything at all similar, whether real or imagined, you will fire off the whole sequence of negative conditioned reactions that were part of your survival response the first time the snarling dog lunged at you! Even if you just think about it, you will have the same physical and emotion reaction. Remember that the mind cannot tell the difference between what is real and what is imagined. It will always react as if it were a real threat.

From then on, no matter how old you are or how long ago the Event happened, any time you are exposed to anything that is anything like the Event, you will automatically revert to the Emotional age and stage you were at when the Event first happened. You may have been five when it happened and you are fifty-five now, but you will think, feel and react the way you did when you were five - if you have not eliminated this Negative Emotional Block that was conditioned into your system.

So what are the possible results or consequences of a Negative Emotional Block?

Depending on the person involved, the key byproduct of this Event could be:
a) A Mental Block - a limiting belief like: “I don’t like dogs” or “animals are vicious”, etc. b) An Emotional Block - anxiety attack: “I hate/fear dogs, animals, walking outside, sudden movement, etc. c) A Physical Block - “I have a headache, backache, etc. I guess I can’t go for a walk. Or All Three!

Now we used a snarling dog, which created a fear of dogs as an example. But the same process applies to any experience that creates any kind of limiting behavior or belief. The best way that I have found to eliminate these Negative Emotional Blocks has been Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT).