What has India’s epic Mahabharat got to do with cutting edge research into the human brain? The link is how it is difficult to forget our early brain inputs!
Modern research shows that emotions and feelings can be formed before we are even born! All our emotions are stored in the limbic portion of the brain which is often referred to as our “emotional” brain. Of particular interest is one section of our emotional brain, the seat of most of our feelings, called the amygdala.
The amazing thing about the amygdala is that it becomes functional long before birth. It has been found that it is processing and more importantly storing feelings and emotions, even at the pre-birth stage.
To most of us Indians, this knowledge of the brain’s inputs being active even in the pre-birth phase is not surprising as we are aware of the story of Arjun, his son Abhimanyu and the Chakravyuha. In the Mahabharat, the unborn Abhimanyu learnt how to break into the deadly battle formation of the Chakravyuha when Arjun was explaining it to his pregnant wife. But as Arjun was called away by Lord Krishna and could not complete the explanation, Abhimanyu did not learn the secret of getting out. Tragically, his lack of knowledge cost him his life.
Right now, many pregnant mothers in Europe are placing audio headphones on their bellies and feeding their unborn children language lessons in the hope that the little ones will be multi-lingual when they are born! But more seriously, the point is that if it is difficult to forget the lessons picked up so early in life, it is equally difficult to unlearn negative emotions such as anger, sadness, loneliness, and many others which are formed at the same time. They manifest themselves as blockages in our later life and prevent us from leveraging our potential.
To help unlearn such blockages, I wish to share with you an exercise I have recommended often. Sit down comfortably, close your eyes and breathe deeply and evenly. Think of your current placement, the room you are in, your body and go in deeper, into your very lungs, as you inhale and exhale. Then go back in time ten years. Where are you now? Familiarise yourself with your surroundings. Wait for a while... maybe you are playing with your college mates. Go back in time another ten years... where are you now... in school? Can you see your playground, your classmates? Remember the pranks you used to play on them? Relax and familiarise yourself again. Now go back another ten years to when you were five years old perhaps. Familiarise yourself again.
Now go back to the time, for the last time, when you were in your mother’s womb. The light is soft... you are floating securely in tepid waters. You are serene. After enjoying this sensation for some time, now imagine slowly that you are being born... again... afresh... without fears, anger or stress.
Do this slowly, gently, and you will be able to gradually erase many of the negative blockages that constrict you.
The writer is a renowned film and theatre actor