Because our primitive brain is concerned with safety and survival needs, difficult experiences stick in the brain like velcro. We need to remember these experiences to make sure that we are alert and ready for the next time these come around. Positive experiences are less relevant to our most primitive needs for safety and security and so they slide off like velcro.
Armed with this knowledge, neuroscience and psychological research have shown that we can influence the environment of our brain, by making use of our higher cortical capacities to combat the velcro-teflon tendencies of the brain. P
Armed with knowledge of how the brain handles various traumas and illnesses, neuroplasticity research has shown that we can make use of our higher cortical brain to intervene and wake up parts of the brain that are asleep, coach our brain to compensate activate areas of the brain that are compromised by illness or injury.
To counter the teflon tendencies of the brain, positive psychology teaches us to pause and savor positive experiences so that the environment of our brain can neurologically benefit from these sunny experiences. In effect, we can change our brain from a cold, dark, and guarded place to one that is more sunny and open and creatively responsive to the world.
Many spiritual traditions have top down practices that are designed to introduce new brain habits and bathe the brain, from the top down, in the salutary sauce that these practices generate. Maitre or loving kindness practices, in buddhism, and mussar practices, in judaism, are examples of this. When our brain/mind is infused with loving kindness, it is more relaxed and open. Hussar practices help us to work directly with harmful and hateful patterns of behavior that arise from fear. By developing a sober and wholesome relationship with these patterns, the higher cortical brain, somewhat free from the deeper structures of the brain, can introduce a kind of freedom to the brain so that it can respond in more wholesome and ultimately more safety producing ways.
