How I’m Re-Training My Limbic System Using Pictures, Not Arguments

How I’m Re-Training My Limbic System Using Pictures, Not Arguments

After understanding that the limbic system is a prediction engine, the next question becomes obvious:

How does it update?

The answer is uncomfortable but freeing:

It does not update through explanation.
It updates through experience.

And crucially — imagined experience counts.

Why arguments don’t work

You can’t reason an AI model out of biased training data.

You have to:

  • provide counter-examples
  • change the reward signal
  • repeat new outcomes

The limbic system works the same way.

Words alone rarely enter.

Words paired with imagery, sensation, and resolution can.

Why pictures work

Pictures succeed where explanations fail because they:

  • compress context into a single gestalt
  • show authority clearly
  • encode outcome and resolution
  • include movement and agency
  • demonstrate safety after truth

In other words, they supply the missing data.

The three patterns I’m actively re-training

After a lot of work, I identified three dominant limbic patterns running underneath everything else.

1. Truth + authority = danger

This pattern formed when something genuinely wrong happened and was never properly acknowledged or repaired — and was then followed by denial, projection, and punishment.

The limbic conclusion was simple:

“Truth in the presence of authority is unsafe.”

Counter-pattern:
Truth + higher authority → safety and dignity

This is why imagery of a just, unbribable Judge is so powerful.
It restores benign authority.

2. Calm = pre-impact state

Because harm often followed periods of calm, the system learned:

“If I relax, something bad will happen.”

So vigilance felt protective.

Counter-pattern:
Calm can coexist with danger without collapse

Imagery where calm persists through threat retrains this association.

3. Action is futile → freeze

When action repeatedly failed to produce protection, the system concluded:

“Nothing I do will help.”

Freeze became the safest option.

Counter-pattern:
Small action creates a viable path

Images where movement works — step by step — are critical here.

Internal movies as retraining data

Rather than trying to “convince” myself, I now rehearse short internal scenes that contain:

  • the original cue
  • a different outcome
  • preserved dignity
  • continued safety

These scenes are brief.
Repeatable.
Boring, even.

That’s the point.

Repetition beats intensity.

What this work is — and isn’t

This is not denial.

It’s not pretending harm didn’t happen.
It’s not spiritual bypassing.
It’s not self-deception.

It’s updating a learning system with better data.

I’m not trying to erase my moral spine.

I’m trying to stop my body acting like the only courtroom left in the world.

The sentence I return to

When things tighten, this is the line I come back to:

“My nervous system is not broken — it was trained on bad data.”

That single sentence changes the entire posture of the work.

From force → method.
From shame → understanding.
From despair → process.

​

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