One of the common reactions to hearing about your spouse’s affair is the sensation of disgust. Although you talk about it as if something is churning in your gut, it’s your brain that is working overtime.
Disgust influences your moral choices and even your political views. Bad news, images and smells can each trigger disgust reactions.
When that sensation persists, it can eventually contribute to digestive issues. The disgust colors everything you do.
Disgust also sticks around for a while. The sensation has been found to be one that is prone to being fixated on.
Anytime you see their picture or see their clothes, that sensation of disgust reminds you what happened. It’s not a pleasant sensation at all. It comes on strong and stays with you.
At that moment you wish you could just puke or find some other way of ejecting all the problems away. You may even be tempted to give into the ‘disgust disposal effect‘.
This is the name given to when you dispose of anything you associate with the disgust, even though you may have only imagined some repulsiveness.
Although the disgust happened soon after discovering the affair, it changes things. The disgust interferes with any kind of empathy developing.
There’s a reason why your disgust is keeping you from healing. The part of your brain that controls it, the Insula Cingulate reacts faster than the parts of your brain associated with empathy.
That faster reaction time interferes with recovery from what happened.
Moving past that reaction time requires delaying gratification and giving into the disgust. Although you may still initially want to act on your disgust, if you want to move past it, it’s essential you put it off.
It’s only when that part of your brain is bypassed that the part associated with sending and receiving messages along with empathy can be accessed. As long as you have the disgust turned on, you won’t be able to gain full access to the parts you need for healing.
This delaying is one of the coping skills I covered in the special report that went to members of the Restored Lifestyle site. Join today so you can receive each month’s special report on topics concerning affairs and recovery from them.
Keeping It Real,
Jeff
