Ashok Gupta explains that retraining the brain builds "safety neurons"—projections from higher brain centers that send safety signals back to lower threat centers (amygdala, insula, periaqueductal gray). He emphasizes that retraining is non-linear: learned safety can be temporarily overwhelmed during stress (illustrated by a nephew’s piano performance), and such setbacks should be met with acceptance and continued retraining rather than panic.
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And of course, as we continue with the retraining, the brain says, but I've been doing it so much. Like, why do I have to keep doing it? Right? And the point is here that you are retraining, so you're creating what we call safety neurons. So in animal studies, they notice that when these types of danger responses are being retrained, there are projections from this part of our brain, the higher centers, down to the lower centers, which, like what they call safety neurons. As soon as the amygdala or the insula, or those parts of the brain, including another part called the periaqueductal gray, which some of you may have heard of, once those parts of the brain have started firing off, they need signals of safety. And so each time you're retraining, you're sending a signal of safety back to the limbic system and also the insula, which doesn't actually sit in the limbic system, but it's another part of the brain. And each time they panic, they respond. If we don't send back the safety response, then they just become a little bit more excitable or reactive. And so there'll be some times when you've been doing a lot of retraining, and suddenly you find that a whole barrage of patterns come up and a lot of symptoms come back, and you think, well, I've been doing the retraining. It hasn't worked. But retraining is not a linear path. Those safety neurons that you've created are still there, but temporarily. The brain has got a bit excited and started overwhelming us again. And it's okay, like, I accept this. Remember, we said all of the retraining starts from a place of acceptance. And the analogy I give is, I always remember my nephew. He's learning to play the piano at the moment, and he's brilliant. He's really. He's only. I think he's only nine years old, but he's playing the piano really, really well, and I'm really proud of him. And there was one moment where we asked him to perform in front of all the family, right? So there's extended family there. There's about 15, 20 people. And he was really excited to do it. And he'd learned this piece, and I'd seen him play it before, and he was, you know, he was really, really good at it. Didn't miss a note. And then he came out in front of everybody, had his piano ready. And of course, what happens in that moment, uh, oh, everyone's watching. So his amygdala his prefrontal cortex is suddenly getting very excited and excitable and oh no, what's going to happen now? So then he tries to play the piano, but guess what happens? He keeps making those mistakes. Right. Now, obviously gradually got into the story ends nicely, right? He eventually got into his flow and he was able to play the piece and it was fine. But in that moment that he couldn't play the piece properly and he's playing the wrong notes, he hadn't forgotten how to play it. Do you see? The learning was still there. Yeah. Do we see? Does that make sense? The learning was still there, but temporarily. When the brain gets excitable, it overwhelms our ability to be in the present moment. And those safety neurons can sometimes not be as powerful as they need to be to control this overreaction. So temporarily, yes, you will have overwhelming patterns. Temporarily, you will have symptoms coming back. And in that moment, the brain wants to panic and overreact and over respond. And so in that moment, what's so important is that you get into that place of acceptance and say, hey, it's just a dip. It's an opportunity for more learning, more retraining. That's all it is. And so when we see it like that, we don't panic when those things happen. We see it as a normal part of the process of healing and replacement.
