What sparks the essence of our personalities?
You’ve seen it: some people seem to glide through life. Every event – however trivial – is met with an almost contagious optimism. Their glass isn’t just half-full; it feels like it’s overflowing. Even under storm clouds, they somehow spot the silver lining.
And then some people move through life under a permanent overcast. Every event – no matter how small – gets filtered through pessimism. Their glass isn’t just half-empty; it looks constantly drained. Even in bright light, they find the shadow.
Most of us live somewhere in between those extremes – on a wide spectrum of human temperament – experiencing a shifting kaleidoscope of emotion depending on the season, the stress level, the relationships, the sleep, the story we’re telling ourselves.
So why are people the way they are?
Personality isn’t just “who you are.” It’s also what you’ve rehearsed – over and over – under emotional pressure.
Some moments hit like lightning – losing someone you love, sudden unemployment, a diagnosis, betrayal, a health scare. Trauma, abuse and neglect can carve even deeper grooves. These experiences don’t just happen to us; they can shape our patterns of thinking, feeling and reacting.
I’ve watched a few Dr. Joe Dispenza lectures, by the way.
He says it best, “Your personality is made up of how you think, act and feel.”
Think of a bad memory that still feels raw. Something that may have defined you for a time.
Not the details – but the feeling. Right after the event, there’s a surge: grief, fear, anger, shame, helplessness, anxiety. Sometimes those emotions fade naturally. Sometimes they linger.
Here’s the trap: when pain sticks around, the mind often keeps returning to – what happened, what it meant, what should’ve happened instead.
You replay it nonstop in your head. The emotion becomes familiar. And familiarity starts to feel like identity.
At first, it’s a mood.
Someone asks, “Hey, what’s wrong?”
You say, “I’m in a bad mood because of what happened a few days ago.”
Then, if that mood becomes your default long enough, it shifts into temperament.
Someone asks again, “Why are you upset all the time?”
And you answer, “Because of this thing that happened 11 months ago.”
And eventually – if the same emotional state keeps running the show – it can get completely absorbed into your personality.
Not because you chose it consciously, but you unconsciously taught it to yourself through repetition. Replaying and reliving the event over and over.
To be clear: mourning and grieving are essential. But there’s a difference between grieving and living there.
When we linger in an emotional state for too long, the body can start treating it like home base – like a song it keeps playing because it knows the tune. It becomes less “something I’m feeling” and more “who I am.”
“Now you’re stuck in a moment, and you can’t get out of it.” Thanks, U2!
Dispenza describes it like this: if the same negative thoughts keep producing the same negative emotions, and the same emotions keep driving the same types of thoughts, a person can end up living biologically and emotionally in the past.
When we do that to ourselves, we are living in the past, are we not?
Can you stop a bad moment from becoming a permanent identity?
Yes, you can. And the key is surprisingly specific: Shorten the lifespan of the emotional reaction.
Dispenza calls this “shortening our emotional refractory periods” – the time it takes to return to baseline after being triggered.
That’s the real game. Not “never feel negative emotion.” Not “be positive all the time.”
Just recover faster. Don’t set up camp in the feeling.
If you want a different emotional life, you need to think about different things.
Start easy.
Try getting out of bed on the opposite side in the morning. Walk a new route. Eat something you don’t usually eat. Watch something that doesn’t match your usual mood. Read a page out of something that challenges your default worldview.
These are pattern interruptions.
If you do the same things you did yesterday, you’ll tend to think and feel the way you did yesterday.
We don’t have to erase the bad moments of our past. We need to stop rehearsing them as if they’re our identity.
Let the past be information – not a prison.
• Toby Moore is a Shaw Local News Network columnist, star of the Emmy-nominated film “A Separate Peace,” and CEO of CubeStream Inc. He can be reached at feedback@shawmedia.com.