How many times have you been fervid about something, anything?
These are times you should write about if you can.
Merriam Webster says, of the word, Fervid:
FERVID suggests warmly and spontaneously and often feverishly expressed emotion.
If you tap into memories and times you remember as fervid, you are dealing with memories of actions that were largely conveyed and controlled by your limbic system is a very old part of the brain. While it may be scientifically over-simplified to call it the ancient animal and primitive part of your brain it is is a very old part of the brain, the limbic system operates behind and beyond conscious control.
I believe it is important to understand that when you are telling stories of your life that you understand you most likely did not have control over what you felt.
We have control over what we do with emotions, but we do not have control over the generation of those fervid emotions.
If you aren’t into biology you can skip over the info taken from a National Library of Medicine’s Pub Med Article which lists the functions of individual structures and connections of the limbic system.
| Areas | Functions |
|---|---|
| Cingulate gyrus | Autonomic functions regulating heart rate and blood pressure as well as cognitive, attentional and emotional processing. |
| Parahippocampal gyrus | Spatial memory |
| Hippocampus | Long-term memory |
| Amygdala | Anxiety, aggression, fear conditioning; emotional memory and social cognition. |
| Hypothalamus | Regulates the autonomic nervous system via hormone production and release. Secondarily affects and regulates blood pressure, heart rate, hunger, thirst, sexual arousal and the circadian rhythm sleep/wake cycle. |
| Mammilary body | Memory |
| Nucleus accumbens | Reward, Addiction |
I find that understanding that there are things beyond our control can help us with writing about both the good and the bad in life.
The Good
Focusing on first loves, bonding with a newborn, details of places where important things happened can “bring back” bits of information about the context and even physiological sensations associated with the original memory.
This information can provide rich details for the stories you are capturing and conveying about fervid emotions of love and passion.
The Bad
I would caution writers to be careful when recalling times of anxiety, aggression, or fear as with all limbic filtered emotions, recalling those times can put you in touch with physiological aspects of the emotions you felt at a time when you were anxious or fearful.
If you are going to explore such intense negative experiences, I strongly recommend that you work with a professional, certified therapist.
Drawing upon these feelings can reward a writer with access to depth and intensity in description, but anything that plays with blood pressure, heart rate, and your ability to sleep should be done with great care.
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