You are the Universe - Your
Neural Pathways are creating your
Scientists have proven that your brain is being shaped, molded, and changed by your everyday experiences. This is referred to as neural plasticity, or the ability to “rewire your brain”. Just as a plastic water bottle becomes pliable when heated, your brain is being influenced and shaped by what is happening in your day-to-day life. For instance, take a simple task like brushing your teeth, for example. If you were asked to brush your teeth, you would probably be able to do so without any problems. But what if you were asked to do so using your non-dominant hand? You’d suddenly have to think about the action of your arm and the motion of your wrist and hand. You might even find yourself getting tripped up as you tried to complete the activity. It would be difficult at first purely because it’s unfamiliar, but as you persevered, it would become easier as the task became more familiar. This is an example of neuroplasticity.
In the words of Abraham Lincoln, “People are just as happy as they make up their minds to be.”When you engage in practices that increase feelings of happiness, you increase activity in your brain’s left prefrontal cortex. As you continue to feel happy, you strengthen this neural activity and solidify brain pathways that make it easier to replicate feelings of happiness. Hence, why people who are optimistic have more activity in their left prefrontal cortex than those who are pessimistic. Neural plasticity has opened doors of hope for transforming mental health issues such as depression and anxiety, for changing unhealthy habits, and for increasing the potential to experience lasting happiness. By mobilizing our thoughts and practicing new ways of thinking, we can physically reshape our nerve cells and change the way our brains work.
Mental activity strengthens the neural pathways in your brain associated with what you focus on with your thoughts and feelings. In simpler terms, if you focus on happiness with your thoughts and feelings, you strengthen happiness pathways. If you focus on stress with your thoughts and feelings, you strengthen stress pathways. Every thought and feeling you have (FYI, thoughts produce feelings), strengthens the circuitry in your brain known as neural pathways. Neural pathways = the basis of your habits of thinking, feeling, and acting. They are what you believe to be true and why you do what you do.
Donald Hebb’s landmark discovery in 1949, “neurons that fire together wire together,” best explains the process of forming, strengthening, and solidifying neural pathways. We experience these pathways in the form of patterns in various areas of our life, such as relationships, money, health, and happiness levels.
As long as you know how to develop and strengthen neural pathways, you can change virtually anything you want. As you practice interacting with and traveling down new pathways, you naturally weaken old pathways. As you think similar thoughts and feel similar feelings, you either create new habits and beliefs or solidify old ones. Eventually, through repetition and feeling intensity, your new habits run on autopilot. First, it may be helpful to understand exactly what a belief is. In order for a thought (which occurs in the conscious mind) to become a belief, it must be repeated. It’s this repetition that allows a neural pathway to be created.
For instance, suppose that growing up, you often heard your parents say things like “you have to work hard to get ahead” or “you’ll never get rich having morals”. As an adult–and without even realizing it–you too have likely internalized that belief. So you work long hours, never take a day off work, you stop seeing your friends due to your work commitments, and you stop going to the gym. You don’t sleep well at night and you are often irritable or grumpy due to the immense stress you are under. You believe what your parents said to be the truth and consequently, your experiences (3D reality) have no choice but to reflect that. Why? Because your mind essentially‘filters out’ all of the information that you've deemed unimportant (untrue) and only brings you the information you've deemed important (true) through your beliefs. As a result, that is all you see when, in fact, the fact of the matter might be very different.
If you don’t consciously direct your mind’s attention onto your goal, you will find your strongest existing patterns running on autopilot.
Existing and often undesired automatic habits drive your brain, body, and behavior, but over time and under the right conditions, you can change old habits to create lasting happiness. As you contemplate the beliefs you have accepted as truth, you can see that some beliefs are healthy, while others work against us. Enter the Reticular Activating System, or the RAS. The RAS transmits information between the conscious and subconscious mind. Part of its role is to actively seek out the information that you tell it to (ie. you think of a red car and suddenly can't stop seeing them). If you want to change a belief, the RAS can be your greatest asset. The RAS wants to help you, but you must work with it as well. The RAS doesn’t question the beliefs you feed it--it simply believes whatever you tell it. It does not distinguish between fact and fiction-- it simply obeys whatever you command it to via your habitual thoughts and inner conversations.
Changing a belief takes time and consistent practice. Fortunately, there are many ways to help your subconscious mind adopt new thinking styles, including visualization, using your imagination, meditation, acting as-if, journalling to uncover limiting beliefs and develop healthier alternatives, using affirmations (they work on repetition and hence create new neural pathways), or listening to an audio narrative such as a meditation or affirmation recording (this works best in the last five minutes prior to falling asleep and in the first five minutes upon waking because that is when the subconscious mind is most receptive to information).
As you can see, there is a plethora of ways in which you can prime your brain to develop the neural pathways (experiences/3D reality) that you prefer to have. When you change your beliefs by redirecting your conscious thought, you change your beliefs (filter) and when you change your filter, you change your experience of the world around you, otherwise referred to as your 3D or external. This is exactly why persistence is so important. If you are consistent and persistent with your practice, you will surely begin to notice a shift within your reality in no time!
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