REWIRE YOUR BRAIN

Coming out of this strange state of ‘lockdown’, not knowing whether we’ll be ‘sent back into it again’ or able to keep moving into a more familiar state of being and living, the significance of the brain and how our past experiences have ‘wired’ us for resilience, becomes key.

As I have mentioned in Blogs before, the part of the brain often referred to as the Executive Brain, that top-heavy front part called the Pre Frontal Cortex, defines us as humans. It is gradually developed from birth up to the age of about 24, and is shaped to a great degree based on our experiences (and responses to them), and to the 'programming' we receive. This part of the brain gives us a multitude of abilities, including contributing significantly to our 

resilience and our abilities to;

• Stay calm under pressure and manage fear
• Manage our impulses
• Motivate ourselves – be able to generate positive emotions under stress and stay on course, even with setbacks
• Adapt and be flexible – be able to roll with the punches
• Have transparency – act from our values rather than just having a trendy vision statement
• Develop Emotional intelligence – to understand and self-regulate our emotions in order to gain the best, most insightful perspective
• Have ‘big-picture’ insight –to be aware of the present, look backward at the past, and have a vision of the future, simultaneously (mental time-travel J)
• Feel empathy – be able to step into someone else’s shoes and see their viewpoint without your own agenda getting in the way
•  Become attuned to other people – ultimately making them more likely to feel trusting and loyal towards us
• Act according to values and ethics – imagining and in-acting the greater good, above and beyond our own personal satisfaction
• Trust intuition – be able to process gut feeling and heart-felt sense and use in an appropriate way to inform decisions

Of course we’re not necessarily automatically good at any of these – for most of us it takes a bit of effort and quite frequently, a lot of work! SO what are the most recent findings that can make all this easier, to both understand and apply?

1. First of all, your personal (and professional) growth work can change your brain! 

It can be helpful to know that neuroscience and psychology have significant overlaps with each other as well as with ancient contemplative practices – (Mindfulness being a ‘modern’ version and the most commonly quoted). When you apply techniques such as the Applied Emotional Mastery (AEM) techniques and practices, you are not only helping yourself and your actions or relationships short-term, you are also actually changing the very structure of your brain, thereby impacting your life long-term. Neuroscientists can now shows us clearly that repeated emotional and mental activity entail repetition of neural (brain) activity which builds actual neural structures. It is said that neurons that fire together, wire together. This means that the more you for example feel compassion for yourself and others, the more you will be inclined to feel compassionate in situations when you previously might have found it difficult. Conversely, the more you allow yourself to feel put upon or resentful (and justify feeling that way), the more hardwired this becomes and the more predisposed you become to feeling this way in response to a variety of situations.

2. Secondly, all humans have a bias towards negativity. (It’s not just you!) Our ancestors, trying to survive cave life, would understandably place more importance on avoiding sticks than pursuing carrots. The result is that our brains are wired to pay most attention to anything that feels even remotely threatening or disturbing. In our memory bank there is a preferential ‘coding’ that makes us learn faster from pain than pleasure and be more motivated by fear of loss than by desire for gain. (This explains a lot!)

To make positive changes that give lasting benefit and become permanent traits it is not quite enough to merely think positively. We need to download it – (think of it as just like installing or downloading a program onto your computer versus just viewing a link) – and that involves emotions. To ‘download’ or install anything positive requires both repetition and prolonged experience, allowing the integration of the ‘new’ emotional experience or perspective in your brain to become traits –the desired change to become ‘hardwired’– making increased resilience, inner strength, and other desired qualities permanent.

SO: here’s a couple of tips/reminders to help you install an increased state of well-being:

TAKE FIVE!

A short, 5 minute meditation integrated into your daily routine (you can find several in the Multi-media section of our website or on our YouTube channel) will activate the ‘Executive’ circuits in the brain.

RELISH!

To recover from too many stress-hormones and build resilience, we need to generate those hormones that give us a much-needed balance, including endorphins. We do this best by RELISHING the good feelings and experiences we have. When you are enjoying something, savour it. The longer you keep that feeling of appreciation or relishing going, the more the neurons keep firing together and the more chance there is of the neurons wiring together. For example, on your way to work and enjoying the blue sky and sunshine, keep enjoying it. Stop your wandering mind by bringing it back to how good it feels to really appreciate the sunny morning, RELISH AND ABSORB THE GOOD FEELING!  Install it!

Stay safe and well!  - and may your self-mastery increase by the day J

Jennifer

MINDFULNESS or HEARTFULNESS?

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 In Asian languages, the word for mind is usually the same as the word for heart. 

 

In this time when mindfulness has become a trend so popular it’s just about gone viral, it could be worth considering whether such a linguistic fact may be relevant to the true practice of mindfulness; is it just about simply quieting the mind and being fully present in the moment (as many describe it), or should it also somehow involve the heart? And if the answer is ‘yes’ (as the more serious practitioners have it), what does that look like?

Mindfulness has been around for thousands of years – as a part of the Buddhist religion but also in other forms, and framed in many ways. According to Jon Kabat-Zinn, (the originator of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction MBSR, and responsible for bringing mindfulness to both medical and mainstream popularity) “If you’re not hearing the word heartfulness when you’re hearing the word mindfulness, you’re really not understanding what it’s all about. ……. Mindfulness is pointing at something beyond words, underneath words, underneath thinking.” 

So what is underneath words and thinking? What is heartfulness? Some would say it’s the wisdom of the heart, and others would say it is feelings such as love, compassion, and kindness. I would say it’s all of the above and more, for it involves the balanced management of emotions. The heart reflects the emotions we feel, revealed in the patterns created by the heart’s rhythms. When our emotions are brought into our awareness and we learn to manage them so they serve us, our relationships, our life-path and our values, then our heart rhythms will be harmonious - and coherent with a fully present mind. On the other hand, if those emotions are disturbing or unpleasant and unmanaged, so too are the rhythms of the heart. At this point our conscious mind will take a hike up into the busy-ness of our ‘monkey brain’, and mindfulness will no longer happen.

Mind and heart must combine to create the deeper present moment awareness –the mindfulness- that gives us the ability to accept and take pleasure in each moment of work and play, to fully listen to those we dialog with, to deeply appreciate each interaction with loved ones, to savour each morsel we eat and drink, to relish tastes and smells and sights and sounds, delight in musical notes as they reach our ears and in views as we glance upon them, and to surrender to the experience of life, in all it’s glory and messiness. In short, mindfulness need not be a passing fad, or a short-term, fast-acting replacement for pain-killers or anti-depressants, or even the latest way to deal with the stresses and strains of modern or corporate life.

Mindfulness in it’s true form is heartfulness – (it is in the work we do with Applied Emotional Mastery as well as in the work of many of our contemporaries and peers); - it's message is to maximize good and minimize harm, both to oneself and others. It is a daily decision, a way of life, a discipline (in the best sense of the word), that increases awareness and acceptance, insights and wisdom, and that helps us BE fully in-the-moment and (to paraphrase Viktor Frankl) conscious of that space between stimulus and response – where we can pause to make more informed choices - where we can choose to move in the direction of maximizing good.

So even if commercialism takes over and the popularity of mindfulness eventually wanes, the message it has brought and spread, and the heartfulness within it, will surely only have contributed positively to our planet. And (quite fitting for this 'month of the heart') I figure that's good news, however you look at it.