This article was first published for foodpharmacy.se
I don’t know about you, but when I grew up I often heard that our brains only develop up to a certain age and then we’re set for life. Take what you get, sort of. But we now know better. You don’t have to take what you get if you don’t like it. You can change!
Nerve cells that fire together, wire together – Donald Olding Hebb
Hebb created this theory by the end of the 1940s but in recent years the research around neuro plasticity has really grown. Joe Dispenza is one of the pioneers within the area.
We have about 100 billion neurons in our brains and they are connected in different patterns and combinations based on our childhood, experiences, role models and thought patterns. The more you hang out with someone, the closer you’ll become. This is how the neurons in our brains work too.
When we know this we can decide which relationships we want to build in our own brains, based on our intentions and preferences for life quality. When you consciously choose a new thought (perhaps with the intention of changing negative thinking patterns to more positive ones) you’ll need glue to build the new neuro pathway. And since there’s only a certain amount of glue available it’ll be removed from the old thought, or pathway, that you’re no longer feeding. The old pathway is disconnected as the new one connects.
All thoughts carry an energy or a frequency. Change your thoughts and you change your life. – Dr Joe Dispenza
Personally, I’m more interested in actual application than in theory, so let’s look at that.
An example from my own life is when I, a few years back, realized that I had rebuilt my own unconscious thought patterns from heaps of worry to gratitude and appreciation. I had just said goodbye to a friend of mine and found myself thinking about everything that I was grateful for in my life. I didn’t have anything in particular to do and nowhere special to go so I just stood there for while, feeling the gratitude and witnessed all the thoughts that triggered the feeling. And I realized that I go there a lot nowadays, when I’m in-between stuff, bored or just day-dreaming. I go to gratitude because that’s what I built in my brain.
But that’s not what it always looked like. Years earlier I was out walking with my sister and I remember sulkily telling her what I recently had discovered in myself: “Every time I don’t consciously steer my thoughts or feelings they go to worry, anxiety or guilt, that’s where I spend most of my time.”
I’m the same person, a few years of conscious practice, but no major life circumstance changes…just a renovation of the brain. I decided years ago to learn how to focus more on the things in my life that work rather than the things that don’t. I started a daily gratitude practice and created the intention of consciously choosing my focus in life.
But it was in retrospect, when I remembered what I had told my sister that day, and the intense feeling of misery over that realization, and the contrast to the natural gratitude I feel so easily today, that I saw how far I’d come.
And the cool thing is that we can all do this. By conscious practice. By remembering we don’t need to believe in all the fearful thoughts we have. Remembering that we can choose another thought. And the more we choose our thoughts in alignment with what we want more of in life, the stronger they become. Because every time you choose a thought you want to think, you strengthen the neuro pathway, and eventually the old one will be no more.
I like to describe it as autobahn and a jungle path. Your old, unconscious thought is driving on the autobahn. You’ve thought that thought so many times that the neurons have put asphalt on the road and built four lanes. When you start with your more positive thought it’s like walking on a jungle path. In the beginning you need a machete to get through and you use a lot of energy. And it’s so easy to go back to the autobahn, where you can go so fast and easy.
But, the more you consciously choose the jungle path the more easier it’ll be to walk. You won’t need your machete anymore and you can get ahead freely. The pathway will soon be a dirt road and you might choose to put asphalt on it. And the lesser you go back to the autobahn the more it’ll grow over. It’ll start with some flowers coming through the asphalt, but soon they’ll be trees and you won’t be able to drive there anymore.
By consciously, and continuously, choosing your jungle path (e.g. grateful thoughts) and staying off the autobahn (e.g. worry) you will have built a new road, a new neuro pathway and you’ll have renovated your own brain. And all of this of course affects your physical health also, because positive emotions create positive reactions and self-healing in your body.
So, now when you know that you can renovate your brain, where do you want to start?
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