Mind over Gray Matter
Become Your Own Programming Expert
In an attempt to mimic Albert Einstein’s look, hair disheveled and sticking out, I’ve been trying to learn in a few weeks what some people work their entire lives studying—neuroscience. I cried with frustration trying to weave what I know about psychology with what I learned in the movie What the Bleep and on-line about the brain. I ran my fingers through my hair, agonized because of my inability to learn everything about how we humans work in a few days, massaged my scalp, and messed up my ‘do. In this second piece in my three-part body/mind/spirit filter series, I offer some reasons why we do what we do and ideas on how to change if something in your life causes you discomfort or to undermine your confidence and internal peace.
Current scientific view is that the mind is what the brain does. Francis Crick, a Nobel Prize Winning biologist wrote in 1994, in The Astonishing Hypothesis: The Scientific Search For The Soul:
You, your joys and your sorrows, your desires and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules.
I experienced this a few months ago when the temperature soared to above one hundred degrees. Driving to the grocery store listening to a classic rock and roll station, Peter Frampton’s “Do You Feel Like We Do” came on. I turned the volume up. The intense heat beat down upon my car as the hot wind blew through the window and around my body. I had a vision of myself as a teenager dancing in the hot Georgia sun during an afternoon rock concert. I felt euphoric, rebellious, and wanted to drive fast. I was momentarily detached from the responsibilities of an adult woman. This was a pleasurable feeling that energized me; I’d like to experience it again (as long as I don’t start driving erratically as if I actually were a frivolous teenager) but not every automatic body response is as uplifting.
Recently I attended a class for more training as a life coach. After the first few hours of instruction I felt overwhelmed and that everyone else was absorbing the material more quickly than I was. My hands were sweaty. I was anxious and fidgeted. I asked a question and prefaced it with a joke about being a problem child. Before the second class the next day, I reviewed the information at a leisurely pace. I was calm and confident. I understood everything. I wondered why I’d spoken of myself in a derogatory way.
How We’re Hardwired
Our brains are vast configurations of neural networks. There are approximately one thousand billion nerve cells in the brain and each one has the potential to connect to thousands or tens of thousands of other nerve cells, or neurons, our smallest unit of consciousness. The neurons pass impulses to each other through branches called dendrites and axons. Dendrites receive impulses and send them to and around the cell body and axons, some of which can be up to three feet long, carry impulses away from the cell body. Dendrites and axons do not touch but instead connect to or “fire” each other, similar to an electrical spark, through a gap called the synapse. There are three types of neurons: sensory, for sensing our external environment, motor, that cause action through muscles, and interneurons that link sensation and action—basically they do the thinking.
When we’re young our brains create a library of associations and identifications that connect thoughts, feelings, circumstances and actions. Through repeatedly firing these neurons our brains wire these networks together and eventually we perceive these connections as normal. We build models of the outside world based on these networks that are now wired together. This model, or story we tell ourselves, becomes familiar, our comfort zone, and forms our personality. Any information we process will be influenced by this network. By the time we’re approximately eighteen our networks are established into long-term relationships and their pathways easily fire together when the resultant thought and/or feeling occurs again. Scientists have watched our gray matter fire and have deduced that our brains do not know the difference between what is present and what is past; the same neural networks fire.
Happening simultaneously in the brain, the hypothalamus, the center of the limbic system that deals with pain, pleasure, and emotional balance, is making chemicals that match every emotion our neural network produces. These chemicals, neuropeptides, are released into our blood stream where they seek out and lock into body cells triggering a change in the cell and affecting our moods. When these cells divide or make sister cells they’ll have more receptors for these emotional neurpeptides and less receptors for the nourishment they need such as vitamins, minerals, and fluids. If we experience an emotion/thought connection regularly, or on a daily basis, our cells become used to the emotion and our bodies crave the feeling. To fulfill this hunger we’ll unconsciously set up situations that produce this sensation within us again.
Understanding this I can interpret chemically what happened in that first class to cause me such discomfort (I could also relate this to driving the car in the heat but we usually don’t care to change what feels good). Whenever I encounter or merely think of encountering a new situation, I relive the anxiety of entering different schools as the new girl. The same neural network fires that was wired when I was a child in a military family who moved frequently. As an anxious child I determined that if I do something perfectly the teacher will reward me and other kids will like me. I won’t be rejected. Fear got wired to new situations. And I wanted to fit in so badly that if I were different than my peers in any way, I immediately felt any one of a number of emotions such as despair, envy, jealousy, loathing, sadness, shame, or even worry.
Since my brain can’t tell the difference between past and present, this association that has fired together for forty years causes my body to respond like it did then. My hypothalamus makes anxiety, fear and negative emotion neuropeptides and I feel unworthy and disconcerted even though my adult reasoning mind knows I’m okay. Subconsciously I’m still awkward, new, and inept. Old feelings bubbled up and I tried to defend myself against rejection by having people laugh with me instead of at me when I called myself a problem child during the coaching class. But this old familiar story no longer serves the empowered positive woman I choose to be. If I was unaware of how I react in life I wouldn’t have given my use of the phrase “problem child” another thought, but I know that words are very powerful—they not only tell how we feel about ourselves but also tell us how to feel about ourselves. Negativity breeds negativity. My last blog is even about the overuse of the word problem in our society today. Using this unfavorable word undermines my esteem and confidence.
Rewiring our Hard Drives
By simply avoiding new events, I’m retreating to a past that limits my growth as an adult and I deprive myself of the opportunity to make real choices. I might even perceive myself as a victim. So if my body responds automatically it’s up to my mind to change my body. Looking at difficult areas that cause me anxiety and asking why do they cause me discomfort and how can I move past them, I expand beyond my own hard-wired limitations.
The good news is that neurons that don’t fire together lose their long-term relationship and since the brain can’t tell between what is happening in real time and what isn’t, we can use tools such as visualization, affirmation and others to rewire ourselves. Every time we interrupt our automatic thought processes we start breaking neuron connections. Though the subconscious wants to stay in its comfort zone, through staying present and conscious in our lives and choosing to make changes we’ll break these connections and begin rewiring our brain. This takes practice, patience and a little help from someone outside ourselves that can help catch outdated thinking, programmed responses and self-sabotaging behavior. Being aware of and understanding how our minds work helps reprogram ourselves gently to affect positive change that empowers us and helps our body cells crave and attract joyful, loving emotions. With time the outdated neural network connection will be broken completely and while we’ll still remember our past, it won’t rule our behavior in the present.
My mom is a wonderful example of positively changing the body’s cells through thought. Four years after chemotherapy her IgM numbers, antibodies in her blood, look great. Though she lives with an incurable cancer, she is in remission. On one of the last visits to her doctor, the statement was made, “You’re happy aren’t you,” and her cancer doctor has made the comment, “Many people don’t respond as well to the cancer treatment.” She has family, friends, hobbies she enjoys and plans that keep her looking forward to the future. Her positive outlook, love, and faith have wired happy positive thoughts on a daily basis and she produces happy cells in her body that thrive and multiply.
We all have the ability to stay conscious, understand and make real positive choice—we create our own reality.
Just this morning I went to a new business-networking group that I imagined to be full of many women who all knew each other even though my initial fear was that I would be the only one who didn’t know anyone. I was anxious but I talked to my husband ahead of time and used some of the tools I’ve learned to coach myself through the anxiety and fear. I put on my professional attire, printed out MapQuest directions and found a parking spot. I remembered what my coach and I’d discussed and said a prayer and affirmation before I got out of the car and walked into the café where I’d never been before. While it didn’t feel as easy and fun as driving with loud rock and roll on a hot summer day, I put a smile on my face, put my hand out for shaking, and let others know I was new (speaking our truth appropriately is very empowering). My hair was perfect.
©2008, Susan Bremer
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Copyright (c) 2008, Susan Bremer, All Rights Reserved.
Self Appeal® Coach & DVD Producer of The Art of Sensual Dance
Susan Bremer is currently writing From Sex Appeal to Self Appeal
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