How to rewire your brain (Part Two)
This is part two in our series about rewiring your brain. If you haven't already, you’ll benefit from reading part one first. You can find it here.
If you have already read part one… Let's dive back in!
In 1890, a Psychologist, Philosopher and Physician named William James, first introduced the idea that our thoughts can change the function and structure of our brain. This theory was ignored for the first half of the 20th century, until studies on stroke victims in the 1960’s reported evidence of the brain rewiring itself following damage.
Our brain is wired up in two major ways - through repetition and through strong emotional or physical experiences.
Repetition is creating and strengthening a pathway of information to the appropriate part of the brain. Recurrence of this activity strengthens the pathway and goes on to form a habit or an automatic behaviour.
Learning the alphabet is a form of repetition. So is learning to drive a car. The very first time you drove a car, you were creating new pathways in your brain. Over time, you strengthen these pathways until you no longer have to think about every little motion of driving - it just comes naturally.
This is also why habits are hard to break.
If we think of these pathways like a very fine cotton thread, you can imagine how easy it is to break a connection after only one occurrence. However, if you reinforce this pathway with three more repetitions, the threads bond together and are a little stronger. Each repetition adds another thread, and soon you have a thick, sturdy rope.
However, if something new and strongly emotional or physical happens, a pathway can be formed after just one experience.
Think back to the lemon meringue pie in the last email, for instance. Being physically sick, coupled with feeling emotionally drained, cemented a rock solid pathway in my friend's brain that lemon meringue pie makes you sick. The emotional and physical component was so strong that it didn’t need repetition to strengthen it.
Unfortunately, our brain can wire up false information. My lovely friend knows in theory that lemon meringue pie will not make her sick, but her brain believes it so thoroughly that both the thought and smell will make her nauseas.
As we go through childhood and adolescence, our brains can wire up tons of information that is based on our experiences, but fundamentally isn’t true.
For example, imagine a young boy who gets completely confused about a simple question and gets it wrong in front of the whole class. Imagine the teacher gets exasperated, the whole class laughs and someone behind him calls him a name.
Two things could happen, if that boy is confident and knows he’s actually smart but just made a silly mistake, he might laugh it off with everyone else. Or, if that boy is vulnerable and is flooded with strong emotions like embarrassment and shame, those emotions might form pathways that say, ‘you are not smart,’ and, ‘speaking out in front of people will cause shame and embarrassment’.
Neither of these statements are true, but that boy has just formed a rock solid pathway.
Being neglected, abandoned, abused, teased, bullied, disrespected, lied to, cheated or hurt are all experiences that our brain can form strong, but false, pathways upon. Being rejected as a child can form a pathway that tells us, ‘you are not good enough’. This idea of never being good enough can follow us through our lives, quietly sabotaging jobs, relationships and friendships along the way.
But here's the good news - we can rewire our brains.
Rewiring your brain is much more involved than positive thinking or working hard. To create new neural connections in the brain, there are five pathways that must be stimulated.
As we know with the cotton analogy, one thread alone is not strong enough to rewire your brain. However, many threads multiplying often will soon give you a solid pathway that will result in lasting changes.
The five areas that need to be stimulated are your beliefs, feelings, vision, actions and repetition.
Let's use an example of personal perception. Imagine we want to change a perception of low self esteem or self worth into one of good self esteem or high self worth. Using affirmations on their own to increase a feeling of self worth is not enough for lasting results. We need to stimulate all five areas.
Here’s how we can increase the feeling of positivity toward ourselves:
1. Identify the beliefs that achieve this state. You need to understand what beliefs need to change or what beliefs are lacking in order to fulfill your intention. What do you need to believe about yourself? That you’re capable? That you’re smart? Funny? Kind? Caring? Driven? Motivated? It can be anything you want. You need to work out what beliefs you want to have about yourself and hold them in your mind. It’s ok if you’re not 100% convinced at the start. In fact, It doesn’t matter if you’re not even 10% convinced yet. Identify them, and hold on to them.
2. Stimulate positive emotions. Emotions play a huge role in cementing a belief in your mind. Repeating a positive thought, affirmation or mantra without feeling anything will achieve nothing. You need to align a positive state with positive emotions. What positive emotions correlate with your desired beliefs? Will you feel proud, happy, content, calm or strong? Invoke these feelings as you think about your beliefs, by imagining how you will feel in that desired state.
3. Use visual cues. Your brain can’t tell the difference between something real and imagined. By teaming visualization with belief, your brain accepts this as reality. Use imagery to backup your emotions and desired beliefs. Find pictures that align with what you want to achieve, and invest time visualizing them every day. Try a combination of mental imagery and physical pictures.
Mental imagery may be seeing yourself smiling or laughing, healthy, full of confidence and strength. Picture that in your mind while feeling those chosen emotions. Physical pictures might include looking at what this desired state will bring you. It might be something as simple as a person lying in a hammock in a beautiful garden. It might be a person enjoying something you’ve always wanted to do, like sailing. Maybe you're surrounded by a supportive network of friends who you feel worthy of having. The key with this technique is to imagine yourself as that person as deeply and realistically as you can. Imagine how you would feel in that moment, not just what it would look like.
4. Take actions that align with your intention. Your actions have to be inline with your goals and what you are aiming to achieve. You cannot use belief and imagery to see yourself as a confident and happy person, and then say the opposite through your actions. Actions of self-esteem are doing things that nurture your body and yourself. This could be anything from exercise that you enjoy, spending time with people who lift you up, eating and drinking foods that make you physically feel great. Any negative action like harming or starving yourself, spending time with negative people or not taking care of your body, will undo all of your work. Treat yourself kindly.
5. Repeat, repeat, repeat. The more we fire up a neurological network, the stronger the pathway is. Repetition of these steps will create a strong and lasting thought pattern. It will become easier and easier, and eventually automatic. Over time, you will literally rewire your brain into accepting this new belief or new habit.
While morning rituals and setting intentions for the day are great, this isn't a time to take that approach. Focusing on this for five minutes in the morning then forgetting about it for the rest of the day will increase the time it takes for those neural pathways to solidify. Instead, run through this process whenever the thought pattern you are trying to eradicate comes up. You can move through this series of steps in just a few minutes or even seconds once you're well practiced, and doing so when your negative thought patterns take hold creates powerful change.
Keep your goal fresh and at the top of your mind until it is an automatic habit.
To begin with, this will take a fair amount of mental energy and you may even forget from time to time. But if you stick with it and really focus, you will find that it will take less energy over time, and then eventually, you won't have to concentrate at all. You will have successfully rewired your brain and your goal will have become your reality.