We experience everything in life through our minds, yet most of us don’t even know the basics of our operating system. However, when we do, we can train our minds to create new code and new storylines that serve the life we want to live, rather than keeping us stuck in the life we’ve known.
The Basics
The mind is primarily built for one thing – your survival. It cares about you first and foremost. It’s a rather simple machine that suited our primal ancestors but has not evolved to keep pace with modern society.
The Mind…
- is always looking for what’s wrong;
- is negative and scarcity-focused;
- is reactive;
- overgeneralizes;
- labels different and unknown as potential threats;
- is lazy;
… all in the name of keeping our little butts alive.
Leading With Fear
The amygdala, the brain’s stem, processes all stimuli first, assessing everything for threats before that information can make it up to our thinking brain, the cerebral cortex.
Think about that for a second. Our minds lead with survival, with fear, and if we don’t pause to give enough time to make a reasoned assessment, then we default to fight or flight.
Technology, hyper-connectedness, and overwhelming responsibilities bombard our nervous systems, overload the amygdala, and keep us in a tight, reactionary state. Constant waves of intense, often negative stimuli – mainstream news ring a bell? – keeps our cerebral cortex from doing its job, unless we learn to take more control of our thought process.
The Game Changer: Awareness
Understanding my basic operating system was like learning the rules of the game.
I learned to distance myself from thoughts and emotions and look at my reactions objectively, digging deeper into the root of my experience.
I quickly recognized patterns of behavior that were fight or flight to some degree or another, even though I was not constantly in survival situations. I also discovered that many of my negative assumptions were dead wrong. Had I not paused to investigate, I would have just assigned a negative label and moved on.
However, when I brought wide-open curiosity to life and myself, I began to see the truth of my experience. This was a game-changer! I wanted to know all of me and decided to become a private investigator of my life.
This practice has allowed me to grow and evolve into the very person I want to become.
Real Magic: Minds Are Malleable
Want a little inspiration? Here’s a beautiful discovery.
We can write new neural pathways and let go of outdated storylines. For instance, we can train our brains to shift towards a mindset of abundance and positivity, rather than the default of scarcity and negativity.
It takes intention, awareness, and repetition, but it’s way more doable than most people think.
Here’s a personal example:
I once spent two weeks writing down my “wins” from the previous day – anything and everything I did well. I was surprised at how much I wrote because I always felt I was always coming up short, which makes sense if the mind focuses on what’s wrong.
Next, I wrote down any missteps or areas for improvement. Once again, I was surprised, but this time by how little I wrote. After two weeks of this practice, my mind tuned more into progress and was less fixated on failure.
As the saying goes, “Where you put your attention, energy follows.” So, the more I focus on what’s going well, the more powerful I feel, and success is way easier to achieve.
Neuroplasticity
In a 2018 Forbes article titled “The 4 Underlying Principles of Changing Your Brain”, Neuroscientist Tara Swart discusses this concept of malleability.
She writes, “Neuroplasticity is the brain’s ability to change itself constantly by creating new neural pathways and losing those which are no longer used. Encouraging the brain’s neuroplasticity is the key to sustained adult learning and emotional intelligence, which will help the brain remain open-minded, intuitive, and able to overcome biases throughout adulthood.”
However, we can’t just wish for new neural pathways, we have to take action, and the big piece is understanding where you are right now.
How to Begin: Journaling
I am a huge proponent of journaling. There is a load of science behind using pen and paper to improve comprehension, learning, and retaining information.
The act of physically writing brings more presence to what you’re putting down. Here’s another benefit: you can literally look at your thoughts and emotions and bring objective observation, which is massively important.
Everyone adopts storylines and beliefs. It’s how we get out of childhood and start navigating the world. However, how well do you know the true you if you don’t check these thought patterns? And if you don’t truly know yourself, then how the heck can you change and become who you want to be?
Are awareness and transformation easy endeavors? No, but I can tell you it is something I strongly believe would heal our fractured minds and communities.
We can learn to live from a place of inner strength, peace, and happiness. Then we can lead with love and compassion rather than fear and negativity. The first step is to understand our own operating systems and ourselves.
Love to you all,
Barton
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