Are you tired of having the same experience of life even as your circumstances change?
Do you ever feel a sense of discontent and unhappiness in the background without knowing what the heck it’s doing there?
This is because our subconscious loves to find and then repeat patterns.
Any patterns.
Good, bad, and ugly – once they feel familiar to us, the brain cements them as part of our experience for good.
Unless we actively work to change them.
How do we do this, pray tell?
One way is by using neuroplasticity.
What is neuroplasticity?
Neuroplasticity is the brain’s ability to use experiences to adapt and change itself over time.
Repeated experience actually changes the brain on a cellular level and wires it to create new patterns and by extension, a totally different experience of life.
You’ve probably heard “neurons that fire together wire together,” and that’s exactly what neuroplasticity is.
When you have a new experience, the neurons associated with that experience start firing.
The more you have the same experience, the stronger the neural connections are and the more deeply entrenched the habit becomes.
And according to researchers at Duke University, 40% of what we do in a day is habit.
HOLY CRAP, that’s a lot!
But just think about it – eating, sleeping, brushing our teeth, driving, laughing, connecting (or not connecting) with others, our whole mindset – it’s all on autopilot.
How can employing neuroplasticity help me to experience life differently?
Our brains reserve space for the neurons we need the most.
In other words, we keep the neurons we need for the experiences we have the most often.
If the experience you’re having in life is hiding, being anxious, feeling scared or angry or miserable, being rejected, being too busy, feeling stressed, etc., the brain actually holds onto the neurons responsible for these experiences and makes them a default setting.
On one hand, that is a total drag.
But we can use our brain’s neuroplasticity to our advantage by actively seeking new experiences to create new patterns and therefore, NEW default settings.
The secret is to be deliberate with this process, ‘cause it can take time.
Since our patterns become stronger the more we experience them, you have to experience something new lots of times before it feels just as safe and familiar as old habits.
How do I practice the concept of neuroplasticity?
Our brains tend to be hardwired with survival mechanisms that notice the bad around us.
This is how it keeps us safe.
To shift our experience of ourselves and the world, we have to retrain our brains to notice the positive around us.
That is literally it. That’s the whole concept. And it’s a big’un.
When you zero in on the positive (a career you love, a connection with another person, petting a dog on the sidewalk, hitting mostly green lights on the way to an appointment, feeling the sunshine on your skin, having clean water to drink or a warm bed to sleep in at night), let your brain focus on it and feel it for at least 20 seconds.
By sinking into the feeling and staying there, you’re hardwiring your brain to repeat this pattern of letting available positivity raise your frequency and increase your energy.
Have you ever heard the saying, “death by 1,000 paper cuts?”
This is happiness by 1,000 tiny moments of positivity.
With time, you’ll be experiencing the world through a more positive lens without even trying.
So, here’s to reshaping our brains with neuroplasticity and creating lasting change for a happier, more beautiful life!
