I love the field of neuroplasticity. It’s so empowering. It basically states that your brain can be molded like plastic — and it can be reshaped and rewired by you.
Dr. Jeffrey Schwartz’s latest book, You Are Not Your Brain, written with Rebecca L. Gladding, M.D., is a great example. It’s in the area of what he calls self-directed neuroplasticity. In short, virtually any habit can be changed with the help of the four-step process he explains in his new book. You can now end your self-sabotage or any other poor habits. You can break free.
I interviewed Dr. Schwartz for my Hypnotic Gold members. This medical doctor, psychiatrist, and researcher exudes high-energy, has deep faith, and loves his work. He was adviser for Martin Scorsese’s film, Aviator, about Howard Hughes. Now Schwartz is helping people like you and me learn to rewire our brains so we can get the results we want and become the people we long to be.
At the heart of his breakthrough approach is the understanding that you are something other than the material. That’s why you can be separate from your brain, mindful of it, and actually rewrite it. Hence the title of his book.
Dr. Schwartz is a man of science, wrote a mesmerizing science-based book in 2002 called, The Mind and the Brain: Neuroplasticity and the Power of Mental Force, and yet he is also a spiritual man, and isn’t afraid to say so.
He doesn’t declare where thoughts come from, but suggests some of them serve you and others are “deceptive brain messages.” The latter you can learn to hear but not obey.
I told Dr. Schwartz that in most of my books, such as The Attractor Factor, I call limiting beliefs what he calls deceptive brain messages. Both are thoughts that don’t serve your highest goals.
Dr. Schwartz explained that in his work with OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) patients, brain scans revealed that they were obeying messages firing in their brains that were hurting them. It wasn’t a problem with the patient, though, it was a problem with their brain. With new skills, they could learn to retrain their brains. (Dr. Schwartz wrote about OCD in his first book, Brain Lock.)
But this is true for all of us. Our brains may not always be helping. The message for us is that no matter what the struggle, you can change it. It’s learning how. Dr. Schwartz’s four steps are a universal solution that apply to everything from BlackBerry addiction to compulsive shopping to bulimia to junk food addiction, cheating, procrastination, to how to stop going back to your toxic ex, and more.
In short, here are the four steps:
Step 1: Relabel. Identify deceptive brain messages and the uncomfortable sensations; call them what they really are.
Step 2: Reframe. Change your perception of the importance of the deceptive brain messages; say why these thoughts, urges, and impulses keep bother you. (“It’s not ME, it’s just my BRAIN!”)
Step 3: Refocus. Direct your attention toward an activity or mental process that is wholesome and productive—even while the false and deceptive urges, thoughts, impulses, and sensations are still present and bothering you.
Step 4: Revalue. Clearly see the thoughts, urges, and impulses for what they are: sensations caused by deceptive brain messages that are not true and that have little to no value.
For the details, you can go to the book’s site (right here) or just get the book from Amazon or wherever you buy books. (It’s also on audio.). The book is a breeze to read, and you can grasp his steps easily. I highly recommend it.
The point is, you can exercise your body, and you can exercise your mind. I’ll call it Brain Yoga for now. This information teaches you to be the pilot of your brain, and not a passenger letting it fly you into walls. Books and research by such neuroscience pioneers as Dr. Schwartz excite and inspire me. They prove that you can have what you want with persistence, intention, and strategy.
That said, what do you want for you?
Are you ready to take action right now?
Ao Akua,
PS – Pack a lunch and go visit Dr. Schwartz’s info packed site on neuroscience and conflict resolution at http://westallen.typepad.com/brains_on_purpose/about_jeffrey_m_schwartz_.html
The other night a friend from years ago visited. He’s going through hard times and felt down on his luck. I wanted to help so I asked him to tell me his story.
He began by blaming his life’s downturn on the economy. He said outside forces were to blame. He knew all the right things to do, did them, and yet life just threw rocks at him until he broke down.
I listened and decided that to be of the best service to him, I had to put on my ‘tough love’ gloves and be a good coach.
“There are no outside forces,” I declared.
He looked stunned. I guess he was expecting sympathy. I gave it, but didn’t want to leave him there.
He quickly replied with, “Surely there are things that happen outside of your control that cause you to have bad luck.”
“You attract all of it,” I said, speaking as lovingly but directly as I could.
I added, “There are outside elements out there that can serve you or stop you. What you believe inside you is what causes one or the other to come your way. You set up attractor fields in your life. You attract the outside forces to match what you inwardly expect.”
“But how can I attract all of it when I’m thinking all the right things and doing all the right things?”
I then went into my explanation of how we attract based on our unconscious programming, not our conscious thoughts. I pointed out this is my current life work, explained in my recent books and audios, to teach people how they are attracting what they get based on their inner wiring.
My friend just looked at me for a second, trying to comprehend what I was saying. He asked, “But why would I take a life that was truly blossoming and cause it to fall apart? I had everything going for me. I had just moved into a big house. Life was great.”
“I don’t know — as there are numerous beliefs that could cause such a thing — but you know.”
“I do?”
I then asked one of my favorite questions:
“What does this life experience mean to you?”
He didn’t understand.
“The meaning you give an event is the belief that attracted it,” I explained. “How do you describe what happened to you?”
“As bad.”
“I know that’s how you see it, but what does it mean that this happened?”
He didn’t know.
I decided to try a different approach. I sat with him, doing my loving coaching, being patient, and explained that at some point early on there was probably a shift in his perception, beliefs or life experience. I asked him to tell me about it.
He was quiet for a while. He reflected and slowly said, “I remember sitting in my new home and thinking my life is so wonderful, that I don’t want to lose all I had created. I was then driven to not lose it all.”
“There it is,” I said. “You were driven by the fear of loss. A part of you didn’t want to lose your good fortune. The thing is, we attract what we love and what we fear. That’s where all the emotion is, which fuels the attractor fields. You attracted the very thing you feared.”
We attract what we love and what we fear.
He allowed that insight to sink in.
“So I set all this up?” he asked. “I did all of this to myself?”
“We all do it,” I explained. “We are unconscious beings here to awaken. These harder life experiences are often there to jolt us awake. No one is to blame. It’s about taking responsibility.”
“But what if I do it again?”
“When you get the lesson, you no longer need the experience,” I said, using one of the popular lines from my book, The Attractor Factor. “You won’t do it again.”
“When you get the lesson, you no longer need the experience.”
We talked for a while longer. He was visibly more relaxed. He thanked me for spending such personal time with him and said he didn’t have people like me to talk to where he lived. I explained that I created Miracles Coaching for that precise reason.
“My own life didn’t transform until I worked with a coach,” I told him. “And that’s why I created Miracles Coaching; to help others.”
The point is, we are unconscious to the drivers in our mind that attract the outside forces we blame for our circumstances.
“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” — C.G. Jung
The field of neuroscience helps prove that fact. You don’t see all of reality. Your brain filters what you see based on your unconscious expectations. You see what you are programmed to see by your beliefs. The outer world is a mirror of your inner world.
If you expect outside forces to help you, you’ll see opportunities.
If you expect outside forces to harm you, you’ll see problems.
Until we awaken, those unconscious drivers will continue to steer us down the road of life. If you’re happy with the results you are getting, enjoy the ride. If you’re not, it may be time to do something about it.
What are you going to do?
Ao Akua,
PS — One thing you can do is relax. You can now hear samples of healing music on my first music CD, Blue Healer, by clicking right here.
The following comes from a long lost Law of Attraction manuscript probably from the 1800s possibly by a reclusive New Thought pioneer named Edward Gary Allens who I’ll talk about later. I cleaned these up but I thought they were worth sharing with you. Let me know what you think.
The real secret to wiping out money problems forever is in nipping them where they are hiding — in your mind.
People who say money isn’t spiritual are living proof of what your mind can do to trick you out of your own good.
Money is neutral.
It’s simply a way to transact business so you can pursue your dreams while others pursue theirs.
The thing is, we have so much baggage around money that we can’t follow our dreams or let others follow theirs.
The real secret to wiping out these issues is to shine the light of awareness on them and replace what isn’t working with what does.
As you probably know, I’m doing my best to help with an ebook I’m giving away over at http://www.attractmoneynow.com
But you might also want to look into the entire course I created on how to unravel money issues once and for all. That’s described over at — http://www.secrettoattractingmoney.com
Once you handle the inner beliefs about money, you are able to attract it and then disburse it where you feel it will help the most.
In the last few weeks I gave away three cars.
The one that I gave away today was one of the most expensive and emotional ones I’ve ever owned. But I let it go.
I’ve also helped family and friends, and causes I believe in.
I’m saying this to get you to realize that once you handle your issues around money, you can do incredible things like help those you care about — including yourself.
I want you to succeed.
I believe in you.
I care.
But I can’t do the work for you.
Please read my book Attract Money Now (gratis at www.attractmoneynow.com) and please consider getting my complete program called The Secret to Attracting Money from — http://www.secrettoattractingmoney.com
It’s a spiritual and practical system for learning how to attract what you need and want.
You deserve it.
And that’s the truth.
Ao Akua,
PS — If you already have the program, The Secret to Attracting Money, consider getting extra copies to give out to others. It’s good karma and feels great. Again, go see — http://www.secrettoattractingmoney.com Thank you. I love you.
This past weekend was the Quantum Ho’oponopono event led by quantum psychologist Dr. Garland Landrith and myself. It was a meeting of science and mysticism. It was exhilarating. We filmed it and we’ll release the DVD set later. For now, I wanted to talk about something that surfaced at the event.
A few days earlier a woman mentioned that at a dinner party her friends discussed how to tell when you’re enlightened. I thought that was a fascinating topic. It’s certainly better than discussing the latest exploits of actor Charlie Sheen.
Their conclusion was this: if you could resolve a trigger in your emotions in thirty minutes or less, you were enlightened.
Meaning, if someone said something nasty and you got upset, you’ve been triggered. But if you could release that trigger quickly, they said you were enlightened.
I don’t agree at all.
Anyone who can handle emotional upsets fast is simply a skilled psychological technician. They have tools and know how to use them. That’s wonderful. That’s terrific. That’s healthy. That’s inspiring.
But that’s not enlightenment.
So at the Quantum Ho’oponopono event, I asked , “What is enlightenment?”
If you do a Google search, you’ll find the word “enlightenment” refers to an 18th century intellectual movement sometimes called the Age of Reason. I’m sure that’s not what the dinner party was discussing.
If you dig deeper, you find the word used to describe a state of awakening in Buddhism and Vedic thinking. That’s probably what the dinner crew meant. I prefer the word “awakening” over “enlightenment” but let’s go with the latter.
What is enlightenment?
It’s the state where you have merged into the background consciousness of life. You’ve dissolved as ego into the Witness of life. “You” are the Divine.
I describe all this in my book, The Awakening Course. One of my favorite books on the subject is Awakening to The Dream by Leo Hartong. It’s worth reading. (And no, I don’t know the author.)
At the Quantum Ho’oponopono event, I urged people to look past their thoughts…past their emotions…past their body…to the “background” sky to it all.
Something in them (and in you) is observing it all.
What is that?
That “background” in your awareness is the shared quantum field in each of us. When you merge with it and become it, you are enlightened.
I don’t know of any way to make enlightenment or an awakening happen. That would be the ego trying to manipulate the Divine. In my recent books and audios, I say you can prep for it, but you can’t will it.
Enlightenment comes by grace.
How do you prepare for it?
There are countless books, courses, rituals, laws, suggestions, principles, meditations, techniques and more, all created by people seeking to be enlightened (or even enlightened) and wanting to help you achieve that state, as well.
I’m not sure you need any of them. Including my own.
Meditation seems to be the most popular way to invite enlightenment. To help you understand where I’m coming from, let me give you two meditation related insights.
First, here’s the greatest meditation quote of all time:
“Meditation is not what you think.”
Think about that. (Or not.) 🙂
Second, here’s the greatest meditation of all time:
Relax into this moment…
Note what you are thinking but also note you are somehow noting that thinking…
Note what you are feeling and note you are not the feeling but something observing the feeling….
Note how your body feels but also note you are not your body but something inside of it aware of your body….
What all of this “noting” has in common is an observer.
That observer of it all is the source of it all.
The more you can meditate on it — listening to it, watching it, feeling it — the closer you will come to merging with it.
That’s where you will find enlightenment.
That’s where you can experience an awakening.
And it doesn’t take 30 minutes.
It’s there (here) right now.
And it’s free.
Ao Akua,
PS –Another way to find this “background” to life is to look at the off-white space this blog post is set on. The words are on it. The off-white space behind the words is the backdrop to life: it’s a sort of “witness.” You have a Witness in your mind. Note it right now. It’s there. (Here.)
TIP: Bodhidharma said, “Only one person in a million becomes enlightened without a teacher‘s help.”