How to re-wire your brain.

Why do we sometimes act in a way that completely contrasts the way that we feel?

Why are we so prone to self-sabotage?

What is it within us that make our conscious and subconscious desires so out of sync, so totally disconnected?

Recently I watched a very interesting movie called 'The Secret' which has achieved quite a high level of commercial success. At its essence is a concept that has been rediscovered and re-examined by spiritual leaders and great thinkers throughout history: the law of attraction - A natural law that attracts those things that we wish for into existence.

The movie sights, among others, people who have attained great material wealth by using this law. Yet the teaching of 'the secret' seems to fall short, as it does not address the issue of what governs our true desires. You can dream of a nice new sports car, a dream house, a great partner and so on, yet unless our subconscious mind is in line with these material desires we may not get what we bargained for.

If subconsciously we feel unworthy (of love, of abundance, of health…) we will simply not get it, no matter how hard we try.

The techniques for attracting things into our lives employ 'creative visualization' (as termed by Shakti Gawain in her novel of the same name). Its techniques are similar to mantra and meditation and its purpose is to single pointedly focus one's attention on that which they desire to have in their lives. For example, one may repeat a positive affirmation on a daily basis or use visualisation exercises that put themselves in the position of already having that thing that they chose to attract.

Let's take another example from the movie. A gentleman who seriously injured his spine in an airplane crash heals himself against all the odds and makes a remarkable recovery that doctors said was impossible given the level of damage to his spinal chord. In the interview he tells us how he did it; by believing he could do it. He gave himself a time-scale and he achieved his goal: he walked out of the hospital 'by Christmas'.

The reason that the man in the movie recovered is far more than simply by repeating a mantra or visualising himself in a recovered state. He believed he was worthy of making a recovery at a very deep level. His core belief was that he could make himself well; he just knew it with every atom of his body and more than that, he knew that he deserved to be well. This is the true secret of attraction, the true secret of creating our own realities the way we want them.

In truth, we create our own reality one hundred percent of the time not just those times we employ special techniques. We are doing it without knowing it and this is sometimes called karma or the law of causality. It is not concerned with ‘right’ or ‘wrong’, simply cause and effect. That is to say, cause and effect of thoughts, words, deeds and every other action in the realm of the material world. For those of us who believe in reincarnation karma also takes into account the actions of previous lifetimes where the actions carried out previously have an effect on consequent lives.

It may be for this reason that most of the time we are just playing the unconscious victim of circumstances that we have created without seeming to have chosen them at all. For instance, we fall ill, then ask 'why has this happened to me?' and by playing the victim and placing the blame outside of our own creation we feed the illness and create more karma or dramas that we do not understand.

We are unbalanced. We live reacting to events rather than consciously creating our lives the way we choose them. The law of causality dictates that what we think, we are. So it is of the utmost importance that we dig down and get to this root in our mind where it is written how we truly view ourselves and the world around. All karma can be undone. This does not mean delving into our past or dissecting every part of our lives, it just means we need to live in a state of perpetual awareness / presence and non-judgmental observance.

So how do we align our conscious and unconscious minds? How can we create abundance in our lives and at the same time believe we are worthy of it without sabotaging our attempts at achieving our goals?

The answer is simple: 'Know thyself.'
Watch your mind, your emotions and your actions. Listen to the small voice that so often contradicts the intentions of our conscious mind. What does it say? Does it limit you or does it empower you? Limiting beliefs can be turned into empowering truths. It may take time as this involves changing your thought patterns by literally rewiring the neuron-network of your brain but it can be done and should be done.

The first step is to be a witness to you mind.

Nothing can stop someone from realising their goal once a strong resolution has been made and once they then make sincere efforts to realising that goal. The key is that you must want to change.

It is not a mystical or unattainable goal; it is for the most part physical. It helps to understand how the brain works.

There is a remarkable little pharmacy within the human brain, which is constantly creating peptides that correspond to electrical messages that the brain is transmitting. Peptides are basically short chains of amino acids. There are combinations that correspond to every emotion and thought pattern imaginable and they are being pumped into our bloodstream constantly. Once in the bloodstream they attach to the cells within our body and set off a series of reactions. We are hooked on them, so we create circumstances in our lives that correspond to the needs of those messages.

Imagine you have a job interview. The law of associative memory means that your concept of an interview is created through memories, ideas, feelings, emotions or thoughts; specific to each person’s life experiences and conditioning.

Maybe an individual associates interviews with failure, which is closely related to unworthiness, which stems from childhood trauma. All these memories and emotions have their own tiny nerve cells called neurons that link to one another, like branches, to form an individual’s concept of what an interview is and what it represents.

Our hypothalamus creates peptides that correspond to the individuals’ concept and circulates them into our blood stream in order to feed the addiction our cells have for these peptides.

We then create a platform by which we can experience the message, in this case unworthiness - so we will fail at the interview.

The peptides our hypothalamus produces match the emotions that we experience on a daily basis. Emotions are designed so that they reinforces chemically something in the long-term memory


So the message is held as truth before the event transpires. When the occurrence takes place, it reinforces the pre-existing beliefs we held about the occurrence and we become even more prone to repeat that behavior. The more we buy into these belief patterns 'I am always ill.' 'I always fail.’ ‘It’s sod’s law.’ And so on…the stronger and stronger the relationships developed in the brain between the neurons.

Also the cells within our bodies mutate so that they are more susceptible to the specific peptides they receive on a daily basis. Certain receptors correspond to certain peptides so if one specific peptide increases disproportionately in relation to other peptides the cell will adapt likewise.

The cell no longer has use for receptors that are not receiving the correct peptides. So in this case, when the cells divide, they do so with a greater number of receptors that meet the needs of the specific emotional neuro-peptides, those liked to failure or unworthiness.

As a result the new cells will have less receptors for all the other peptides needed for our health. Receptors for the absorption of vitamins and so on are fewer per cell; they are discarded in place of receptors that match the peptides most frequently produced by the hypothalamus.

This is how sickness is created as a result of psychological imbalance. This is why we don’t always get what we want.

We create situations in our lives that meet our cells chemical needs; even if that means making ourselves sick to the point where our bodies can no longer fight off disease and eventually die.


The Solution

Anyone who has circumstances in their life that they deem disagreeable, even in the tiniest way, have the ability to rewire their brains, wash away beliefs that do not serve them and stop reinforcing repeated behavioral patterns. It is simply a matter of observing the mind. By interrupting and observing the thought patterns we have, we are no longer responding automatically to stimulus but rather we are able to respond in a balanced, more objective way. The brain breaks long-term neuron relationships and no longer produces those peptides. In turn, when the cells multiply, gradually the receptors for those peptides will decrease allowing more room for other receptors to take their place.

The key is to learn to observe the emotion without becoming the emotion, do not let it take hold of you, just observe. This does not mean you resist it or that you do not allow yourself to feel it but just that you allow it to occur and watch it with the knowing perspective that, ‘ this is anger arising in me’ or this is self-hatred arising in me’ rather than, ‘I am angry’ or ‘ I hate myself’.

Here is a simple practice using breath and mindfulness to work with anger:

Trigger: Something happens to you and anger arises.

• You catch it before it goes any further.
• You observe it.
• Do not judge the emotion as being good or bad, just observe.
• How does it make your body feel?
• Go inside your body. Where in your body can you feel it?
• What do you feel? Are you relaxed or tense?
• How is your heart rate?
• Relax your body.
• How is your breathing? Regulate your breath, breathing deeply.
• Use you breath as your point of focus and return to it if your mind wanders.
• With each out breath, allow the anger to leave your mind / body.
• Does your heart rate change as you allow the anger to pass?
• Now just be in the body; do not let your mind wander to the past or the future.
• Be in the now moment, focused and acutely aware of your entire body whilst simply breathing.

The key to this is to be the observer, to observe the anger without embodying it. It is like taking a step back, out of your mind and just observing it from a safe, neutral distance. To do this you must be in the now moment, it is not possible to do if your mind is writhing around.

Feel the body, disengage from the mind, stop anaylsing, be the witness.
When your thoughts are fluttering here and there, your consciousness is dragged back into the mind, away from your safe distance of ‘no mind’. Simply return to the body, to the now. If you need to, observe closely some deep breaths then return to breathing normally. The anger will pass and over time you will learn to catch it earlier and earlier as the longer-term relationships in the brain start to loose their hold and become more distant relatives.

Later, you may rationalize the experience by making a conscious decision on whether this particular emotion serves you or not.
Do you deem it as positive or negative?
What memories and experiences do you have associated with this thing, what emotions do you attach to those memories? Invariably, if it is anger you are working with, it is not worth holding on to as it will eventually manifest as physical illness. So learn to let go sooner and sooner, deeper and deeper.

Now make a choice, do you wish to be angry, worried, anxious and ill? Or would you rather be calm, relaxed, forgiving and healthy. It is simply a choice and you now have the tools and the information to change your core beliefs and attract whatever you choose into being.

Om shanti.