Understanding neural growth and how your brain actually works
When we understand how complex and amazing the brain is – and how much input we have in its development – we can begin to make informed choices and fundamental changes.
It has been scientifically shown that the plasticity of the brain is a true and valid thing.
Our brain is built of complex sets of cells called neurons and glia. One typical neuron creates numerous connections to neighbouring neurons, too many to count, and these neurons are the matrix of our vast nervous system. This is exciting, as it seems to hold within a metaphor for human connection and social interaction!
We are a pulsating, electrical source of the most amazing proportions.
The neurons in our brain grow and connect according to our focus. If our emotional/intellectual focus is placed on love and happiness then we will grow the neurons to support this. The more we focus and grow these neural ‘trees’ the more we will naturally seek ‘love and happiness’ in our lives, and refuse to settle for less.
If we refocus our brains, our choices will change accordingly and life will look primarily like love and happiness.
Thoughts, feelings and behaviour are inseparable from our nervous system, which is why a ‘thought’ can trigger a feeling and vice versa; you may feel a feeling in your body that will suddenly remind you of a time or circumstance in your life, starting a thought process which, in turn, generates more emotion and further neural growth.
For example, the affirmation ‘I AM Beautiful’ – along with the feeling of being beautiful – is the trigger for particular brain growth that ensures further feelings of beauty.
The more beautiful ‘feeling’ moments one experiences the more beautiful ‘thought’ moments one
experiences – which trigger more feeling moments, which then trigger more beautiful thought moments… resulting in the neural growth that furthers more beautiful life experiences and so on.
It sounds more complicated than it is!
Simply put, by experiencing emotions that correspond with the intentions we hold, we are literally growing sets of neurons to support the manifestation of that intention.
Saying ‘I love myself’ without a ‘happy, loving feeling’ is practicing an affirmation and may get you more comfortable with the idea of self love, but ‘I love myself, I love myself’ doesn’t grow ‘I love myself’ neurons in the brain; inadvertently it can grow the neurons that support a feeling of ‘must’ or ‘should’ or ‘resentment and resistance’.
To properly teach yourself to love yourself, you must find ways to envision self-love and feel self-love – even tiny acknowledged moments of self-love, watching and appreciating other’s self-love and importantly, giving yourself the time to feel the feelings that are standing in the way of your self-love.
As women we are in a powerful position to embody self-love and lead our children and our communities by example.
It becomes the individual’s duty to self, to 1) Realise that they are the only ones who can truly make the changes necessary for a successful life experience, 2) Know that it is possible to make changes, and 3) Determine the action that needs to happen to ensure positive and permanent change.
-Arna Baartz
Excerpt from New Love: a reprogramming toolbox for undoing the knots
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