Letters to an Incarcerated Brother: Encouragement, Hope, and Healing for Inmates and Their Loved Ones

by Hill Harper

  Tanzi has been called the “rock star of science” because of his many accomplishments. He recorded the organ tracks for Aerosmith’s album Music from Another Dimension! and adapted Super Brain into a PBS special. Both works hit the charts and were bestsellers. Tanzi views the human brain as a musical instrument that you can learn how to play, eliminating destructive emotions (the bad notes) that are holding you back, opening thinking up to new experiences, and increasing your concentration.

  Both Tanzi and Chopra call the brain that most of us use to navigate daily life our “baseline brain,” and they believe you can learn to move way beyond it toward states of mental freedom and euphoria that might even reduce the mental effects of aging. Their book is full of research proving that the brain can heal and reshape itself. In fact, its cells are changing and growing just like the rest of the cells in our bodies.

  Chopra and Tanzi are convinced that anybody can maximize the power of his brain by reshaping it and transform himself from someone with a mere baseline brain to someone with a “super brain.” The “baseline brain” is one that we use passively, surrendering to the feelings and thoughts it creates without trying to control them. People with “super brains” are active observers of their own feelings and thoughts. They are controlling their brains, not the other way around. Since everything the brain experiences is either positive or negative, anyone can shape his brain into a super brain by maximizing positive mental experiences. You achieve this by what the authors call “outerwork” and “innerwork.”

  Outerwork has to do with the kinds of outer experiences you subject your brain to: diet, exercise, stress management, sleep, and intellectual stimulation. Innerwork consists of a balance of all the kinds of thinking that the brain is good at, thereby developing a brain that is flexible and creative and adaptable to different experiences. All of this may sound a little crazy to you, but it’s all in line with what we’ve been talking about in our previous letters: figuring out ways to break old destructive habits; taking full control and creatively designing a new plan for our lives; being healthy and disciplined.

  And check this out: As I was paging through Super Brain, I was drawn to some quizzes in it that are supposed to show whether you’re relying simply on your baseline brain or also using it on a higher level. The Creativity Quiz is a true-or-false checklist with choices such as, “I don’t ask myself to behave very differently today than I did yesterday;” “I am a creature of habit;” “I like familiarity. It’s the most comfortable way to live.” All those things are characteristics of a baseline brain. In contrast, the creative super brain would choose the following from the lists in the quiz: “I look upon every day as a new world;” “I pay attention not to fall into bad habits, and if one sets in, I can break it fairly easily.”

  In an interview, Chopra and Tanzi pointed out that we will die with essentially the same heart and liver and lungs we were born with, whereas our brains are changing throughout our lifetime. All you have to do is invent new things for it to do, and it will gradually reshape itself to apply itself to those challenges. It’s just like doing curls or dumbbell bench presses. Over time, if they’re exercised, our muscles (like our brain) will adapt, grow, and change. But we have to work them and challenge them.

  The two authors subscribe to a slogan they call “ten thousand hours.” What they mean by “ten thousand hours” is that applying yourself to any skill for that length of time will allow you to master it: painting, music, writing, mathematics—it doesn’t matter what the skill is, who you are, or where you came from. They even go so far as to claim that “the same sense of balance that allowed you to toddle, walk, run, and ride a bicycle, given ten thousand hours (or less), can allow you to cross a tightrope strung between two skyscrapers.”

  I’ll admit to you that I’ve been worried about aging, wondering how much it will slow me down and whether my memory will be affected. But there was something I read in Super Brain that eased my anxiety about that:

  One of the unique things about the human brain is that it can do only what it thinks it can do. The minute you say, “My memory isn’t what it used to be” or “I can’t remember a thing today,” you are actually training your brain to live up to your diminished expectations. Low expectations mean low results. The first rule of super brain is that your brain is always eavesdropping on your thoughts. As it listens, it learns. If you teach it about limitation, your brain will become limited. But what if you do the opposite? What if you teach your brain to be unlimited?2

  Chopra and Tanzi want to overturn some basic assumptions we have about the brain: that its aging is inevitable and irreversible, and that its functions are limited by our particular genetics. They admit that the brain does lose millions of cells a day that can’t be replaced, but the brain also contains stem cells that can bloom into new brain cells at any time of life. In their opinion, remaining young, intelligent, and open to experience is merely a matter of emphasizing our higher brain functions. Quite often, all of us are overcome by primitive reactions of fear, anger, or aggression, based on our lower brains, which developed thousands of generations ago, when such negative responses were needed for survival. They call our lower brain a “reptilian brain.” Yeah, you got it, just like a reptile, a snake or a lizard. That’s the level of brain function that most of us walking around the world are using. But now that we know that the brain isn’t fixed, mechanical, or slowly wearing out as we age, there may very well be ways of overriding these reactions with more evolved mental processes that are needed to get ahead in today’s modern world.

  There are no real limits to the ways the human brain can be shaped by our wills.

  So that’s my answer to you about your fears that you’re not “smart enough.” If that’s really the case, it’s because you’re choosing not to be smart enough, and such a choice doesn’t make much sense, does it? I’m not claiming that you can become a super brain overnight. Or that you can break every habit easily. But you can and will break them to open up to this new life that you are already beginning to create for yourself. There are no real limits to the ways the human brain can be shaped by our wills. For you, me, everyone, it’s a process that happens over time, maybe even long periods of time. And just by looking at the way that children learn—by failing and persisting, as I mentioned to you in my last letter—we know that the super brain is not something you can sit back and watch happen. The question of whether or not you’ve got the will, the discipline, and the grit to start making your own super brain is something that’s entirely up to you.

  Damn. It’s fascinating, isn’t it? Let’s both of us create super brains!

  Also, I thought you might want to play a little “mind game” with me that I thought of. I figured we could cook up a situation that you might design into some graphics someday. It’s a little complicated, so pay attention. The name of the game is Getting Out. It works like this: The player is caught within the architecture of a prison, with different areas just like a real prison—cells, canteen, yard, exercise room, warden’s and counselors’ offices, classroom/library, showers, and toilets. For each location he ends up in, his goal is to make the decisions that get him out as soon as possible.

  We can switch roles as the player and the controller of the game system, but why don’t we start with me as the player and you as the system? You pick an area of the prison and list one event that could happen there. In reaction to that event, give me the choice of making three different decisions. Each of the three decisions will take me to a different location in the prison. In two cases, that location will be a disadvantage and slow my progress out of prison. In one case, the decision will take me to an advantageous location and speed up my progress out of prison. Gradually, the wrong decisions will make my sentence longer. The right decisions will shorten the “game” and reduce my sentence.

  After a couple cycles of events and decisions, we’ll switch and play the game with me as the system and
you as the player for a couple of rounds.

  Here’s an example of one round:

  Let’s say you were to pick a counselor’s office as a location. The event you have happening there for me, the player, is:

  Event:I dislike this counselor on sight, and she/he seems to feel the same way. I would really like to talk to the other counselor instead.

  Do I:

  Decision 1:Refuse to talk at all to the counselor until the session is over?

  (If I pick this decision, I get sent to the warden’s office and written up as uncooperative.)

  Decision 2:Tell him/her right out what I think of him/her?

  (If I pick this decision, I’m accused of hostility and lose my yard privileges for one week. I get sent back to my cell.)

  Decision 3:Politely ask if I could speak to the other counselor instead?

  (Right move! If I pick this decision, I get sent to the counselor I want.)

  Once I’m in my new location, you can give me a new obstacle and a choice of three new decisions. Then we can switch roles and play a couple rounds with you as the player.

  Oops, time to get dunked in that shark tank now. Hit me back on all this, all right!?

  Much love,

  Hill

  P.S. I liked the idea of the transformative power of the brain. It made me reach out to Dr. Tanzi, Harvard professor and neuroscientist and coauthor with Deepak Chopra of the book Super Brain. And I told this “super brain” about you, and he asked me if he could write you a letter. Here it is.

  Dear Brother,

  After the PBS special on Super Brain aired, I received three letters from prisoners. All were in for life for homicides, and each person said that no matter how much he tried to overcome his past and the crime he committed and move on, there was a deep-seated guilt that wouldn’t go away. Even if they were feeling good one day, they’d wake up the next day feeling like criminals again. Super Brain helped them realize that the negative impression was being produced by their brains. It was very comforting to know that the real person—the soul, the mind—is the user of the brain and can say, “You know what, brain? Your job is to make me feel bad about this to make sure I won’t do it again. That’s fine; you’re doing your job, but you’re starting to get on my nerves now. I want to move on. And let’s get this straight: I use you; you don’t use me. You’re my brain! When I have these feelings, I will know that it’s not me; it’s just my brain doing its job, but I’m the one in control.”

  It was very empowering for these men to think that way and bypass some of the negative images of themselves, which create negative feedback loops and limited belief systems and challenge their spiritual recovery. They loved the concept that you are not your brain; you are the user of your brain. “My brain made me do what I did, but I’m not going to let it do it to me again.” Those actions were probably caused by a genetic predisposition and a negative feedback loop based on fear, anger, and rage that came out of the reptilian brain, with no control from the rational frontal cortex.

  Seeing yourself as more than your brain—whether it’s “My brain made me do it” or “My brain is making me feel bad about it now”—shows that this is not who you are. The real you is a person who’s aware and mindful of the feelings and thoughts that your brain brings to you, and you can rise above them. You can learn from them, but most importantly, you can detach from them and still move on in terms of spiritual recovery and a positive identity.

  Are we really just the sum of our past actions, and the feelings and thoughts that are driven by them? The neural networks in your brain emerge in a recursive way. (A recursive system is a self-organizing system.) Every time you learn something new or think about something new, you are producing new synapses and new connections in your brain. You are physically modifying your neural circuitry. But here’s the crux: Every new layer of neural circuitry—every new set of synapses that you make as you learn things and also recollect, meditate, and contemplate—all of this creates new neural circuitry. Every layer that is produced by the prior layer must in turn monitor and regulate the previous layer. There are always built-in feedback loops. So everything new that you learn and do, as it is represented in your neural circuitry, will regulate the original neural circuitry that gave rise to it.

  So, remember that all learning is by association. What does that mean for you? It means that as you sit in your cell and contemplate what you did, who you are, and what you wish to be, why you feel bad and how to feel good, you are making new neural circuitry. The good news is, that new neural circuitry must regulate the original neural circuitry, including the historical circuitry that led to your actions, for which you are now serving a sentence. Through contemplation, mindfulness, and meditation, as well as recapitulation or repetition, you can dynamically change your neural circuitry at every level: its neurochemistry, the connections between the neurons, the synapses and their strength, even genetically, simply through contemplation. Therefore, physical change in the brain is possible purely by contemplation.

  So what do you want to create as you contemplate what’s going on in your life? Because what you create is going to control what you’ve already done. And that means there is room for correction and improvement at the physical level. However, if you’re letting your brain just do what it wants and you’re simply being reactive—if you’re thinking out of limiting belief systems, guilt, and negativity—that’s fine for a while. It’s fine to have a certain level of guilt initially, knowing you did something wrong and that you have learned your lesson. But then you have to move on, detach, and reshape. “I know I did wrong, but now I’m going to build my new neural circuits in a positive way.”

  And that’s not just mental; it’s physical, too. With repetition, the brain will yield and change. Every single day, with self-awareness of who you are, you are actually changing your neurochemistry and changing your brain physically. And that is a gift. You can do it proactively, saying, “I’m in charge here; I’m the user of my brain; I’m its inventor, its leader, its creator; I’m its shaper.” Or you can let your brain do whatever it wants and fall into negative feedback loops, depression, agitation, fear, anger, and resentment. You have to realize that it’s your choice, and you have to step up and say, “I’m taking over.” When my brain makes me feel angry, I’m not going to be numb to it, but I’m going to say, “I know I’m angry right now. I’m going to observe when I’m angry; I’m going to observe when I’m upset or down about what I’ve done. I’m going to learn from it, but then, I’m going to detach and move on.”

  Neuroscience says that when you do this, you re-create your brain and your neural circuitry. This is the way to apply the “super brain” concept to mental and spiritual recovery when you are an incarcerated person.

  Yours,

  Dr. Rudolph E. Tanzi

  I HAVE A SUPER BRAIN

  LETTER 14

  You Can’t Keep a Good Mind Down

  The philosopher Lao Tzu once said, “When you let go of what you are, you become what you might be.” I now know that it wasn’t until I let go of who I thought I was that I was able to create a completely new life. It wasn’t until I let go of the life I thought I should have that I was able to embrace the life that was waiting for me. I now know that my real strength never came from my body, and although my physical capabilities have changed dramatically, who I am is unchanged. The pilot light inside of me was still a light, just as it is in each and every one of us.

  —Janine Shepherd, former Olympic skier who was paralyzed in a road accident and later got a license as a commercial pilot1

  Dear Brotha,

  So it’s really gonna happen? And you got no earlier warning from your public defender that you’ll go before the judge ten days from now for sentencing? He told you to plead guilty in exchange for a reduced sentence, and in ten days you’ll find out how “reduced” it will be. Now you want to know if I think you ma
de the right decision.

  Well, according to the information you sent me, I don’t see how you had much of a choice other than to take the plea. If I understood what you were saying in your letter, that so-called friend of your brother whose drugs you were caught holding when your car was stopped isn’t willing to put his ass on the line to take the heat off you. And you have absolutely no additional evidence that would turn things around. The lawyer was right, I guess. If you had gone to trial, you stood the chance of a much stiffer sentence, and I know the court-assigned lawyers you have to defend you aren’t exactly attentive. Those are the facts, man. So, given what’s already happened, the question is, how can we get the best results in all ways moving forward?

  There is one thing I can do, and I’d be glad to. I can show up in court when you’re sentenced and testify to your character, recommending leniency. It wouldn’t be a strain for me at all. We’ve been writing each other for over eight months and rapping on the phone for the last two, so I’m comfortable telling the judge that I have an informed take on your character and that your potential to be a great asset to society is very high. In our phone conversations over the last two months, I feel like I’ve gotten to know you on a whole different level. Just say the word, and I’ll be there.

  By the way, that was an incredible book you asked me to get you before you go to court. I bought it for you but stayed up most of last night reading it. I’m going to send it by overnight mail today. I’m talking about The Diving Bell and the Butterfly by that amazing French guy Jean-Dominique Bauby, who actually wrote the book after he became paralyzed.2 Where the hell did you hear about it? You seem to be getting into a habit: Whenever I come out with an idea you like, you take it and run with it, miles farther than I ever thought possible. So here I am turning you on to Tanzi, telling you it’s possible to become the master of your own brain—turn it into a super brain—and use it to determine your own future. The next day, you’re reading the paper, probably with those thoughts swimming in your head, and you notice a review of the movie The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. What do you know? It’s about a guy who achieved a nearly unlimited state of mental freedom under the toughest conditions imaginable! I dig the fact that you want to read that book before you go before the judge. I can’t think of a better preparation for facing the situation.