This is a simple graphic representation of neurons in a neural network. The minute space between the branches of individual neurons that facilitates communication between them is called the synaptic gap. About 100,000 neurons can fit into the same space as a grain of sand and will have more than a billion connections among them.
So when you’re thinking the same thoughts and having the same feelings all the time because you’re not learning or doing anything new, your brain is firing its neurons and activating the neural networks in exactly the same sequences, patterns, and combinations. They become the automatic programs that you unconsciously use every day. You have an automatic neural network to speak a language, to shave your face or put on makeup, to type on the computer, to judge your co-worker, and so on, because you’ve performed those actions so many times that they’ve become practically unconscious. You no longer have to consciously think about it. It’s effortless.
You’ve reinforced those circuits so often that they’ve become hardwired. The connections between neurons become more glued together, additional circuits are formed, and the branches actually expand and become physically thicker—just as we might strengthen and reinforce a bridge, build a few new roads, or widen a freeway to accommodate more traffic.
One of the most basic principles in neuroscience states, “Nerve cells that fire together wire together.”3 As your brain fires repeatedly in the same manner, you’re reproducing the same level of mind. According to neuroscience, mind is the brain in action or at work. Thus, we can say that if you’re reminding yourself of who you think you are on a daily basis by reproducing the same mind, you’re making your brain fire in the same ways and you’ll activate the same neural networks for years on end. By the time you reach your mid-30s, your brain has organized itself into a very finite signature of automatic programs—and that fixed pattern is called your identity.
Think of it as a box inside your brain. There’s no literal box inside your head, of course. But it’s safe to say that thinking inside the box means you’ve physically hardwired your brain into a limited pattern, as illustrated in Figure 3.6. By reproducing the same level of mind over and over again, the most commonly fired, neurologically wired set of circuits has predetermined who you are as a result of your own volition.
If your thoughts, choices, behaviors, experiences, and emotional states remain the same for years on end—and the same thoughts are always equal to the same feelings, reinforcing the same endless cycle—then your brain becomes hardwired into a finite signature. That’s because you are re-creating the same mind every day by making your brain fire in the same patterns. Over time, this biologically reinforces a specific limited set of neural networks, making your brain physically more prone to creating the same level of mind—you’re now thinking in the box. The totality of those hardwired circuits is called your identity.
Neuroplasticity
So our goal, then, needs to be thinking outside the box to make the brain fire in new ways, as Figure 3.7 illustrates. That’s what having an open mind means, because whenever you make your brain work differently, you’re literally changing your mind.
Research shows that as we use our brains, they grow and change, thanks to neuroplasticity—the brain’s ability to adapt and change when we learn new information. For example, the longer mathematicians study math, the more neural branches sprout in the area of the brain used for math.4 And after years of performing in symphonies and orchestras, professional musicians expand the part of their brains associated with language and musical abilities.5
When you learn new things and begin to think in new ways, you are making your brain fire in different sequences, patterns, and combinations. That is, you are activating many diverse networks of neurons in different ways. And whenever you make your brain work differently, you’re changing your mind. As you begin to think outside the box, new thoughts should lead to new choices, new behaviors, new experiences, and new emotions. Now your identity is also changing.
The official scientific terms for how neuroplasticity works are pruning and sprouting, which mean exactly what they sound like: getting rid of some neural connections, patterns, and circuits and creating new ones. In a well-functioning brain, this process can happen in a matter of seconds. Researchers at the University of California at Berkeley demonstrated this in a study on laboratory rats. They found that rats living in an enriched environment (sharing a cage with siblings and offspring and having access to many different toys) had larger brains with more neurons and more connections between those neurons than did the rats in less-enriched environments.6 Again, when we learn new things and have new experiences, we’re literally changing our brains.
To break free from the chains of hardwired programming and the conditioning that keeps you the same takes considerable effort. It also requires knowledge, because when you learn vital information about yourself or your life, you stitch a whole new pattern into the three-dimensional embroidery of your own gray matter. Now you have more raw materials to make the brain work in new and different ways. You begin to think about and perceive reality differently, because you begin to see your life through the lens of a new mind.
Crossing the River of Change
At this point, you can see that in order to change, you have to become conscious of your unconscious self (which you now know is just a set of hardwired programs).
The hardest part about change is not making the same choices we made the day before. The reason it’s so difficult is that the moment we no longer are thinking the same thoughts that lead to the same choices—which cause us to automatically act in habitual ways so that we can experience the same events in order to reaffirm the same emotions of our identity—we immediately feel uncomfortable. This new state of being is unfamiliar; it’s unknown. It doesn’t feel “normal.” We don’t feel like ourselves anymore—because we’re not ourselves. And because everything feels uncertain, we no longer can predict the feeling of the familiar self and how it’s mirrored back to us in our lives.
As uncomfortable as that may be at first, that’s the moment we know we’ve stepped into the river of change. We’ve entered the unknown. The instant that we no longer are being our old selves, we have to cross a gap between the old self and the new self, which Figure 3.8 clearly shows. In other words, we don’t all just waltz into a new personality in a matter of moments. It takes time.
Crossing the river of change requires that you leave the same familiar predictable self—connected to the same thoughts, same choices, same behaviors, and same feelings—and step into a void or the unknown. The gap between the old self and the new self is the biological death of your old personality. If the old self must die, then you have to create a new self with new thoughts, new choices, new behaviors, and new emotions. Entering this river is stepping toward a new unpredictable, unfamiliar self. The unknown is the only place where you can create—you cannot create anything new from the known.
Usually when people step into the river of change, that void between the old self and the new self is so uncomfortable that they immediately slip back into being their old selves again. They unconsciously think, This doesn’t feel right, I’m uncomfortable, or I don’t feel so good. The moment they accept that thought, or autosuggestion (and become suggestible to their own thoughts), they will unconsciously make the same old choices again that will lead to the progression of the same habitual behaviors to create the same experiences that automatically endorse the same emotions and feelings. And then they say to themselves, This feels right. But what they really mean is that it feels familiar.
Once we understand that crossing the river of change and feeling that discomfort is actually the biological, neurological, chemical, and even genetic death of the old self, we have power over change and we can set our sights on the other side of the river. If we embrace the fact that change is the denaturing of the hardwired circuitry from years of unconsciously thinking the same way, we can cope. If we understand that the discomfort we feel is the d
ismantling of old attitudes, beliefs, and perceptions that have been repeatedly etched into our cerebral architecture, we can endure. If we can reason that the cravings we battle in the midst of change are real withdrawals from the chemical-emotional addictions of the body, we can ride it out. If we can comprehend that real biological variations are occurring from subconscious habits and behaviors in which our bodies are changing on a cellular level, we can forge on. And if we can remember that we are modifying our very genes from this life and from untold previous generations, we can stay focused and inspired to an end.
Some people call this experience the dark night of the soul. It’s the phoenix igniting itself and burning to ashes. The old self has to die for a new one to be reborn. Of course that feels uncomfortable!
But that’s okay, because that unknown is the perfect place to create from—it’s the place where possibilities exist. What could be better than that? Most of us have been conditioned to run from the unknown, so now we have to learn to become comfortable in the void or the unknown, instead of fearing it.
If you told me that you didn’t like being in that void because it’s so disorienting and that you can’t see what lies ahead because you can’t predict your future, I’d say that’s actually great, because the best way to predict the future is to create it—not from the known, but from the unknown.
As the new self is born, we must be biologically different, too. New neuronal connections must be sprouted and sealed by the conscious choice to think and act in new ways every day. Those connections must be reinforced by our repeatedly creating the same experiences until they become a habit. New chemical states must become familiar to us from the emotions of enough new experiences. And new genes must be signaled to make new proteins to alter our state of being in new ways. And if, as we’ve seen, the expression of proteins is the expression of life and the expression of life is equal to the health of the body, then a new level of structural and functional health and life will follow. A renewed mind and a renewed body must emerge.
Now, when a new day dawns for us after the long night of darkness and the phoenix rises regenerated from its ashes, we have invented a new self. And the physical, biological expression of the new self is literally becoming someone else. That’s true metamorphosis.
Overcoming Your Environment
Another way to look at the brain is to say that it’s organized to reflect everything you know and have experienced in your life. Now you can understand that each time you’ve interacted with your external world, those events have shaped and molded who you are today. The complex networks of neurons that have fired and wired together throughout your days on Earth formed trillions and trillions of connections, because you learned and formed memories. And since every place where one neuron connects with another neuron is called a “memory,” then your brain is a living record of the past. The vast experiences with every person and thing at different times and places in your external environment have been stamped into the recesses of your gray matter.
So by nature, most of us are thinking in the past, because we’re using the same hardware and software programs from our past memories. And if we’re living the same life every day by doing the same things at the same time, seeing the same people at the same place, and creating the same experiences from yesterday, then we’re enslaved to having our outer worlds influence our inner worlds. It’s our environment that is controlling how we think, act, and feel. We’re victims of our personal realities, because our personal realities are creating our personalities—and it’s become an unconscious process. Then that, of course, reaffirms the same thinking and feeling, and now there’s a tango or a match between our outer worlds and our inner worlds, and they merge and become the same—and so do we.
If our environment is regulating how we’re thinking and feeling every day, then in order to change, something about ourselves or our lives would have to be greater than the present circumstances in our environment.
Thinking and Feeling, and Feeling and Thinking
Just as thoughts are the language of the brain, feelings are the language of the body. And how you think and how you feel create a state of being. A state of being is when your mind and body are working together. So your present state of being is your genuine mind-body connection.
Every time you have a thought, in addition to making neurotransmitters, your brain also makes another chemical—a small protein called a neuropeptide that sends a message to your body. Your body then reacts by having a feeling. The brain notices that the body is having a feeling, so the brain generates another thought matched exactly to that feeling that will produce more of the same chemical messages that allow you to think the way you were just feeling.
So thinking creates feeling, and then feeling creates thinking that’s equal to those feelings. It’s a loop (one that, for most people, can go on for years). And because the brain acts on the body’s feelings by generating the same thoughts that will produce the same emotions, it becomes clear that redundant thoughts hardwire your brain into a fixed pattern of neurocircuitry.
But what happens in the body? Because feelings are the modus operandi of the body, the emotions you continually feel based on your automatic thinking will condition the body to memorize those emotions that are equal to the unconscious hardwired mind and brain. That means that the conscious mind isn’t really in charge. The body has subconsciously been programmed and conditioned, in a very real way, to become its own mind.
Eventually, when this loop of thinking and feeling and then feeling and thinking has been operating long enough, our bodies memorize the emotions that our brains have signaled our bodies to feel. The cycle becomes so established and ingrained that it creates a familiar state of being—one based on old information that keeps recycling. Those emotions, which are nothing more than the chemical records of past experiences, are driving our thoughts and are being played out over and over again. As long as this continues, we’re living in the past. No wonder it’s so hard for us to change our future!
If the neurons are firing the same way, they’re triggering the release of the same chemical neurotransmitters and neuropeptides in the brain and body, and then these same chemicals begin to train the body to further remember those emotions by altering it physically once again. The cells and tissues receive these very specific chemical signals at specific receptor sites. Receptor sites are akin to docking stations for chemical messengers. The messengers fit perfectly in place, like a child’s puzzle in which certain shapes, like a circle, a triangle, or a square, fit into specific openings.
Think of those chemical messengers, which are really molecules of emotion, as carrying bar codes that enable the cell receptors to read the messengers’ electromagnetic energy. When the exact match is made, the receptor site prepares itself. The messenger docks, the cell receives the chemical messages, and then the cell creates or alters a protein. The new protein activates the cell’s DNA within the nucleus. The DNA opens up and unwinds, the gene is read for that corresponding message from outside the cell, and the cell makes a new protein from its DNA (for example, a particular hormone) and releases it into the body.
Now the body is being trained by the mind. If this process continues for years and years because the same signals outside of the cell are coming from the same level of mind in the brain (because the person is thinking, acting, and feeling the same every day), then it makes sense that the same genes will be activated in the same ways, because the body is receiving the same data from the environment. There are no new thoughts ignited, no new choices made, no new behaviors demonstrated, no new experiences embraced, and no new feelings created. When the same genes are repeatedly activated by the same information from the brain, then the genes keep getting selected over and over again, and just like gears in a car, they start to wear out. The body makes proteins with weaker structures and lesser functions. We get sick and we age.
In time, one of two scenarios can occur. The intelligence of the cell membrane, which is
consistently receiving the same information, can adapt to the body’s needs and demands by modifying its receptor sites so that it can accommodate more of those chemicals. Basically, it creates more docking stations to satisfy the demand—just as supermarkets open up additional checkout lanes when the lines get too long. If business stays good (if those same chemicals keep coming), then you’ll have to hire more employees and keep more lanes open. Now the body is equal to and has become the mind.
In the other scenario, the cell becomes too overwhelmed with the continual bombardment of feelings and emotions on a moment-to-moment basis to allow all the chemical messengers to dock. Because the same chemicals are more or less hanging around outside the cell’s docking-station doors day in and day out, the cell gets used to those chemicals being there. So only when the brain produces a lot more heightened emotions does the cell become willing to open its doors. Once you increase the intensity of the emotion, the cell is stimulated enough so that the docking-station doors open and the cell turns on. (You’ll hear more about the importance of emotion later—this is a key part of the placebo equation.)
In the first scenario, when the cell makes new receptor sites, the body will crave those specific chemicals when the brain doesn’t make enough, and consequently, our feelings will determine our thinking—our bodies will control our minds. That’s what I mean when I say the body memorizes the emotion. It has become biologically conditioned and altered to be a reflection of the mind.
In the second scenario, once the cell is overwhelmed by the bombardment and the receptors become desensitized, then just as a drug addict does, the body will require a greater chemical thrill to turn on the cell. In other words, in order for the body to become stimulated and get its fix, you’ll need to get angrier, more worried, guiltier, or more confused than last time. So you might feel the need to start a bit of drama by yelling at your dog for no reason, just to give the body its drug of choice. Or maybe you can’t help talking about how much you despise your mother-in-law just so the body has even more chemicals available with enough strength to arouse the cell. Or you start obsessing about some horrible imagined outcome just so the body can get a rush of adrenal hormones. When the body isn’t getting its emotional chemical needs met, it will signal the brain to make more of those chemicals—the body is controlling the mind. That sounds very much like an addiction. So now when I use the term emotional addiction, you’ll understand what I mean.
You Are the Placebo Page 10