Biological evolution. Charles Darwin stated that all living beings emerge and evolve through the natural selection of tiny inherited variations that increase our capacity to survive, procreate and compete. This week's book choice tells me that, to progress, I need to evolve my brain.
You know a book will be intense when the foreward is written by a Professor of Physics. Amit Goswami (Ph.D), the renowned author of The Self-Aware Universe, kicks off Dr Joe Dispenza's book Evolve Your Brain by writing that:
"Your consciousness is the primary fabric of reality, and matter (including the brain and the object you are observing) exists within this fabric as quantum possibilities. Your observation consists of choosing from the possibilities the one facet that becomes the actuality of your experience."
Yep, it's pretty intense stuff, but it's so interesting. My divine niece Amber gave me two books for Christmas, one of which was Evolve Your Brain. It's Dr Joe Dispenza's first book and the only one I didn't have. For some reason, I latched onto Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself, You Are the Placebo and Becoming Supernatural and then forgot about his first book. Evolve Your Brain was written five years before Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself, and it's easy to see why the latter was a natural segue to its predecessor. Evolve Your Brain covers many of the same concepts, and I was pleased that I could grasp these from having read Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself.
Concepts are not the only similarities between these books. As I started making my notes, much like I did with Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself, I knew I could easily overcomplicate this blog post because there's so much to write about. Thankfully, by page 149 of Evolve Your Brain, I had latched onto something that would ultimately inform my approach to this week's blog post. More about that later, but for now, here is some background on what Evolve Your Brain is about.
Dr Joe Dispenza's first book examines the relationship between your thoughts, emotions, personal development and neuroscience. The book explains how modifying our thoughts and thought patterns can physiologically alter our brains, resulting in new habits and behaviours. Based on the brain's neuroplasticity - a process involving adaptive functional and structural changes- Dr Dispenza presents that the brain constantly changes based on how we think, feel, and experience. Hence, mindfully choosing to think differently can produce new neural pathways, changing our behaviours and mindsets. In a nutshell, by evolving our brains, we can evolve our lives.
I told you it was intense.
In my post on The Let Them Theory, I (jokingly) said (about stress and anxiety), "Our amygdala has kicked our prefrontal cortex in the teeth, and we're constantly in fight or flight mode." Jokes aside, specific connections in the brain are triggered when one experiences anxiety, and they are primarily centred in the amygdala, which is responsible for processing emotions. The key is to let your prefrontal cortex run the show. The prefrontal cortex regulates the amygdala and manages cognitive function, but anxiety can impair its purpose.
Thanks to the brain's neuroplasticity, these connections can be rewired so that calmer neural pathways can evolve. This rewiring can happen through therapy, mindfulness, or, if I stick to my guns, self-help literature and the like. When I learned that the prefrontal cortex manages cognitive function, CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy) became even more important to me, and I am now actively investing in it.
"We often use the expression, "I've changed my mind." Until recently, science hasn't supported the contention that this change is a literal possibility... Now we know that we are able to change not only our mind, but also our brain. We can do this throughout our life, and at will."
My intention with this post was to express that my self-help journey is evolutionary in a way. However, it also concerns neural evolution, which Dr Dispenza calls "this neurological survival of the fittest" or "neural Darwinism." He writes that the groups of neurons that bind together the quickest to create a neural network in a particular area of the brain will prevail. The neurons that do not fight quickly enough will die. To manage anxiety and depression, I need to evolve my brain to the point where the neurons in my prefrontal cortex are running the show, and my amygdala speaks when it's spoken to (i.e., only in actual fight or flight situations). I must reach a point where my prefrontal cortex is fitter than my amygdala.
Dr Dispenza writes about the power of the prefrontal cortex (or frontal lobe), presenting that it "can be considered the seat of power in human beings" - the place from which the very concept of "self" emerges.
What hit home for me is the following quote from Evolve Your Brain:
"Every person's patterns of nerve cell clusters are unique, allowing each person to think differently from all other people. In essence, the way your brain is wired is who you are as an individual."
One of my notes on the above quote was, "Who are you?" I started to think about my concept of "self" and whether my own personal seat of power was comfortable. While some days certainly feel more comfortable than others, I'm after an extended warranty on the plush chair that is my prefrontal cortex. It costs extra, though. While no money is exchanged, one has to pay in time and effort. This morning, I told my sister, Shereen, that I didn't know if I had a blog post in me today. I've had a few ups and downs over the last few weeks, and it's been a bit of a struggle. Sitting in front of my laptop today changed my perspective, and it really speaks to the point of my last couple of paragraphs.
In yet another serendipitous event this week, I listened to Mel Robbins speak about anxiety on the My Legacy Podcast, and coupled with the above quote, it made so much sense to me. She said:
"Stop saying 'I have anxiety'! Don't ever say that again. Regardless if someone has given you a diagnosis, and I have been diagnosed plenty of times and I have been medicated plenty of times. But don't ever say again, 'I have anxiety' because then it becomes your identity."
If my brain is wired to think that I am anxious, anxiety will become my identity, and I don't want that. The fact that I am working through these books and embracing the teachings is hopefully a testament to my motivation and purpose. We don't want to be defined by the worst aspects of ourselves, so we work toward an ideal - a version of ourselves that we'd like to project to the world. Dr Dispenza goes on to write that to evolve, we need to learn new knowledge because, as I have said in previous blog posts, we are all a work in progress. In his version of looking up to the exemplars that Shane Parrish wrote about in Clear Thinking, Dr Dispenza writes, "Therefore, think of learning new knowledge as philosophically embracing someone else's learned experiences. This is information that another person has learned or realized, but that we have not yet applied in our own life."
The first scroll from The Greatest Salesman in the World also speaks to this pedagogy - this manner of learning through the experience of others: "Today I will pluck grapes of wisdom from the tallest and fullest vines in the vineyard, for these were planted by the wisest of my profession who have come before me, generation upon generation."
All the greatest teachers are at my fingertips - or the nearest bookstore or podcast. I just have to show up for each lesson, absorb the teachings and then live them.
"The more we think the same thoughts, which then produce the same chemicals, which cause the body to have the same feelings, the more we physically become modified by our thoughts. In this way, depending on what we are thinking and feeling, we create our state of being. What we think about and the energy or intensity of these thoughts directly influences our health, the choices we make and, ultimately, our quality of life."
Coming Up Next Week
I've benefited greatly from Mel Robbins's podcast over the last few weeks. I've already covered The Let Them Theory, but since then, I have bought both The 5 Second Rule and The High 5 Habit. Next week, I'll work through The 5 Second Rule. I'm looking forward to it.
#anxiety #depression #mentalhealth #mentalhealthawareness #selfhelp #mindfulness #youarenotalone #thereisnostigma #theletthemtheory #melrobbins #evolveyourbrain
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