Within each of us there exists two forces, one that is pushing us toward the person we are striving to be and one that is keeping from where and who we want to be. I am often reminded of this struggle when the alarm goes off half an hour early for the morning workout I had planned for myself. The alarm goes off and there’s a part of me that wants to feel the sense of accomplishment that comes from working out, but there’s also a part of me that loves the comfort and warmth of my bed!
There’s a story about a grandfather telling his grandson about a fight going on inside him. He says: “It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil – he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.” He continued, “The other is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you – and inside every other person, too.” The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather: “Which wolf will win?” The grandfather simply replied, “The one you feed.”
Your life is the cumulation of ALL your experiences. Those things that you do, say or think the most often shape your reality of those experiences. The force that you habitually feed shapes the person you become. The more often you repeat a behaviour the easier it is to do it because it becomes habitual. We become so accustomed to a particular behaviour that our response becomes almost automatic. In the brain, neurons associated with a certain activity function together and form a neural pathway. Through practice or repeated actions, the connections of these neural pathways become established and stronger. Neuroscientist Donald Hebb coined the phrase, “neurons that fire together wire together” to explain that every experience, thought, feeling, and physical sensation triggers thousands of neurons to form a neural network. With continuous practice and repetition, you are, in essence, rewiring your neural pathways.
Start paying attention to what you want, how you want to feel and how you would like to behave. Those things that you pay attention to are the very things that will shape the experience of your reality. You can choose to flood your brain with stimuli that feed and nourish the person that you want to be.
There’s a relationship between your brain and your body. Just as there’s an instinctual bodily response to brain activity there’s also a response in the brain from the body. At BodyMind Wellness Studio the focus is on NeuroStructural Optimization to ensure that the body and brain are communicating with each other optimally.
Are there habits that you would like to replace? Are there emotions that you would like to experience more often? Make it your new habit to spend more time focusing on those things that you do want. Anything that you place your attention on will have an effect on your thoughts, feelings and actions. Practice makes perfect, so start doing, saying and thinking those things that are aligned with the you that you want to feed.
“Your reality is what you practice most.” (Dr. Donald Epstein)
Copyright 2018 Dr. Julie Doobay