Updated Nov. 20, 2024

The Power of Changing Your Mind

First, a Short Story

When I was in medical school in Vienna, Austria, our professors told us that the brain stops growing after 24 years of age. Whatever you have by then- that was what you would have for the rest of your life. I remember that this seemed very depressing and not quite acceptable to me. But what was I going to say in the face of my “God-in-the-white-coat” professors?

That particular limiting belief was held until only maybe 20 years ago, partly due to the findings of another Austrian, namely Nobel prize winner Eric Kandel, MD. He discovered how the brain learns. He and other neuroscientists developed an understanding of how Neuroplasticity works.

They created a truly amazing sea change in psychotherapy, bodywork, trauma science, memory, neurology and related fields that revolutionized what we are doing as practitioners! Please come to my free class to learn more about how this will benefit you.

PLEASE NOTE: My talks are highly “experiential” and that is why they are done live with those attending!  We will do exercises and experiences. Because we learn better when the whole body and emotions are involved, my aim is that you can sense and feel the concepts I will teach. No prior experience is necessary.

Resiliency: How We Respond

My last lecture/experience was focused on “Resiliency,” which is our ability to respond to life’s challenges. It is one of the tools that can help us overcome our “Flight/Fight/Freeze” trauma defense-mechanisms.

“Resiliency” is the ability to respond adequately and with flexibility to deep stressors and traumatic experiences.  Being in resilience is being in a state of balance.  In somatic psychotherapy we call this “self-regulation.” It is experienced as a state of flow. A sense of wellness.

Any Illness or Trauma is defined by a loss of resilience. This expresses itself physically, emotionally,mentally, and socially as a loss of flexibility. A loss of adaptability.

When a person has lost their resilience then their ability to respond properly to a difficult situation is impaired. They become “dysregulated.” Imbalanced. Choppy. Rigid. Blood sugar can’t be regulated. Emotions can’t be tolerated. A person becomes “narrow-minded”.

In recent articles, we have started to discuss how the mechanisms of “Neuroplasticity” and “Epigenetics” both play a prominent role in the creation of “Resiliency”.  A thorough understanding of these powerful mind-body mechanisms will be extremely useful for our daily life and essential for our wellbeing.

“Rerouting” The Brain By Changing Your Mind

“Neuroplasticity” is the ability of our brain and nervous system to grow and develop continuously. It is the mechanism for learning new behaviors. This is how we adapt to life’s “vicissitudes” (I love that term! It means “when sh** happens”). It is also the mechanism how we can re-wire or re-imagine aspects of us that are blocked or dysfunctional in our life. It is the part of the mental and physical “self-repair mechanism” of our body/mind.

It explains how we heal, how we learn, and can overcome bad experiences by healing old wounds and establishing new, more functional mental and emotional patterns.

 Neuroplasticity means:

• We always can learn (until our last day)
• We always can create new neural connections (by taking risks to “step out of the box” and learning new things)
• We always can adapt to new situations (even though we may belief it is impossible)
• We always can re-write our story (by “speaking your dream” with emotions)
• We are destined for change (but we need learn how to “ride the wave” of change)

Epigenetics: Changing Our Environment

We also mentioned “Epigenetics”.  Translated it means “on top of genes” and it describes the over-riding-mechanism that influences what our genes encode. It is a mechanism that can influence our genetics by changing our inner and outer environment.  It means if we can learn how to adjust our life circumstances or change our lifestyle (“outer environment”). If we modify our thinking, and our perceptions (“inner environment”) we can influence our life experience and level of wellness.

The cell biologist Bruce Lipton, PhD in his bestselling book “The Biology of Emotions” gives a very good description of this:

Epigenetic transmission means that our ancestors have influenced their DNA by having made certain behavioral choices, eaten certain foods, hung out with a certain crowd. These choices were based on their perceptions of a life situation.  That, in turn, influenced the selection of biochemicals, hormones and neurotransmitters your ancestors produced. We then inherit that altered biological information and are deeply affected by it. We also have our own experiences and perceptions. Throughout our life span, these perceptions and experiences are added to the mix. They also influence who we become. Thus, the altered “trans-generational” genetic information is passed on to our offspring.

Resiliency for Emotional Health

RESILIENCE resides on the edge of the transition from thought, emotion AND bodily experience! It is truly a mind -body phenomenon! It can be achieved by combining both our understanding of Epigenetics and Neuroplasticity in a number of ways:

• By a change of perception, the way we interpret something can change our bodily and emotional reaction to an event. One of the possible consequences of effective psychotherapy is a shift away from one’s frozen or dysfunctional beliefs.
• By creating a safe and protective environment 
  
• By creating alternate experiences and insisting on “looking at the glass half-full”.
• By learning new life skills and learning inter-personal skills to get support.
• By learning various methods for self-regulation such as meditation, mindfulness, and a variety of relaxation techniques
• By building self-confidence, curating trust-worthiness, and fostering transparency.
• By focusing on mutuality & empowerment as opposed to a “trauma reality” of isolation, separation and violation.
• By establishing safe and stable relationships to help us “co-regulate” our brains person-to-person, brain-to-brain.

Resiliency requires SELF-AWARENESS (mindfulness/ meditation/ insight) and CONSCIOUS CHOICE (a “will” to act on your insights.) The benefit is personal growth, deep trauma healing, spiritual expansion and self-transformation.

Here is a re-cap of the good news:

• We can influence our experience of life.
• We can change our environment.
• We can learn until the last day of our life.
• We can change our choices (if we don’t like what we have created)
• We can re-train our brain.
• We can harness our emotions.
• We can even re-sculpt our body.

Of course…No promises! All of this can happen only with a little (or a lot) of effort!

And sometimes, with the extra help of a mentor, coach, doctor or holistic psychotherapist by your side.