Our thoughts create our lives. This is not only a key part of understanding the Law of Attraction; it has a firm basis in neuroscience. If you really understood that it’s your own thoughts that hold you back from being really happy in life, wouldn’t you want to learn how to change them? We can literally be our own worst enemies just because of the way that we think.

Knowing that we have something like 70,000 thoughts a day, would you be surprised to learn that 90% of these thoughts are exactly the same as the day before? There are patterns of thought that get hardwired into our brains, patterns that eventually become fixed, reinforcing the way we look at the world, over and over again.

In neuroscience there is a common principle that says, “nerve cells that fire together, wire together.” In other words, repeatedly thinking and acting in the same way over and over again will mold your brain into a specific pattern. The theory tells us that our brains organize themselves according to our environment. That means that every experience we have ever had, the people we know and the places we have lived in, the actions and behaviors we have taken throughout our lives come together to be imprinted and configured in the plastic tissues of the brain.

On the whole, people go through their lives thinking and behaving in these memorized ways. It’s automatic, especially if we are generally always repeating the same daily routines.

Think about it – do you wake up at pretty much the same time every morning? Have a shower, get dressed in the same clothes and make yourself look the way that is expected of you? Do you generally eat the same breakfast then get in your car or take public transport to your job, where you spend the day with the same people, who make you feel the same way day in and day out? When you spend your life repeating these memorized ways of being that are so familiar to you, you basically remain unchanged. Your brain operates along its well-trodden pathways and does not allow for anything new to happen.

So many of us are hardwired to the same thoughts, actions and feelings yet are secretly hoping that something different will show up in our lives. If you desire change, you have to think and act in different ways. You have to think beyond your usual circumstances and environment.

Reprogramming the brain

To change your life, you have to change the way you perceive yourself. Think of it as literally reprogramming the circuits in your brain. It’s important to recognize that changing those hardwired patterns requires some effort. We become addicted to the way that we think on a chemical, emotional and physical level.

When we have been living in a state of anxiety, depression, fear, shame, guilt, anger or any kind of low energy emotion, we have been reinforcing stress hormones. Unlike animals, we humans can turn on our fight or flight response through thought alone, meaning there does not need to be an actual threat for us to activate the stress hormones that would be present if we were actually in physical danger.

Addiction to Stress

 

When you repeatedly turn on your stress hormones, your body is thrown out of balance by going into emergency mode and staying there. When animals are in danger, they react in the moment and then switch off that stress response, once the danger has passed. As humans, we have the ability to make thoughts so real that our bodies believe they are experiencing something physical. The cumulative effect of this is sadly, disease.  Our bodies become so out of balance that sickness is actually created within our cells.

Those hormones that we turn on in response to our anxious thoughts, give our brains and bodies a chemical rush. We become like drug addicts, using the conditions and problems we have faced to reaffirm who we think we are.

For example, if you have experienced things in life that caused you to feel insecure and unworthy, you have conditioned yourself towards insecurity. Those negative feelings are more familiar to you than feelings of confidence, happiness and worthiness. In order for your body to keep getting its known rush of chemicals, your brain will repeat those thoughts. You’ve been thinking them for years in many cases, they have literally been hard wired into your system!

That’s why when you start to change the way you think through forced effort, it can be difficult to sustain. You can’t just all of a sudden start thinking completely differently to how you did yesterday, the days, months and years of negative mindset take time to undo. Your brain may essentially ‘freak out’ at the new thoughts you are introducing that are literally chemically different to your usual negative mind chatter. Your physical mind and body will react to them differently.

How to Change your Old Patterns of Thought

Positive thinking will strengthen and light up different neural pathways, but it needs regular repetition to be effective.  You must make the decision to make new choices that will lead to new behaviors and new emotions that will inspire new thoughts that in turn will change the plasticity of the brain.

When you decide to focus instead on who you want to be, the best ideal version of yourself, you will un-memorize all those old emotions that keep you stuck in the past. This is where meditation and feeling your way to a new self, comes in. It is not enough to think your way to a new reality. You have to feel your way there. You can do this by meditating and focusing on the gratitude you feel already for the new life you are creating.

Create a new image of yourself in your mind, by quieting your brain and meditating to get beyond thought.  When you do this, there comes a point when your brain cannot tell the difference between the thoughts that you are having about your new, imagined reality and what is actually currently real in your life. Just like with the stress hormones, your body will react to reflect what the mind perceives.

If you are intentionally thinking about how you desire your life to look, you will create changes in your brain to reflect that. Changing your mind will change your brain, which will change your life experience.

Repetition is crucial for success. Just like learning anything new, an instrument, a language, a sport; the connections in your brain need consistent repetition over time in order to remain light up in new ways.

We have been conditioned to think that we need to see change before we can believe change. The opposite is true. Wealthy people don’t feel lack they feel wealthy. Happy people feel happy and healthy people feel healthy.

What kind of person do you feel like every morning?

Make a conscious effort to feel yourself and your life as you wish them to be.  Ask yourself, what is the greatest expression of myself that I can be today? Can I demonstrate love and patience? Can I express energy, happiness and enthusiasm? How do I want to move through my world today?

Change how you think and feel and watch as a new version of yourself is broadcast into the world, changing who you are.  The wonderful thing is, we all have the ability to transform our lives. We just have to learn how to access new thought processes. You must stop anticipating your life based on past experiences and learn to embrace a new vision of yourself. When you begin each day with that intention, you are conditioning your body to work in harmony with these thoughts and your life will follow suit. People will begin to react to you differently, noticing that your energy has shifted. Everything will change.

There are many examples of people who have had incredible transformations through meditation and creating new thought processes. One of the best ways to begin is to shake up your routine. Doing something different than normal helps to break patterns.

Ingrid had come from an abusive, traumatic background, causing her to be angry and unhappy most of the time with many violent relationships and negative experiences. When she started focusing on her dreams of freedom and creating her days intentionally, she saw incredible results. She created a happy marriage, financial freedom and taught herself she could manifest everything she wanted in her life, despite having hit rock bottom. She did all this with the power of her mind and her firm belief and trust in the universe being able to deliver.

You can literally have the life you dream of, there are no exceptions, and everybody is capable of manifesting their desires.

Learn about the different, magical ways the universe is always speaking to you, and helping you find your way along the path of life. Click on the right to download the “7 Sacred Signs from the Universe” Guide.

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