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process that neuroscientists call pruning and
sprouting. It’s what I call unlearning and learning, and
it creates the opportunity for us to rise above our
current limitations and to be greater than our
conditioning or circumstances.
The gift of neuroplasticity (the brain’s ability to rewire
and create new circuits at any age as a result of input
from the environment and our conscious intentions) is
that we can create a new level of mind. There’s a sort
of neurological “out with the old, in with the new,” a
process that neuroscientists call pruning and
sprouting. It’s what I call unlearning and learning, and
it creates the opportunity for us to rise above our
current limitations and to be greater than our
conditioning or circumstances.
First, you gather knowledge in the form of facts or
semantic information (philosophical or theoretical
concepts or ideas that you learn intellectually),
prompting the neocortex to add new synaptic
The Neocortex connections and circuits.
Processes
Knowledge, Then Second, once you decide to personalize or apply
Prompts Us to Live knowledge you have acquired—to demonstrate what
What We Learned you learned—you will invariably create a new
experience. This causes patterns of neurons called
neural networks to form in the neocortex. These net-
works reinforce the circuitry of what you learned
intellectually.
the limbic brain assists in forming long-term
memories: you can remember any experience better
because you can recall how you felt emotionally while
the event was occur- ring. (The neocortex and limbic
brain together enable us to form declarative
memories, meaning that we can declare what we’ve
learned or experienced.
If knowledge is for the mind, and experience is for
the body, then when you apply knowledge and create
a new experience, you teach the body what the mind
The Limbic Brain Produces has intellectually learned. Knowledge without
Chemicals to Help Us experience is merely philosophy; experience without
Remember Experiences knowledge is ignorance. There’s a progression that
The “first brain,” the neocortex or thinking brain. has to take place. You have to take knowledge and
live it—embrace it emotionally.
The “second brain” is the limbic or emotional brain,
responsible for creating, maintaining, and organizing If you’re still with me as I’ve been discussing how to
chemicals in the body. change your life, you’ve learned about gaining
knowledge, and then taking action to have a new
The “third brain,” the cerebellum, is the seat of the experience, which produces a new feeling.
subconscious mind. when the body knows equal to or better than the
Three Brains: Thinking to Doing to Being
conscious mind, when you can repeat an experience
at will without much conscious effort, then you have
memorized the action, behavior, attitude, or
The Cerebellum emotional reaction until it has become a skill or a
Stores Habitual habit.
Thoughts,
Attitudes, and When you reach this level of ability, you have moved
Behaviors into a state of being. In the process, you’ve activated
the third brain area that plays a major role in
changing your life—the cerebellum, seat of the
subconscious.
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that you are probably focusing on something too want to make—to go inward to observe and monitor
much and it’s hard to stop.) our thoughts, behavior, and emotions.
3. High-range Beta is characterized by any brain-
wave pattern from 22 to 50 hertz. High-Beta patterns In high Beta, the outer world appears to be more real
are observed during stressful situations where those than the inner world. Our attention and conscious
nasty survival chemicals are produced in the body. awareness primarily focus on everything that makes
Maintaining this sustained focus in such a high- up the external environment. Thus, we identify more
arousal state is not the type of focused attention we readily with those material elements: we criticize
use to learn, create, dream, problem solve, or even everyone we know, we judge the way our bodies look,
heal. In truth, we could say that the brain in high we’re overfocused on our problems, we cling to things
Beta is functioning with too much focused we own out of fear that we might lose them, we busy
concentration. The mind is too amped up and the ourselves with places we have to go, and we’re
body is too stimulated to be in any semblance of Sustained High preoccupied with time. That leaves us little processing
order. (When you’re in high Beta, just know for now Beta Makes It power to pay attention to the changes that we truly
that you are probably focusing on something too Hard to Focus on want to make—to go inward to observe and monitor
much and it’s hard to stop.) Our Inner Self our thoughts, behavior, and emotions.
Awareness, Not Analysis,
Permits Entry into the Subconscious
Awareness can exist outside of analysis. When you
are aware, you may think, I’m feeling angry. When
you are analyzing, you go beyond that simple
observation to add: Why is this page taking so long to
load?
For the most part, when adults are conscious, their
analytical minds are always working, and thus they
are functioning in some realm of Beta waves.
Brain-Wave States
You expose “new” dirt and nutrients, making it easier for seeds to germinate
Meditation
and for tender shoots to take root. Cultivation may also require you to remove
plants from the previous season, attend to weeds that went unnoticed, and
remove any rocks that rose to the surface by natural sifting.
When we use meditation as a means to change, when
we become conscious and aware, familiar with and
willing to do what is necessary to eradicate an
undesirable trait and cultivate a desired one, we’re
doing what mystics have been doing for centuries.
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