As we learn more about the human brain and how it works, there are more articles, web sites, courses, and webinars being offered to help us learn for ourselves what goes on in that grey matter between our ears and how it affects our lives. Contemporary research seems to confirm what the wiser among us have known for a long time: that our thought life has a direct impact on our emotions, our bodies, and the quality of life that we experience. That’s great news! We can change our thoughts and in so doing we can change our lives. That’s also the challenge. Stepping back from ourselves and becoming aware of our habitual thought patterns is not always easy. Sometimes the patterns are so familiar and close we aren’t even aware of them. And once we do see them, it’s not always easy to change them. A lifetime of habit takes consistent effort to change, and sometimes that change can be scary. After all, letting go of the comfortable and familiar, even if it doesn’t serve us well, is still something of a leap of faith into the unknown.
Here are some questions to consider that may help you open up how you see yourself and become more aware of old ways of thinking and responding to the world – and perhaps be more willing to embrace change.
- How can I fully live every day when I reconfirm who I have been by doing the same behavior, etc. everyday?
- When I bombard the cells in my body with the same chemicals generated by the same attitudes, then as the cells in my body replenish themselves, what is it that I am creating? Knowing this, how can this help me have a different view of change?
- When I identify old patterns of responding how will I work with myself to be open to new knowledge?
- How will I build each day by opening to new information, experiences and working toward making connections and repeating these associations so I can develop new attitudes, thoughts and behavior?
- What new experience am I going to have today?