Without accepting the fact that everything changes, we cannot find perfect composure. But unfortunately, although it is true, it is difficult for us to accept it. Because we cannot accept the truth of transience, we suffer. ~Shunryu Suzuki
Take a moment and consider this: all you are is change. All you are is changing, constantly; moment to moment. You can't help it -- it's a basic law of physics. If we were to get together one year from now, more than 99% of all the sub-atomic particles in our bodies would be different. In fact you have changed from the time you started reading this last sentence and right now. Yet we still think we're the same? How can that be?
That can be partially answered by the fact that you can't hold on to any one emotion or strong feeling for more than 90 seconds at a time. It's an actual biochemical process that occurs in the brain and nervous system. The longest any one urge or strong emotion can "coast along" bio-chemically in our nervous system is about 90 seconds.
For any emotion to persist or to last longer than 90 seconds, you have to be re-creating it in some way. The nervous system has to be re-minded to keep firing the same circuitry over and over again. It has to be re-engaged, either through internal stimulation, like making pictures or self talk, or through external stimulation, like anchors or triggers in our environment -- things that we see or hear that set it off again.
And the stronger the feelings or negative thoughts you are experiencing the greater the number of circuits in your brain that are simultaneously activated or fired off.
So the good news is you really can't easily hold on to a problem or strong unwanted emotion for more than 90 seconds.
And the bad news is you've become very good at re-creating your problem or re-minding your nervous system to keep it alive by firing those same circuits; over and over again.
And the good news about that... is why you are here today. I can help you make the changes you want now. Somehow you found this website. You took some action that got you here.
Know that when we exercise our brains, we put our neurons in action. "Cells that fire together wire together," meaning that synapses, or unions between neurons, get solidified and strengthened the more often those neurons "talk" to each other.
If you continue to think about and talk about your problems in the same way you have been, chances are you will continue to experience those problems in the same way, and will continue to get the same unwanted results -- firing those same neurons in the same way and thus strengthening them in a way you don't want.
One simple thing you can begin doing, right now, to help you work through whatever issue, problem or unwanted thought or feeling you might be experiencing is to un-freeze whatever it is you are doing. That is, to put back into motion or process whatever you have frozen. For example if you are having a problem with a relationship. Ask youself, "How am I choosing to be relating to this person now?"
Take the stuck or frozen concept of a "relationship" and put it back into the process that it actually is – relating.
Take some time to try this out now.
The second thing you can do is to expand and include more. Many problems are a result of being too focused, too internalized and too restrictive. We have eliminated too many things. So try including more. Everything that is NOT the problem is far, far greater than what the actual problem ever was. Try something as simple as asking yourself, "Beyond all of that, what's everything else, or what's anything else, I can be paying attention to now that I wasn’t just a moment ago?"
Take some time to try this out now.
The third thing you can do is to just be "present" with whatever you are feeling right now. Notice what the unwanted feeling or thought is. Notice where that feeling or thought is located in your body. Now, just be present to whatever that feeling is.
Then ask yourself, "What's happening now?" Or, "What are you noticing or experiencing now?"
Whatever comes up just include that as part of your present reality and just be present to that and observe what is happening now.
Keep coming back to the present moment by re-minding yourself to be present to whatever it is you are noticing or feeling right now.
Just be present to whatever it is you are experiencing. Just observe it. And notice that those thoughts or feelings are now existing within a much bigger filed of Awareness.
Through the information you are learning here and through my practice of Therapeutic Coaching ® I can show you how to begin creating new neural circuitry in your brain to help you break out of those old habits of thought and action and begin experiencing new, more rewarding results in your life. And it all really begins with what you are paying attention to, right now.
Today is a wonderful day. What's dictating the quality of the change you are experiencing? How can I just allow what is to be?
When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves. ~Victor Frankl
Life is its own journey, presupposes its own change and movement, and one tries to arrest them at one's eternal peril. ~Laurens van der Post
No matter what you think you are, you are always, and in all ways, more than that.
In any moment you are more defined by what you don't know than what you do know. ~John Overdurf
