Shitfting Perspectives

This last few weeks, between starting Osteopathy treatments, attending the conference in Ottawa and having my aunt visit have given me a great deal to process. The biggest thing I have taken away from all three is that I need to shift my perspective. Both internally and externally. I need to see, think and put things out there differently.

First and foremost, I need to focus on what I can do, rather than what I can't. This may be a subtle shift, but it is a very impactful one. Next, I have been challenged (and you know how I love a challenge!) to remove the terms "illness" and "sickness" and all other related vocabulary from my mind. Following that, I am literally shifting my physical perspective, by rearranging the furniture which surrounds me most often in order to better my view. Finally, I am taking a break from online forums, and have dropped out of my self-help course, knowing that I will return to both once this part of my work is complete.

Through my various post graduate courses in education, I have come to realize just how incredible the human brain is. The one thing that has inspired me the most is that we actually create our own brains, through our thoughts, our experiences and interactions with our environment and the people in it. When scientists refer to brain plasticity, this is what they're talking about. Every time we learn something, think a certain thought, or have a particular experience, a memory trace is formed  - memory traces are nothing more than electro-chemical pathways that link our neurons. The more often we repeat a thought, the stronger that memory trace becomes, creating more permanent pathways that transmit information with increasing speed and clarity. This process is especially important in children from the ages of 0-6, and 12-18, because that is when the brain develops in huge ways. However, the process continues throughout our lives. If it didn't, we'd never be able to learn anything new. Ever.

So if each and every thought creates a neuronal pathway, and the more that thought occurs the more effective that pathway becomes, then our thoughts actually build our brains, and therefore, inform our experience in a very real and physical way. By consciously changing our thoughts, we can change the way we see things, the way we react to things, and the very structure of our brains. That's why mantras, brainwashing, and propaganda work.

Thinking as I have been lately about hyper-vigilance, about thinking too much, and about how to gain access to the energy that is being blocked in my body, I have come to the realization, with the aid of my recent experiences, that the only way to do that is to start with my very overactive brain. To start with changing the littlest things, that are holding me back, and explore other ways of seeing and being.

Over the next little while, I will be removing all references to illness from the permanent text on this blog. I will be exploring new names for my current experience, and I will be trying my best to find those moments of brain-silence for which my body longs and of which my ego is so frightened. I will need to find new ways of logging my activities and physical reactions, and of more actively being, as opposed to being more active.

Just like I have done with jobs, relationships, living arrangments and so forth, I am now looking at my brain, and seeing that what I'm doing there is not working, and it is time for a change.