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Dr. Hanson says, "You can use the mind to change the brain to change the mind for the better."

3/9/2012

In the mid-1960's psychologist Marian Diamond and her associates discovered that "enriched environments" led to larger brains in laboratory rats. Further work demonstrated that brain cells continue to develop and grow throughout one's lifetime. Previously it was thought that brain cells, of which we're blessed with 1.1 trillion, simply died off over one's lifetime with no new cells being generated to take their place. Today though, it's common knowledge that "use it or lose it" applies not only to physical strength gained through exercise. It applies equally to one's brain cell count and "plasticity" -- the ability of our brains to reorganize based on new experiences, learning, skills and knowledge. The emergence of sudoko puzzles and other devices for "exercising" the brain testify to that belief.

Now comes along neuropsychologist Rick Hanson who explains how you can exercise your brain to achieve greater happiness and well-being. Hanson describes how when the brain changes, the mind changes. "For example, more activation in the left prefrontal cortex is associated with more positive emotions. So as there is greater activation in the left, front portion of your brain relative to the right, there is also greater well-being," according to Hanson.

More interestingly, he next describes how when the mind changes, the brain changes. Now we're getting to something that sounds like it might be of interest to A Course in Miracles students, like me, working to change our minds about the world, people, situations and events. Hanson points out that "...the mind also can change the brain in lasting ways. In other words, what flows through the mind [our thoughts about what we perceive] sculpts the brain... As the mind flows through the brain, as neurons fire together in particularly patterned ways based on the information they are representing, those patterns of neural activity change neural structure."

And most interesting of all, Hanson wraps up his article by explaining "You can use the mind to change the brain to change the mind for the better." He speaks about those things to which we give our attention. If we attend to negativity we will "build out the neural substrates of those thoughts and feelings." However, if we keep our thoughts focused on positive aspects such as Love, Forgiveness, Gratitude, Joy and Peace, we "then we build up very different neural substrates."

I find it fascinating to know that our world-of-form brains actually respond to what we think by growing neural connections, by becoming denser, thicker and actually supporting our most frequent focuses of attention. I think this has real significance for ACIM students because it even further stresses the importance of finding our Right Minds.

Some might argue that this brain in our heads is just a world-of-form piece of wet-works, just part of this body we've each invented. I agree. And I agree with Ken Wapnick's video discussing the difference between mind and brain to which Danielle gave such excellent exposure at MiracleShare.org. The mind is not a physical entity. It doesn't exist in some place, including the brain. Yet does anyone but me find it quite amazing that practicing Forgiveness and the other Loving Miracles the Course teaches actually has an affect on our little brains?

Oh well, this entire post might be nothing more than an exercise by my ego in "loving to analyze and discover" things of this ego world. But I'll close it by saying again: "Use it or lose it." I am going to use my mind to follow the Course teachings as best I can, asking always for help from Holy Spirit, especially when in doubt. If my brain wants to follow along like Dr. Hanson says good brains do, I'll be grateful to accept that growth help as well!

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The Correction of Fear is Our Responsibility

3/8/2012

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Chapter 2.VI.4 of the ACIM text says: "The correction of fear is your responsibility. When you ask for release from fear, you are implying that it is not. You should ask, instead, for help in the conditions that have brought the fear about. These conditions always entail a willingness to be separate. At that level you can help it. You are much too tolerant of mind wandering, and are passively condoning your mind's miscreations. The particular result does not matter, but the fundamental error does. The correction is always the same. Before you choose to do anything, ask me if your choice is in accord with mine. If you are sure that it is, there will be no fear."

Chapter 2.VI.1 points out that: "Being afraid seems to be involuntary; something beyond your own control. Yet I have said already that only constructive acts should be involuntary. My control can take over everything that does not matter, while my guidance can direct everything that does, if you so choose. Fear cannot be controlled by me, but it can be self-controlled. Fear prevents me from giving you my control. The presence of fear shows that you have raised body thoughts to the level of the mind. This removes them from my control, and makes you feel personally responsible for them. This is an obvious confusion of levels."

So, it seems to me, we have in two short paragraphs the guidance that it is our job to eliminate fear from our lives. Fear, like the ego, seems to be an adversary; likely it's the same adversary. So once again I come back to the question: "How can I undo the ego? How can I eliminate fear?" And the answer seems to come to me: "Accept the Atonement." For until I do, Jesus says he cannot give me his control.

What is this fear? To me it is the fear of make the choice of accepting the Atonement in full. It's as if we're all so enamored of our ego lives that we fear giving them up -- as if we'd be whisked away to somewhere, leaving a vacuum where our body existed just a nanosecond ago. Much of the Course repeatedly asks the question, in so many words, "Why would we choose this world of pain, suffering and misery when in the twinkling of an eye we can choose God and Love and Heaven?"

Yet I read, further along in Chapter 2, that:

"Whenever there is fear, it is because you have not made up your mind. Your mind is therefore split, and your behaviour inevitably becomes erratic." [Split between God and ego]
"Only your mind can produce fear. It does so whenever it is conflicted in what it wants, producing inevitable strain because wanting and doing are discordant. This can be corrected only by accepting a unified goal." [Choosing the Atonement rather than the ego]
"The first corrective step in undoing the error is to know first that the conflict is an expression of fear. Say to yourself that you must somehow have chosen not to love, or the fear could not have arisen. Then the whole process of correction becomes nothing more than a series of pragmatic steps in the larger process of accepting the Atonement as the remedy. These steps may be summarised in this way:"

Know first that this is fear.
Fear arises from lack of love.
The only remedy for lack of love is perfect love.
Perfect love is the Atonement.

Of late I have given much thought to thinking about many of the past events in my life as if they did not happen, just as the separation never happened. This thinking sometimes translates to a state of mind when seeming wrongs, insults and hurts I've "suffered" take on much less importance or even fade away -- at least in the sense that they no longer hold any emotional impact on me. I think that may be a sign of progress toward acceptance of the Atonement. I'll continue to practice.
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Earlier this week I spent a good deal of time meditating on the fact that we are indeed all One Sonship. I asked the Holy Spirit for help in knowing that to be true, as in seeing with spiritual sight rather than the body's eyes that brothers and sisters world-wide are truly all One. That night I went to bed to meditate a bit more. I have found a "place" that is not a place -- on the right side of the darkness perceived with eyes closed -- and that seems "outside of time" in some indescribable way. It's the "place" where I meditate. It's almost as if that instead of being a "place" in "time" it is simply being. I can sometimes see that place expand and push away what appears to be a dirty, dusty old city on the left side of my closed-eye "field of vision." That city seems to be my ego. I am always secretly pleased to see the city diminish in size, and to see the being place enlarge -- as if I am becoming more attuned to the Holy Spirit during the meditation.

In any case, in that dark meditation space suddenly appeared faces of men and women of every nationality, each "falling" toward me like leaves falling from a tree. Asians, Arabs, Indians, Muslims, Black, White -- dozens dozens of faces of every nationality. As the imagery slowed to a stop, the last two faces seemed to "fall into my body" as if they were becoming part of me, or that I became part of them, or more likely, that we simply merged. I suppose it was an event triggered by meditations on the One Sonship. All in all, a pleasant meditation!

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