Neuroscientists over the last few years have come out with amazing research showing us that we actually have the capacity to rewire our brains. They …
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Charles
6:43 am on
February 3rd, 2009I have been working on training my brain to believe that difficult tasks can be accomplished through a systematic and rule driven plan of action. I like to start the day reading this poem from Napoleon Hill’s “Think and Grow Rich”. It helps to make sure that I am not psychologically defeated before I even start.
“If you think you are beaten, you are.
If you think you dare not, you don’t.
If you like to win, but you think you can’t,
It is almost certain you won’t.
If you think you’ll lose, you’re lost,
For out of the world we find,
Success begins with a fellow’s will -
It’s all in the state of mind.
If you think you are outclassed, you are,
You’ve got to think high to rise,
You’ve got to be sure of yourself before
You can ever win a prize.
Life’s battles don’t always go
To the stronger or faster man,
But soon or late the man who wins
Is the man WHO THINKS HE CAN!”
Charles
Thank you Charles…that goes along with Henry Ford’s quote, “Whether you believe you can or can’t, you’re right.”
Dixie
1:36 pm on
February 4th, 2009Some good ideas here. However, one can go too far the other way & ignore serious pain. In my family, we push pain/bad ideas out of our heads. My brother felt a bad pain in his side during a ballgame in college. He ignored it. It was a ruptured appendix. He could’ve died. The surgeons were aghast he could ignore that debilitating pain. My sister felt “yuccky stomach aches” for 2 years. She did tell her MD 3 timesbut in the way all our family speaks of pain. Just the facts, no histrionics. The MD blew it off, said she should stop eating spicey foods. It was cancer of the liver, intestines & too late when a 2nd MD did tests. she died at the age of 39. Our family will never get over the fact that her MD blew her off. I fell this summer into a gopher hole while hiking. Ignored excruciating pain. Finally, 3 weeks later, I went to the MD. It was a detached tendon & damaged rotator cuff. The MD told me to Listen to pain, acknowledge it & see an MD to rule out serious illness/injury. My MD said that doctors are trained to pick up cues from patients, so if a patient “presents” in a calm manner, without writhing & screaming in pain, they assume it’s not serious. So don’t be like the people in my family. DO let your brain & body tell you when your pain is serious!
Thank you for bringing this up, it is absolutely important to listen to your body. IT tells us when we’re overworked and when something is wrong. Becoming more aware of subtle sensations in the body through more focused awareness can help us with that. Go to your physician should you sense that something isn’t right. If you don’t trust that response, you may want to get a second and even third opinion.
B. Jane Wick, Ph.D.
9:17 am on
February 5th, 2009Dr. Goldstein is right on. Indeed, we can “remap” our brains. Talk psychotherapy is one of the most important tools today that allows us to do this-creating new perspectives leading to new experiences resulting in new brain neuropathways. Congratulations Dr. Goldstein for your pioneering work. Here’s to psychotherapy and restructuring the brain!
Changing the shape of our brains through mindful practice is really about re-parenting ourselves. Being attuned to your experience, in an open, non-judging state, is beautifully resonant with what we wish we’d all had as children. I believe it’s also what makes psychotherapy effective, hence the research that shows it’s the relationship, not the methodology, which best predicts psychotherapeutic outcome.
Enjoying your blog! Thanks for putting this out there.
Katrin R.
9:17 pm on
June 2nd, 2009I have been experimenting with doing just that, and I think this is wonderful advice and practice. Thanks!
Gregg
8:26 am on
January 4th, 2010I’m happy to see that mindfulness in psychotherapy is getting attention. My first experience with mindfulness was through a mindfulness-based stress reduction course, which I found novel at the time and interesting. However, the mindfulness practice seemed to be somewhat strange to me as a relaxation technique. After MBSR, I was still left with the feeling of “now what?”
After finding that mindfulness practice was derived from Buddhism, I decided to take a further look at Buddhism and saw that mindfulness was one aspect of 8 things mentioned to live a happier life. After consideration and practice, I decided to attempt to practice Buddhism as a whole in my daily life, and can say that mindfulness within a Buddhist context makes a lot more sense to me.
I’m a lapsed Catholic and current atheist, so I approached pursuing what was called a religion with much trepidation. But I’m glad I did. There is occasional talk of the supernatural withing many circles of Western Buddhism, but the talk is little and I find that I can comfortably and effectively practice without buying into the supernatural aspects of it.
In short, I’ve found that mindfulness is great for absorbing the blows life deals by changing one’s relationship to them, but it made much more sense to me when considered as but one part of the Buddhist Eightfold Path. Your mileage may vary, but if you’re interested, I encourage others to check out practices beyond mindfulness and see if anything in addition to mindfulness works for them.
(as an aside, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy also utilizes mindfulness as a specific tool for change in the context of a larger framework, and is also worth taking a look at IMO)
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