Neuro-science: your ticket to lasting change

Great breakthroughs in our ability to understand the human mind are now available because of a marriage between two widely different fields: neuro-biology (the study of how the brain works) and computer science. The integration of these sciences has created the discipline of neuro-

science. Neuro-scientists study how neuro-associations occur and have discovered that neurons are constantly sending electro-chemical messages back and forth across neural pathways, not unlike traffic on a busy thoroughfare. This communication is happening all at once, each idea or memory moving along its own path while literally billions of other impulses are travelling in individual directions. This arrangement enables us to hopscotch mentally from memories of the pine smell of an evergreen

forest after a rain, to the haunting melody of a favourite Broadway musical, to painstakingly detailed plans of an evening with a loved one, to the exquisite size and texture of a newborn baby's thumb.

Not only does this complex system allow us to enjoy the beauty of our world, it also helps us to survive in it. Each time we experience a significant amount of pain or pleasure, our brains search for the cause and record it in our nervous systems to enable us to make better decisions about what to do in the future. For example, without a neuro-association in your brain to remind you that sticking your hand into an open flame would bum you, you could conceivably make this mistake again and again until your hand is severely burned. Thus, neuro-associations quickly provide our brains with the signals that help us to re-access our memories and safely manoeuvre us through our lives.

" To the dull mind all nature is leaden. To the illumined mind the whole world burns and sparkles with light."

RALPH WALDO EMERSON

When we do something for the first time, we create a physical connection, a thin neural strand that allows us to re-access that emotion or behaviour again in the future. Think of it this way; each time we repeat the behaviour, the connection strengthens. We add another strand to our neural connection. With enough repetitions and emotional intensity, we can add many strands[33] simultaneously, increasing the tensile strength of this emotional or behavioural pattern until eventually we have a " trunk line" to this behaviour or feeling. This is when we find ourselves compelled to feel these feelings or behave in this way consistently. In other words, this connection becomes what I've already labelled a neural " super-highway" that will take us down an automatic and consistent route of behaviour.

This neuro-association is a biological reality—it's physical. Again, this is why thinking our way into a change is usually ineffective; our neuro-associations are a survival tool and they are secured in our nervous systems as physical connections rather than as intangible " memories." Michael Merzenich of the University of California, San Francisco, has scientifically proven that the more we indulge in any pattern of behaviour, the stronger that pattern becomes. Merzenich mapped the specific areas in a monkey's brain that were activated when a certain finger in the monkey's hand was touched. He then trained one monkey to use this finger predominantly[34] in order to earn its food. When Merzenich remapped the touch-activated areas in the monkey's brain, he found that the area responding to the signals from that finger's additional use had expanded in size nearly 600 percent! Now the monkey continued the behaviour even when he was no longer rewarded because the neural pathway was so strongly established. An illustration of this in human behaviour might be that of a person who no longer enjoys smoking but still feels a compulsion to do so. Why would this be the case? This person is physically " wired" to smoke. This explains why you may have found it difficult to create a change in your emotional patterns or behaviours in the past. You didn't merely " have a habit" —you had created a network of strong neuro-associations within your nervous system.

We unconsciously develop these neuro-associations by allowing our- selves to indulge[35] in emotions or behaviours on a consistent basis. Each time you indulge in the emotion of anger or the behaviour of yelling at a loved one, you reinforce the neural connection and increase the likelihood that you'll do it again. The good news is this: research has also shown that when the monkey was forced to stop using this finger, the area of the brain where these neural connections were made actually began to shrink in size, and therefore the neuro-association weakened. This is good news for those who want to change their habits! If you'll just stop indulging in a particular behaviour or emotion long enough, if you just interrupt your pattern of using the old pathway for a long enough period of time, the neural connection will weaken and atrophy. Thus the disempowering emotional pattern or behaviour disappears with it. We should remember this also means that if you don't use your passion it's going to dwindle[36]. Remember: courage, unused, diminishes [37]. Commitment, unexercised, wanes [38]. Love, unshared, dissipates [39].

" It is not enough to have a good mind; the main thing is to use it well."

RENE DESCARTES

What the science of Neuro-Associative Conditioning offers is six steps that are specifically designed to change behavior by breaking patterns that disempower you. But first, we must understand how the brain makes a neuro-association in the first place. Any time you experience significant amounts of pain or pleasure, your brain immediately searches for the cause. It uses the following three criteria.

1. Your brain looks for something that appears to be unique. To narrow down the likely causes, the brain tries to distinguish something that is unusual to the circumstance. It seems logical that if you're having unusual feelings, there must be an unusual cause.

2. Your brain looks for something that seems to be happening simultaneously. This is known in psychology circles as the Law of Recency. Doesn't it make sense that what occurs in the moment (or close proximity to it) of intense pleasure or pain is probably the cause of that sensation?

3. Your brain looks for consistency. If you're feeling pain or pleasure, your brain begins to immediately notice what around you is unique and is happening simultaneously. If the element that meets these two criteria also seems to occur consistently whenever you feel this pain or pleasure, then you can be sure that your brain will determine that it is the cause. The challenge in this, of course, is that when we feel enough pain or pleasure, we tend to generalize about consistency. I'm sure you've had someone say to you, " You always do that, " after you've done something for the first time. Perhaps you've even said it yourself.

Because the three criteria for forming neuro-associations are so imprecise, it is very easy to fall prey to misinterpretations and create what I call false neuro-associations. That's why we must evaluate linkages before they become a part of our unconscious decision-making process. So often we blame the wrong cause, and thereby close ourselves off from possible solutions. I once knew a woman, a very successful artist, who hadn't had a relationship with a man for twelve years. Now, this woman was extremely passionate about everything she did; it's what made her such a great artist. However, when her relationship ended and she found herself in massive pain, her brain immediately searched for the cause—it searched for something that was unique to this relationship.

Her brain noted that the relationship had been especially passionate. Instead of identifying it as one of the beautiful parts of the relationship, she began to think that this was the reason that the relationship ended. Her brain also looked for something that was simultaneous to the pain; again it noted that there had been a great deal of passion right before it had ended. When she looked for something that was consistent, again passion was pinpointed as the culprit. Because passion met all three criteria, her brain decided that it must be the reason the relationship ended painfully.

Having linked this as the cause, she resolved never to feel that level of passion in a relationship again. This is a classic example of a false neuro-association. She had linked up a fake cause, and this was now guiding her current behaviours and crippling the potential for a better relationship in the future. The real culprit in her relationship was that she and her partner had different values and rules. But because she linked pain to her passion, she avoided it at all costs, not only in relationships, but even in her art. The quality of her entire life began to suffer. This is a perfect example of the strange ways in which we sometimes wire ourselves; you and I must understand how our brain makes associations and question many of those connections that we've just accepted that may be limiting our lives. Otherwise, in our personal and professional lives, we are destined to feel unfulfilled and frustrated.