subject: How Your Mind Works [print this page] To illustrate the amazing power of the human mind, lets use the simple example of going to work every day. Whenever you receive new information, e.g a shorter route to getting to work, that information is stored away in the mind. Initially, when you first start taking the route to work, you engage your conscious mind looking out for street signs, land marks etc.
You might even get lost the first couple of times, however, each time you take the same route to work, that information is processed repeatedly until it becomes hardwired in your brain. Eventually, you will get to the point where youll know the route so well that itll become automatic. At this stage, the subconscious part of your mind has fully taken over and this information has been so hard-wired into your brain that you dont even have to think about it anymore. Its now second nature.
The behaviour has become a Habit. This is how the mind processes any behaviour or thought-patterns. The more it is processed in the mind (or the more you use or apply the information), the increasingly easier the information becomes to access due to high usage of the neural pathways in the brain. Basically, the more often we think a thought or access information in our minds; we use the neural pathways in our brains more often, thus making that thought or information easier to access over time. This is the reason why we know how to get to work without even giving it a second thought and also the same reason why we forget a foreign language we have learnt because we dont speak it often. This fact has some very powerful and sobering implications.
As this mind operates in this manner, many of our behaviour and thought patterns have become automatic and habitual. Often times we are not even aware of our thinking or response. We just think. We just respond. We hardly ever think about what we are thinking about. We hardly ever give a second thought to some of our conditioned responses.
Consequently, developing a habit of toxic thinking and behaviour can occur even before we know it. Toxic thinking held persistently enough can turn into a solidly held belief. A solidly held belief in turn will shape how we see ourselves; those around us, our circumstances and most importantly the extent to which we can reverse our circumstances.
