subject: The Truth is Alive, and It's Loud [print this page] There's this story about an Olympic runner Roger Bannister who said he would run a sub four minute mile, well, everybody thought he was crazy, but crazy is the first step to becoming something great, everybody who was anybody has been called crazy, anyways, there were scientists and physicians who kept telling this man he could not run a sub four minute mile, "It's just not possible" but, he did, he never said "I can't" because that's somebody else's job. It was his job to say "I can, watch me". After he ran his sub four minute mile, thousands of people were running a sub four minute miles. You see, after change is initiated, then people believe, but somebody has to believe first, before anybody. That person is YOU, you believe that you can change your lifestyle and win the battle over genetics, and obesity. Somebody has to set off that first spark to ignite the fire, that person is you. Set America ablaze with this passion for change, change your mind and you can change your life.
How do you change a mind that is set in a rock solid pattern of over 20 years, 10 years, or even 50 years? Just think about it, meditate on what you want to be, visualize it until it there is no other outcome but the one you envision. Let me explain further. Let's talk about what change actually is, first.
When you have a thought, you feel an emotion; it could be a strong emotion, a barely recognizable emotion or a flood of emotions. Do you know why you feel an emotion when you have a thought? Of course, thoughts make people emotional. However, that's not the whole story. With every thought that you have, it carries a chemical signature, when you think of a certain time you get a certain feeling, you feel because the neural net that you used to think that thought started a cascade of chemicals to be released into your bloodstream and fill in the receptors for those specific emotions that were associated with the thought. Why should you get sad when you think of a sad memory? It's just a projection of the mind, it shouldn't make us sad, and we should only notice it and get on with our life. This is why we feel when we have a thought, and the thoughts you think makes up your internal homeostasis, that is the state your body is comfortably in, the more you think a thought, the more your body will adapt those chemicals as it's natural habitat. So, if you think sad thoughts, you will release the chemicals that are associated with being sad, let it go on long enough, you will become depressed because your body has adopted those "sad" chemicals as it's natural state of being. However, this should teach us something, if we can unconsciously become depressed, we can consciously become un-depressed, happy, joyful, basically we can change any habit that we want. Here's how
If you understood the explanation above, let me go on and continue, if you did not, read it until you do, or else you wont understand the further. If you want to know how habits form and die, there is a key phrase that is tossed around in neuroscience, physiology, physics etc. Just about any science that has to do with energy expenditure will tell you that, "you either use it or lose it" this means that systems that are not in operation will lose function and eventually move somewhere else or atrophy. This is a good thing though, when we talk about habit forming, because if we are in a habit what it actually means is that we have conditioned our body to think a certain way and therefore feel a certain way and therefore act a certain way, however, this is simply mechanical, good news is you can change the machine. When you form a habit you have successfully trained your brain into connecting otherwise unconnected neural nets, if you have a memory, it takes a neural net connection to remember this memory and that activation of that net sets off a cascade of corresponding chemicals that we call emotions, understand? Good. These nets if not in use, will "die off". If you consciously stop thinking about what is hindering you the emotions associated with that thought will cease, however, since this habit has been ingrained in your brain for such a time, it becomes it's "natural habitat" and the machine the body is does not like change, change means expanding energy, and the body does not like to lose energy. Therefore your body will actually fight back, being starved of it's homeostatic nature it will send your mind jogging, one thought leads to another, to another and then you are once again at your thought of "I can't do this, I'm not good enough, blah blah blah" that then once again gives rise to those chemical signatures your body missed oh so much, those chemicals make you feel a certain way and that feeling makes you think a certain way, and you are now caught in the vicious cycle that your body has trapped you in. As humans we are powerful being, we don't need to listen to this bodily transmission; we can stop it in its tracks with patience and persistence. As the saying goes "neurons that don't fire together, don't wire together" this means if you consciously put towards an effort to disregard a bad habit, you can eventually stop those neurons from firing together, if they stop firing together, they will essentially move on to another habit that hopefully is the good one you visualized, and put an end to those bad feelings, bad habits, and depressive nature.
So, now that we have the science of habit understood, let's talk about how this relates to you and your weight loss goal. If you are overweight, you typically have a few bad habits; some may be inactivity, depression, self-down talk, or binge eating just to name a few. How we change these bad neural nets from firing together is we visualize our self at our goal, this will stop those nets from firing, therefore rendering them inactive and eventually leading to new connections. We want to continually, persistently see ourselves in that positive mindset, we want to visualize it all of the time, when any negative old thought pops back up remember that it's not true, it's just a feeling that your machine is addicted to and nothing more. Have you ever heard the quote "if you can't see your goal, you wont get there" that is the truth, if you cannot realistically see yourself in that position of achieving your goal you wont reach it, and it's not just because you simply have to "believe in yourself", you have to see the truth in it. I always hated when people told me, "just believe in yourself, Steve, and you can do it" a sentence to combat the single persons greatest obstacle of reaching full potential is quite unsatisfactory for me. As I soon learned, it's not the inspiration in the words that you need to hold on to, it's the reality of the words that you have to find ultimately true. Which they are true, more true than the maybe unknowingly persons attempt at a moments spark of inspiration to a young boy. Little do some people know what they actually even mean when they wish to inspire, and littler do the ones who we wish to inspire know what to listen for. Many times we hear the truth in a voice, we feel inspired for moments and then forget about it. Why is it that with so many inspirational quotes that hold truth, we never integrate them fully into our lives? I believe we instead of listening the truth in the voice, should hear the voice in the truth. "Just believe in yourself" it seems so simple, we often pay attention to the truth it holds, but we never hear the voice that the truth holds. If you believe in yourself, and you take constant action, actively defeating impetuous thought, aren't you now hearing the voice of truth, changing your life, and demanding that your will of good health and happiness be imposed? This will not happen through hollow words of inspiration that you continually see on top of people's desks, cubicles, and bathroom windows, or even at an inspirational speech. The truth is that whatever truth is to you it is alive, it has a voice, and it's as loud as you believe it is.
