Excerpted from mythoughtcoach.com:
Scientists are beginning to prove more and more convincingly that thoughts are powerful things. Goal setting, the “law of attraction” and “positive thinking” all work, regardless of whether you look at them from a metaphysical or a scientific perspective. Whatever you have been thinking about, picturing in your mind repeatedly on a daily basis, and putting emotional energy towards is what you are now experiencing.
Scientists have identified specific parts of the brain, such as the reticular activating system (RAS), which works with the visual parts of our brain to call our conscious attention to those things that have been focused on, and to filter out other things that have not. The RAS is activated by “programming” thoughts, phrases and images into our sub-conscious minds. Our sub conscious mind is the “power center” and this is the mechanism that explains why visualization and positive thinking are now being accepted as scientific methods for change.
We are discovering that our brain is cybernetic in nature, which means that it is literally like a computer, waiting for a program to be installed. Here’s the kicker – the subconscious is completely neutral and impartial. It will carry out any instructions you give it. Unfortunately, many of us are still running negative programs we picked up from others as children when our non-conscious minds were totally open and impressionable, or which we developed over the years as a result of repetition of our own negative thinking.
As it turns out, our own thoughts, repeated daily, are one of the
primary ways that our “mental computer” is programmed on a sub-conscious level, which is the level of beliefs, habits and automatic behavior.
Neuroscientists have discovered that you have the capacity to create an almost infinite number of new neural connections in your brain when you run new thought patterns. Old neural pathways are like grooves in a record, and if you are struggling with your health related behaviors or behaviors in any other area of your life, you have been playing these “old records” over and over again. If you were to carve a new groove into that record, it would never play the same way again. The old pattern would weaken and the new one would take over. Brand new positive thoughts, feelings and images begin to create new neural patterns—new grooves.
Psychologists estimate that it takes 21 to 30 days to establish a new pattern in your brain. During this time, the focus of sticking with your practice and repeating your new thought patterns is critical. This isn’t always easy. In fact, controlling your thinking and keeping it constructive may be one of the most difficult challenges you have ever faced.
image: Memory Tapes “Player Piano”