So, when you’re feeling overwhelmed in this fast-paced world!

First…remember this…that the brain has an almost infinite capacity to learn new things. However, it does take time to form new information into patterns, and even longer to connect these patterns to form other patterns. And without these connections, these new patterns are figuratively floating around your brain.

And it is at this point that your brain begins to tell you lies: lies like “I am too old for this!” or “I am running as fast as I can!”

So what can we do with these feelings?

Well…of all the facts in brain research I have studied, one of the most important is this: “The brain constructs patterns as a basic, natural function. It does not have to be motivated to do so, any more than our heart needs to be coaxed to pump blood.

Therefore most of our fear comes from wanting our brain to work faster. However, remember that your brain has been creating patterns since the dawn of mankind, and it does not like to be rushed. In fact, if we attempt to rush our brain, the neural connections that are made will not be clear and may not “stick.” This is the reason that cramming for tests usually does not work.

So here are some new principles you can apply to your life.

1.) Your learning is totally unique

Remember that the patterns your brain is learning are unique to each one of us. It is composed of everything you have learned and are continually learning from your parents, spouses, books, TV, movies, friends, school, church, job, trips, vacations …and on and on and on. This not only makes what you have learned totally yours, but a permanent part of our memory, and ultimately who you have become, and are becoming.

2.) You build on what you already know

So when one of my students would protest,“I am too old for this!” my response would be very different from what he expects. I would congratulate him, and we would discuss the significant advantages his age gives to his educational experience. He has this advantage
because he has far more life experiences than my younger students, and although it may take a bit longer, his brain will soon learn new information more easily and quickly and deeply.

3.) And Finally…nothing you learn is wasted

When Michael Fox was asked if he felt cheated by having Parkinson’s disease, he  responded, “Absolutely not. It’s been a detour I wouldn’t have planned, but it’s really led me to amazing places.”

Wow!!!

Although we like to think of the male and female brain as the same, only one thing gets in the way: Science!

The fact is, men and women ARE different…not just physically, but in our priorities, how we communicate with each other, how we see ourselves, and so many others.

According to Anne Moir and David Jessel in their book Brainsex, and Louanne Brizendine in The Female Brain, and Steven Pinker in The Blank Slate, the assumption that our brains have exactly the same wiring is a “biological and scientific lie!”

We are not only different physically, but differ in life’s priorities, communicating, intelligence and feelings, and love and marriage. But never fear….I’ll give you a “New Way of Thinking” in the end to not only use these differences, but to actually ENJOY them as well!

Let’s first touch on four ways we are different. They are:

• All of Us Start as Females!
• Boys and Girls
• Intelligence and Emotion
• Love and Marriage

WE START AS FEMALES! While the sex difference in the brain originates with the chromosomes in every one of the trillions of cells our body has (“xx” for female and “xy” for male), the brain starts as female, and then switches to male only if male hormones are present! It they are not absent, the brain remains female.  According to Dr. Brizendine in The Female Brain, the male brain makes this switch about eight weeks after conception.

More specifically, if the male chromosome is present, the fetal brain is flooded with testosterone. This then kills off the female cells devoted to communication, while replacing them with cells relating to sex and aggressions. That’s the reason that…generally….the female brain is wired a bit more for talking while getting it done, and the male brain is wired more for simply getting it done!

Boys and Girls

• Even at a few hours old, a baby girl gazes at people’s faces, while boy babies seem more interested in objects.
• When babies turn into toddlers, boys are more adventurous, while girls generally work harder at becoming friends.
• Girls also talk a year earlier than boys (Einstein was five before he could speak).
• The difference continues at the pre-school age, where boys prefer to play in large areas. (I LOVED to explore the canyon in our backyard.)
• Girls tend to more sedentary play and orderly activity. They also treat newcomers with friendliness, while boys often show complete indifference.

Intelligence and Emotion

• Men’s brains are more spatial, which is why they love maps.
• Men are generally more single-minded, while women usually have a far greater awareness of a situation.
• Women’s thinking is more “diffused,” and they can usually pick up small facial cues more quickly. (This may account for their intuition (which we as men would be foolish to ignore.)
• Men’s brains give them an action orientation and a preference for things over people. This is the reason I am really disturbed when Mary cries.

While women often complain that men do not communicate, it helps to know that PART of this is physiological.

Most of our feelings come from the right side of our brain, while our communication center is on the left. So…in order for those feelings to be communicated, they must bridge a gap across a bundle of fibers called the corpus callosum. THE MALE BRAIN HAS FEWER FIBERS…SO IT TAKES LONGER! Our feelings ARE there…we just ruminate on them longer!

Love and Marriage Men and women enter into marriage with somewhat different expectations.

While men often assume that security and a good sex life can form the basis of a successful marriage, women tend to want emotional intimacy and interdependence.

Our priorities also tend to be different! Men generally value power and profit more, while women place more of a value on personal relationships and security.

Using and Enjoying the Differences We Have!

A student once asked me, “So…how do you stay married and in love with Mary for forty years?” Do you know…I didn’t have an answer! So I asked Mary.

Her answer was immediate!

“Easy!” she said. “We’ve been married six times!”

“Errr…did I miss something?” I asked, “I’ve only counted once!”

“Well…we’ve been married only once…but we’ve had six different marriages. The first one was our first four years before our children were born. The next one was devoted to twenty years of raising them. Then they left…then they moved back…then they left again! And now…it’s you and me again, baby!”

Six marriages.

And each time, we had to make a decision! Do we go into this new marriage…or do we not. IT IS OUR CHOICE!

You see…the way we are today is based on how think today! The statement “I simply can’t make this change” is ABSOLUTELY TRUE! But do you know WHY it’s true; because that’s what you’re saying!

AND YOUR BRAIN BELIEVES EVERYTHING YOU TELL IT!

That’s the SCARY part.

But here’s the WONDERFUL part!

YOUR BRAIN BELIEVES EVERYTHING YOU TELL IT!

So when you say, “I AM making this new change…or this new marriage…or this new relationship,” YOUR BRAIN BELIEVES YOU.

And when you LOCK onto those changes…and those new ways of living ….do you know what your brain will do.  It will everything it can…to make them true….and meaningful… in your life.

Wow!

Can you see the triangle?

Of course you can!….but there is really is no triangle there: simply three pac-men looking at each another. However….if you look long enough, you can almost sense your brain drawing lines between the pac-men to create that triangle.

That’s called Gestalt.

Gestalt is a school of Psychology that began in Berlin at the beginning of the last Century that observes that your brain strives for “order in its universe.” “Order” simply means that you have an idea of what is right – how a piece of cake should taste, or how a car should drive.

For instance, imagine that you went to a friend’s house and saw the picture of the Mona Lisa hanging on her living room wall, except that it’s slightly tilted…and this causes an obsessive urge in you to straighten it! In fact, if you sit down for dinner facing the picture, it would take a great deal of discipline to prevent yourself from running over to straighten that picture. Why? Because you know how the Mona Lisa should hang on a wall, and if it doesn’t match, your mind can become very anxious and tense until it does!

It is this tension that causes you to want to resolve the conflict…to fix the problem…to straighten the picture….to close the gap.

But how does relate to meeting your goals?

Simply this….that when a goal deliberately causes a gap between the goal itself and how you presently are, your brain becomes obsessed with closing that gap. For instance, if you see yourself as a “C” student and keep getting “C” grades, there is no conflict. However, if you have created a goal IN THE PRESENT TENSE that says, “I love being an A student in all the courses I am taking,” there will be a conflict if you keep getting C’s. Your mind therefore becomes your motivator for closing that gap.

It’s interesting. Most of the goals we set for ourselves don’t work because we say things like, ““I WILL walk three miles every other day!” Why don’t they work? Because our mind simply responds by saying “Sounds inspirational! Maybe you will…maybe you won’t! How should I know? I don’t live in the future!” So you just keep telling yourself what you WILL do, and I’ll go take a nap!

You see, any goals that include “I will!” or “I should!” or “I’ll try!” do not give your mind any motivation for change.

So where does that motivation come from? It comes from the same place where you got
the motivation to straighten the tilted picture of the Mona Lisa. The moment you saw that it was tilted, you found yourself with the energy to run over and straighten it.

This anxiety and tension is actually a form of energy: energy to “close the gap” “Fix the problem” or “Straighten the picture.”

So when you create enough of a gap between your goals and the way you are now, your mind will release the energy and creativity to close the gap automatically. You won’t have to think about it; it is the way your mind works. And putting your goals in the present and making them far more vivid than the way you see yourself now, they become a reality on the subconscious level and your mind works on making them a reality in your life.

It’s interesting. Virtually ALL of us place very high expectations on ourselves.

I like to call these expectations “The How Questions.” The How Questions usually come from our attempts to make everything “Perfect”…having the “perfect meal”…buying that “perfect gift”…or having “The Perfect Wedding”

Scientists say we are to some extent wired for shopping. It seems to tap into circuits we have to go out looking for food, says Dr. Brian Knutson, an associate professor of
psychology and neuroscience at Stanford University. “So we have brain circuitry
that “compels us to go out there … to get good stuff, even if we don’t know
what that good stuff is.”

Brain scanning in
his lab shows deep brain circuitry called the nucleus accumbens goes to work
when people are considering products and prices. When brain cells in that area
release a chemical called dopamine, people are motivated to take action, he
said…even if they don’t have the money.
Enter the credit card!

So the very
prospect of shopping — brought on by ads and other marketing tools —arouse that
circuitry and put us in a mood to hit the stores, and then to keep on shopping.
You feel good… It’s exciting,” Dr. Knutson says. Other circuitry reacts to
excessively high prices and dampens the enthusiasm to buy. The competing
signals — buy and don’t-buy — are then passed to the front of the brain…to the
prefrontal cortex…and your brain gets a little crazy!

And now with only two days left, the craziness gets REALLY crazy. And you’re not alone! An eBay local study
with Harris Interactive found that more than half of Americans say they’ll shop
this week, and nearly 1 in 5 will be shopping on Christmas Eve….on Saturday!

So what can you
do? The question should really be, “How can you think differently…because
EVERYTHING begins with how you think.

Here is a new way
of thinking…just one… just for you, dear reader…for the Holidays…that have
helped a lot of people in our Winners Circle.

NOTHING can be
perfect. You already know that…but let
me say it again….NOTHING can be perfect! I have yet to meet a perfectionist
whose life is filled with inner peace…especially during the holidays. In fact, we now know that the need for
perfection and the desire for inner tranquility actually CONFLICT with each
other. Whenever we are locked onto having something a certain way, better than
it already is, we are, almost by definition, engaged in a losing battle. Rather
than being content and grateful with what we have, we are focused on what is
wrong and our need to fix it. When we are zeroed in on what is wrong, the brain
literally cannot see what is right.

Psychologists call
this the “Lock-on, Lock-Out Principle. “ When you lock onto “I Can’t Do This!”
you lock out “I CAN!” That’s the scary part.

The WONDERFUL part
is when you lock onto “I CAN do this!” You lock out “I can’t!”

It is your choice.

So…a suggestion is
to catch yourself when you fall into your habit of insisting that things should
ALWAYS be other than the way they are. Gently remind yourself that life can be okay
the way it is, right now. As you begin to eliminate your need for perfection, the Holiday Season can again become a time of
celebration…whether it is celebrating the birth of a Savior, or a New Year, or The
Festival of Lights…or your family…or your pets….Santa Claus…or simply life
itself…you decide.

And when you
decide, do you know what your brain says? “Okay.” Is it true? Your brain
doesn’t even care! All it cares about…is
what YOU…tell it. So when you say it, it believes it. And when you lock onto it, do you know what
it will do? It will do EVERYTHING it
can…to make it true….in your life!

Wow!

Read the following sentence:

I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty  uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. Aoccdrnig  to rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the  ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat  ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey  lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a patetrn. Amzanig huh? Yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!

The reason you can read this is because your brain has created a pattern for every word you know, and instantly recognizes them by simply seeing the first and last letter of each word.

So…you can only imagine how many trillions of patterns we must be carrying around right now. In fact, according to V.S. Romachandran (rama-chan-dran), the Director of the Center for Brain and Cognition at the University of California, San Diego, the number of patterns your brain can carry is theoretically greater than the number of elementary particles in the universe.

It is no wonder that neuroscientists now call the human brain the most complex organism in the universe!

But what can all this mean to us? Only this: The only element that really limits our brain’s ability to learn and grow and change is what we say to yourselves.

You see… while I am talking to you, you are talking to yourself three times faster. When I stop talking, you talk to yourself six times faster.  We call this constant conversation your “self-talk, ” and this self-talk determines how you see yourself (called your self-image.) And…you do not have one self-image, you have tens of thousands; how your see yourself as an athlete, a teacher, a husband, a wife, and so on.

And…your brain accepts what you tell yourself without question!  No arguments!  So when you say, “No way! I can’t do that!” the mind simply says, “OK…you can’t!” and then blocks out ways for you to do it. However, if you say, “Absolutely…I know I can do that!” the brain not only accepts that just as quickly, it then helps you find a way to do it, and then gives you the energy to get it done!

So…a new way of thinking is to immediately throw away any notions that we are too old, or too young, or too uneducated, or too stuck in our ways to grow and learn and change.  We can grow and change as much as we really want to! How exciting!!!

More to follow!