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Changing Your Mind, Part 2: Rewiring Your Brain

Updated: May 13

This is my second article in the series ‘Changing Your Mind’. The present article focusses on the neuroscience of transformation, how you can use your mind to literally rewire your brain, the power of decision and how decision relates to your beliefs. We will look at how the 'Decision Matrix' can assist us with this. We will also explore the cause of human suffering and how to become a phenomenon.


Rewiring your brain, or neuroplasticity, refers to the brain's ability to reorganise itself by forming new connections throughout life, allowing for learning, a change in your beliefs (and subsequent thoughts, emotions, and action responses), adaptation, healing, and recovery from injury or all forms of emotional trauma. It can also powerfully affect your dysregulated nervous system to one that is at peace: I speak from personal experience.


If you look at the anatomy, the structure, the function, there's nothing in the Universe that's more beautiful, that's more complex, than the human brain. Rewiring your brain will change your life. It is not always clear whether the old wiring is eliminated or 'wired over', but in any case the result is a total transformation of who you are BEing in any life situation, whether it be at work, in all your relationships, emotionally, psychologically, in overcoming negative beliefs and thinking, and in terms of your spiritual development and Real Personal Power. Isn't it time to daily deflate your ego and rewire your brain into your Higher Power?


Repeatedly redirecting negative thoughts to positive or neutral physically rewires the brain, weakening connections associated with negativity. This is a daily decision or choice. Sadhguru said “Thoughts and emotions come from the same source. Thoughts are the dry expressions of the mind, emotions are juicy."


Beliefs are decisions.


The limitless belief is quite simply the opposite of a limiting belief. It’s also a great remembering of who you truly are. If you are stuck on finding your limitless belief, simply take the opposite of your limiting beliefs, and ask your Self the question “What would love do now?”


To be afraid (in other words, reacting from ego - for fear is the language that the ego speaks) means to fail. Ego states are far from bliss: They are a blight on the mind. Fearlessness (responding from the state of your Higher Power) leads to transformation, which leads to more fearlessness: And the cycle continues, as success continues to unfold for you. The decision to react from ego or to respond from your Higher Self is a choice. Choosing the higher path is a deep belief in your higher energy, which is your divine spiritual blueprint, in your birthright, and in your fearlessness. You were born to respond and not to react: In fact you have an innate response–ability to do so. The reason you don’t is that fear was conditioned into you by your parents and by society. Sadhguru said “External circumstances can only cause you physical pain. Suffering is created in your mind… Fear, anger, resentment, and stress are poisons you create in your mind. If you take charge of your mind, you can create a chemistry of blissfulness." Buddha said that "You have two choices: to control your mind or let your mind control you."


If you live in fear you will not be able to solve your problems: You will see non-problems as problems and you will experience confusion, illusion, and chaos.


FEAR stands for forgetting everything about reality. This is where most people are operating from when dealing with the ‘challenges’ of their lives.


Jesus said in Matthew 6:27 that "Who adds one cubit to their stature by worrying?"


Any problem can be solved, but only if you bring enough Higher Power to the problem. You can’t see your way through as you are not bringing enough energy, power, and clarity to the problem.


All change occurs from a powerful state of BEing. How do you know when you are in this state? Because you are creating, realising that none of your limiting beliefs are true, quite the opposite, and you feel good: You feel joy, peace, love, and you are totally energised. You have chosen to be your Higher Power. You are communing with God. You have chosen your highest possibility. This is no less than the journey from ego to Self. And it is a choice.


You can use the 'Decision Matrix', described below, to empower and reinforce your new neural pathways in a lasting way, that is superior to other methods such as mantras. The extra step is to look for evidence that your limitless beliefs are true, which they always are, as they come from your Soul.


In the present article we will explore two books, which have identical philosophies, which are both in my 'Suggested Reading' list: ‘A Changed Mind: Go Beyond Self Awareness – Rewire Your Brain and Reengineer Your Reality’ by David Bayer, and 'Your Inner Awakening' by Byron Katie


You can also view my first article in this series, 'Changing Your Mind, Part 1: Becoming Aware', by clicking here:



This first article can be summed up by the spiritual equation “Man minus limiting beliefs equals infinite possibility."


Rewiring your brain
Rewiring your brain

The neuroscience of transformation

You were born with approximately 100 billion neurons in your brain. Neurons are a specific type of cell that use electrical impulses in chemical signals to transmit information between different areas of the brain and between the brain and the rest of the nervous system. You're also born with approximately 25 billion synaptic connections. Synapses are microscopic bridges that connect neurons to each other. You can think of this network of neurons and synaptic connections as a neurophysiological matrix that underpins many aspects of your psychological and emotional experience of life including your memories, inner talk, perceptions, and belief systems. If you do the maths, you'll notice that you're born with more neurons than connections: Meaning not all neurons are connected yet into the mainframe of your brain or body. So, which ones are? Well, Nature has a highly intelligent way of operating. At birth, your consciousness has already been transmitted into a hardware that came fully equipped with the necessary features and functions to give you life and keep you alive. Contained within your newborn body ‘suit’ and wired up in the circuitry are the primary survival functions of eating, crying, seeing, breathing, sensing, and moving - everything you need to sustain life is already wired into the system. So, what about those other 75 billion neurons that aren't yet connected and programmed? In Nature's infinite wisdom what was also included in the default operating system was a blank canvas - a space to create uniqueness and our own individual identity and personhood: An infinite potential of perceptions, beliefs, experiences, and biases that would shape each and every one of our personalities and destinies differently. 


Dr Gabor Maté says that neurophysiologically our childhoods cause our brain wiring to be haywire as a result of lack of attachment to our parents and because of our toxic society. He continues to say that unconditional worth is a prerequisite condition for the maturation of our brains. Maté wrote “Intuitively we all know that it is better to feel than to not feel. Our emotions are not a luxury but an essential aspect of our makeup. We have them not just for the pleasure of feeling but because they have crucial survival value. They orient us, interpret the world for us, give us vital information without which we cannot thrive. They tell us what is dangerous and what is benign, what threatens our existence and what will nurture our growth. Imagine how disabled we would be if we could not see or hear or taste or sense heat or cold or physical pain. To shut down emotions is to lose an indispensable part of our sensory apparatus and, beyond that, an indispensable part of who we are. Emotions are what make life worthwhile, exciting, challenging, and meaningful. They drive our explorations of the world, motivate our discoveries, and fuel our growth. Down to the very cellular level, human beings are either in defensive mode or in growth mode, but they cannot be in both at the same time. When children become invulnerable, they cease to relate to life as infinite possibility, to themselves as boundless potential, and to the world as a welcoming and nurturing arena for their Self-expression. The invulnerability imposed by peer orientation imprisons children in their limitations and fears. No wonder so many of them these days are being treated for depression, anxiety, and other disorders. The love, attention, and security only adults can offer liberates children from the need to make themselves invulnerable and restores to them that potential for life and adventure that can never come from risky activities, extreme sports, or drugs. Without that safety our children are forced to sacrifice their capacity to grow and mature psychologically, to enter into meaningful relationships, and to pursue their deepest and most powerful urges for Self-expression. In the final analysis, the flight from vulnerability is a flight from the Self. If we do not hold our children close to us, the ultimate cost is the loss of their ability to hold on to their own truest Selves.


By the age of seven, the average human brain has gone from 100 billion neurons and 25 billion synaptic connections to the same number of neurons with over a quadrillion, 1000 trillion, connections. So, what happened? Well, life happened. From the day you came into the world you've been recording your experiences into the hard drive and wiring of your brain.


Every single moment of your existence has been captured. Your five senses – sight, taste, touch, sound, and smell - have been ingesting the data of your daily experiences, sending it through the nervous system where it is digested and organised in the brain, and compiled into a variety of outputs including memories. New connections are formed between neurons as new memories are created.


This is why some people fear dogs – they were bitten by a dog as a child, and now, even as an adult they are terrified of dogs. If the reaction is hysterical, then it’s usually historical. This affects every aspect of our lives. This is how childhood trauma, and fears for your survival become imprinted on your brain, long after the threat has gone. This is captured in the brilliant book by Benjamin Fry, ‘The Invisible Lion’, which is in my ‘Suggested Reading’ list, which says that we believe in an invisible lion that has long since disappeared.


You can’t outwit your beliefs, but you can change them. Your beliefs are stored in the neural networks of your brain. Every experience you've ever had is locked away in a vast storage vault of quadrillions of data points that hold the key to your unique perception of life and everything in it. Each memory has embedded with it the meaning you gave the experience, and these memories combine to create a highly complex and unique lens through which you're perceiving and experiencing the world. The moment you have an experience, your brain searches the vast constellation of information inside of you, and presents a meaning from a similar prior experience and you live the new moment through the lens of the original meaning or belief. You bring the knowledge of the past into your present moment to ensure your survival of it. In many ways this is a highly useful feature of the operating system. You can imagine how difficult it would have been for early humans to survive without memory: Once attacked by a sabre-toothed tiger one would want to retain the memory of that experience to give a head-start on avoiding the next one.


Imagine as a child learning the importance of looking both ways before crossing the road only to forget that critical instruction the next time. We wouldn't last very long without the ability to interpret the new moment with some information gained from the prior experience; without the capacity to remember. In each new experience your brain is data matching with a past memory and applying the same meaning that you invented the first time around. But that’s where things get a little sticky: The new moment isn’t the old moment. In fact, no two experiences are the same. Each new moment affords a new experience and a new opportunity - to survive. This new dog isn't the same as that old dog. This new relationship isn't the same as that old relationship. This new business opportunity isn't the same as that last one. But that's how we experience them. To make matters more complex, in each new moment we experience an inner dialogue that is aligned with the original experience. We literally hear a voice in our head that says “Watch out that dog is dangerous!” or “This is never going to work out for me!” or “Why do people show such lack of consideration?” or “What am I doing wrong?” The complicated part of all of this is the inner dialogue, what I like to call ‘the story that you tell yourself’, and sounds and feels as though it’s actually you. It’s told as what seems to be your inner voice: If we were to determine the location for it we would say it comes from inside you. Most likely from your head space. It’s seems like you are talking to yourself. Except you’re not. The story you hear is an unconsciously generated dialogue, or tape, that automatically runs based on the story you told yourself the first time an experience like this happened. You then react instinctively to the story without questioning the validity of it and go from zero to panic in an instant.


The story is just a story. None of what you are telling yourself is true. Nothing is truly personal. It isn't a matter of getting respect off others: That is simply external validation. It’s not any of the things that you are telling yourself. In fact, you may see the story and realise that none of it is true. You can relax. Realise that this has really nothing to do with you and everything to do with someone else. Say a little prayer for both of you and that you are both safely protected by a Higher Power that is greater than you, but ultimately is you. The moment that you can see the story for what it is, a habitual, untrue narrative based on your habitual beliefs, thoughts, emotions, and actions, it opens up a space for a new way of interpreting the experience. While viewing the present moment through the lens of the past is a critical neurocognitive feature supporting survival, it isn't conducive to having a joyful or powerful living experience, achieving your full potential or catalysing change. In fact, it’s conducive to what I call a ‘Groundhog Day’ type of existence, named after the classic Bill Murray comedy. In that film, Murray’s character wakes up and experiences the same day repeatedly. He’s trapped in a single day filled with the same experiences. Over time it drives him mad. In order to escape the crazy making cycle of living the same day over and over again, he begins to invent creative ways to kill himself including the classic scene where he's kidnapped the local town celebrity and drives his car headfirst into an oncoming train. The movie is quite funny, but the reality that most people are living a ‘Groundhog Day’ type of existence is anything but. Left to our own operating system we too will experience each new experience the same way.


Through the limiting beliefs and the story we've told ourselves over and over again despite the fact that each new experience is, well, new: A new dog, a new relationship, or a new business opportunity, a new job, a new possibility. Each moment is unique. But until we learn how to consciously manage our reactions, interpretations, and belief systems, we are destined to live the same quality of life over and over again. Different relationship, but the same relationship. Different conflict, but the same reaction. Different job, but the same dissatisfaction. Different health problem, but still health problems. Different car ride, but the same road rage. In a very real and profound way until we are able to see their beliefs are shaping our perception of the present moment in ways that don't actually reflect the reality of the new present moment and until we see the story for the story, we aren't actually living in the present moment: But, a distorted version of the present moment, shaped by our experiences and beliefs and memories from the past. We are living the same experience over and over again. Despite the fact that life is presenting a new opportunity: A possibility for change.


The brain is a storyteller. It's important to realise that most of the time we aren't consciously thinking. The vast majority of each and every day we are habitually reacting to new experiences as if they were old experiences. The brain is serving one of its primary functions which is to ensure our survival and on a moment by moment basis it's manufacturing a sophisticated narrative or story that matches up with the beliefs we have about ourselves in every aspect of our lives. The brain is a storyteller and your thoughts, for the most part, are not your thoughts but simply unconscious psychological habits. Just as your heart beats and your lungs breathe, so too does your brain produce thoughts.


Whether you're actively engaged with the thinking process or not, if you want to free yourself from your psychological and emotional habits so you can create an opportunity for something new in your life, it's important to understand the machinery at work so you can elevate your Self to be a master of the machinery rather than continue to participate as a help as passenger continuing down the same unfulfilling road when there are so many possible routes on the rich road map of your life.


I invite you to put this article down for a moment, to sit comfortably in your chair or upright in your bed, or wherever you are, to take a few deep breaths to relax your body, and to spend just one minute with your eyes closed. While you do that, try not to think. Go ahead:  Well, you'll notice, and why so many people who begin to meditate or engage in a mindfulness practice have such a challenge, which is that you can't not think. Your brain has become so habituated to thinking as a mechanism for survival that even when you are sitting with your eyes closed in an environment with no external stimulation it will bring up thoughts, memories, or ideas for it to think about. “What do we think about this?” “What do we think about that?” Before you know if you're off following some ‘train of thought’ that has nothing to do with anything relative to your day.


The brain is addicted to the process of thinking. And that, in and of itself isn't necessarily a problem: The problem arises when you do not realise that your thoughts are not your thoughts. And you fail to distinguish between what you actually think about the present moment and the brain's unconscious opinion or story about it. Napoleon Hill said that “The brain does not think but serves as the interpretation of stimuli which cause thought.” Similar to how the ‘five primary drivers’ work (see my first article in this series) where your beliefs inform your thoughts, your thoughts inform your emotions, your emotions inform your actions, your actions inform your results, and your results reinforce the originating belief: So too does the story you tell yourself inform how you feel and from there what you do and the results you produce. From a psychological perspective your beliefs dictate your destiny. And from a neuroscientific perspective the quality of your life is equal to the quality of the story you tell yourself. Until you have the tools to consciously insert your Self into the process by questioning the story you become trapped in what's called a ‘psychocybernetic loop’. You bring past beliefs into your present moment as you relive the past again in the here and now. You reinforce those beliefs at an even deeper level and become even more likely to tell yourself the same story the next time around. You accumulate so much evidence for the story that it becomes hard wired into your reality.


Use your mind to change your brain. Up until the late 1800s scientists believed that the brain was fixed or hardwired. In other words, the way you thought and perceived was something that was fixed within your personality and there was no way to actually change who you were. It was as if some sort of karmic die was cast just before your birth and the brain you got was the brain you were stuck with. In early studies most people's brains did seem to stay the same, in part because what you think determines your results, and the results simply reinforce what you think. But in 1890, William James, considered by many as the father of modern psychology, proposed a theory that the brain could change and that it was malleable and capable of reorganising. Decades later, his theory proved to be true, when neuroscientists discovered that stroke victims who damaged parts of their brain were able to use cognitive therapy and other techniques to relearn behaviour that was lost due to the brain damage and observed that those corresponding parts of the brain regrew. The discovery was groundbreaking: You can use your mind to actually change your brain. This idea is at the core of personal development version 2.0. It is part of the fundamental definition of what mindset is: To use your mind to change your brain and it is the single most important skill you must learn if you want to achieve your full potential and living extraordinary life. The doorway to this transformation begins the moment you see the story as a story. When you see the story is a story you are now seeing the story rather than being the story. You moment you see the story, you are now aware of the machinery rather than being an unwilling participant in it. It is in the seeing of the story that you open up a small but critical space to begin to question your interpretation of the present moment, which is also a questioning of your beliefs and, in a great sense, a question of the entire way you've been living life for your entire life. It is in this magical transformative moment that you now have a choice: And that choice is the key to creating a dramatic shift in your current reality in life. Mindset truly is the developed capacity to use your mind to change your brain.


The story versus what happened: Think about a recent situation or experience similar to when a driver who cuts you up where you reacted in a way that was emotionally charged. Write out the story with all of the charged emotional limiting beliefs driven language that you can remember to capture the anger or frustration and document as best you can to describe the story that your brain was telling you. Then rewrite the experience simply through the lens of what I call ‘what happened’: Your experience expressing only the facts about what happened without the belief-driven narrative: Without the story. Now, separated from the actual experience see if there was a reinterpretation of the event that might be possible that could be more in alignment with what you wanted and I encourage you to look for the gift, blessing, or the opportunity in the actual experience. You will see that everything else was just a story. You might find that this is a repeated pattern in your life and that none of it has ever been true. Where do you think you came up with this story? It’s likely that if it was a hysterical reaction that it was historical. Why is this so upsetting to you? Because you were about to change your entire life over a story that was never true in the first place. Our limiting beliefs and stories cause us to perpetuate lives that aren't ours to live. They cause harm to others, they create blame, resentment, jealousy, anger, insecurity, and suffering. They are the cause of arguments, breakups, and divorces. They are what keep us stuck in poverty, depression, a job we don't love, a relationship without passion: They are the singular cause of stress, disease, disagreement, and even war. The quality of our stories dictates the quality of our lives. When we see the story as just that, a story, we create an opportunity to change the beliefs we've been carrying with us for years, often decades, and in an instant create a profoundly changed future. At the core of all transformation is a new belief. A new belief creates a changed mind. The question then is how do you permanently change your beliefs? The answer relates to the power of decision.


The power of decision in changing your beliefs

Most people get stuck in personal development and on the journey to Self-realisation, at a very specific point. The actual changing of their beliefs. In the progression of your personal growth and transformation, you go through a variety of stages. The first stage is a total lack of awareness. You believe the external world is chaotic and unpredictable and that joy, change, accomplishment, and success depends upon a lining up of circumstances that produce those desired results. Luck, in effect, seems to be the determining factor between the happy (joyous and free) and unhappy (restlessness, irritability and discontent). The second stage occurs when one is first exposed to spiritual concepts. You realise that your external reality isn't random but an actualised reflection of your inner architecture and belief systems. You may not be particularly aware of your limiting beliefs, but you know that they are there. And they're unconsciously informing the decisions you make and the coincidences and synchronicities that are occurring in your life. The goal from the second stage of personal growth is to move into the third stage which is hallmarked by increased self-awareness. You gain greater insights into what you actually believe and think. You begin to tune in to the inner dialogue and are able to realise that the little voice in your head isn't actually you but a pre-programmed automatic response to the experiences of your life. You still have the same brain - you're just acutely aware that it isn't programmed in alignment with the life, business, or relationships you want. This awareness is accompanied by an intensification of dissatisfaction, frustrations, stress, overwhelm, and generalised suffering. Buddha said that “Nothing can harm you as much as your own thoughts unguarded.” This is where most people stop and that so many are frustrated and feeling unfulfilled and incomplete in their personal growth journey. This gap, between personal development one 1.0 and personal development 2.0, is hallmarked by an intellectual understanding of personal growth concepts and philosophies, yet void of the actual transformation itself. It requires a shift from over-intellectualisation to leading from the heart. It is in this gap that the vast majority of seekers get stuck. But it is only a short distance from the head to the heart once we are on the spiritual path. No one needed to convince me that my beliefs were holding me back, but I didn't have a strategy or practice for actually changing them: For rewiring my own brain. I refer to this phase of development as ‘self-awareness purgatory’: Where you become acutely aware of your limiting beliefs but don't know how to replace them. It's a painful and uncomfortable phase of the process it is often where people get so frustrated with personal growth that they either become entrenched in a lifelong addiction of trying to discover how to fix themselves or they just flat out give up.


You can get very dismayed by ‘self-help’ books, as described in the first article in this series: It’s better to read the positive psychological, spiritual, and timeless philosophical literature if you want to transform your way of BEing and cease the constant inner negative ‘monkey mind’ (as described by the Buddhists). This is the path to a meaningful and powerful rewiring of your mind. How can you go beyond personal development and change the way that you think? The reason that most people get stuck here is because beliefs can seem somewhat intangible. We aren’t sure how to grasp them, like trying to grab water, so we can’t change them. They may feel even more almost like clouds, so we have a difficult time wrapping our mind around them. So, how do you get a hold of them? The first step is to realise that beliefs are not nebulous, but are clusters of neurosynaptic connections, memories, and meanings that are stored within the wiring of your brain as described in this article. We know they are there. They are real. They are physical. They run your life. They are largely negative, and we are trapped in them until we realise the power of decision. How do you change your limiting beliefs for new neural pathways for new and empowered ones and move into true transformation? By discovering what a limiting belief really is. Beliefs are decisions. Read that again! Beliefs are decisions. This unlocks access to your own mind. This realisation has changed minds, beliefs, and lives thousands of people. We keep making the negative decision over and over again. They were not conscious decisions, they were almost instantaneous programmed reactions. To decide means to cut off all else other than what you have decided. You have cut yourself off from the higher path. You are operating subconsciously from your ego. You cut off all possibility of seeing any evidence other than that which supported your original limiting belief, which then reinforced that belief over and over again until the belief became your solid 'truth' (note the small 't' as its coming from your ego, not your true Self, your Soul.) But by acknowledging this fact, that the only reason you have so much evidence for the belief because that's what you have paid attention to, and realising that beliefs are decisions, you create an opportunity for a radical transformation in your thinking, your identity, your view of the world and the reality of your life. When you become aware that beliefs are decisions, you gain the ability to change the belief.


You have what I call a ‘response-ability’: An ability to respond. Once you realise you've been holding onto a belief that doesn't serve you well, that doesn't feel good when you think about it, that isn't in alignment with what you're wanting to create in any area of your life, or in your view of yourself, you have a response-ability: To take one simple, but powerful action - you make a new decision. You may feel like you don't know how to change your beliefs, but you certainly know how to make a new decision. At some point in your life you decided you want to date someone: Then you decided you no longer wanted to date them, which is fine. You decided you were interested in a particular type of career position: You acquired the position, and then you decided you no longer wanted the position as it wasn’t in alignment with who you truly are, which is also fine. You decided that you wanted to grow personally or spiritually: You grew spiritually and personally and then decided that you wanted to go beyond your current state of personal growth and, well, here we are. Your life is the sum of all the decisions you've made about life and the actions you took, or didn't take, from those decisions, and the corresponding results you got because of those actions. Beliefs are decisions. And when you decide something different about yourself or your life: That money is easy to make; that you can reinvigorate your health; that there is enough time to get the important things done, then life is conspiring to bring you the resources you need and those decisions realise themselves into reality.


You want to change your reality?: Make a new decision. It's really that simple.


You may be asking “Can I really just make a new decision?” It seems too simple, doesn't it? After all, what we've been led to believe is that transformation is difficult and that it takes a long time. Perhaps years of therapy too. You believe that old traumas are hard to resolve and heal. And truth be told if you've been on your own journey of personal growth for some time like I have, you've probably accumulated evidence to support those limiting ideas. I can only share with you my experience and the experience of the people who have been willing to try what I'm sharing with you in this series of articles. It doesn't have to be that difficult. And yes, you can simply make a new decision. The honest truth is that you just made a subconscious decision the first time around. But because of the way the human being operating system works it kept reinforcing itself over and over again. The only reason you might not have the wealth you want, for example, is because of the unconscious decision you made about money when you were a child. Remember this statement you completed in my first article: “I was growing up, money was ____.” Ninety percent of the time, whatever you said is what your money looks like in your life right now. In most cases, what money was like for your parents is what money is like for you now. Because you adopted their limiting beliefs about money. The only reason that you lost a new relationship is because you were abandoned emotionally as a child and made an unconscious decision about relationships when you were young. Unconsciously adopted beliefs and decisions have shaped your life up until now. It was all determined in your childhood as a result of your parents’ fears. So, why wouldn’t you give yourself permission to consciously decide who you are, how life works, and what it's going to be like for you going forward? You might be doubting if it's really that simple: With one hundred percent confidence, I can tell you that is.


You will never find joy or peace until you change the negative limiting beliefs that you continue to hold onto as reality. This is why you remain as a victim instead of being a victor. This is why you blame, resent, and project your negative reality onto other people. This is why people who are miserable sue other people as they don’t realise that the entire problem is themselves. This is why lawyers exist and they take advantage of the limiting beliefs of these self-appointed ‘victims’ in order to pursue unwarranted claims. You are entirely responsible for how you experience life. Your insistence on holding onto your negative beliefs is what is keeping you from a life of peace, unconditional love, and joy. This is the Truth with a capital ‘T’. What you think of other people is entirely of your own creation and entirely your fault. You have not yet realised your response-ability. Your negative beliefs are hardwired based on your historical fears and have nothing to do with the present situation or person that you are projecting them onto. As all good psychotherapists say, “If it’s hysterical it’s historical.” You are keeping yourself small and trapped in your fearful ego. In order to transform and free yourself from your ego you simply need to do ‘The Work’.


Beginning in her early thirties, Byron Katie was so depressed and stuck in self-loathing that she was often unable to get out of bed for days or weeks at a time. One morning, in a sudden moment of life-changing insight, she saw that her suffering came from her beliefs and thoughts about her situation—such as “My life is horrible,” and “I don’t deserve happiness”—and not from the situation itself. She realised a simple truth: When she believed her thoughts, she suffered, and when she didn’t, she was happy.



The commonest limiting beliefs (fears), which I believe are shared by everyone, are the mortal fears of: Not being loveable or loved, feeling unworthy, and scared of being abandoned and that we will die because of these fears. The turnaround sentences, according to ‘The Work’, expressing the opposite of what one believes, would be that one is loveable and loved, that one is worthy, that one won’t be abandoned, and that one won’t die because of those limiting fears.


The risk of 'The Work' and similar methods for changing your negative beliefs for positive ones is that the results may not be long lasting, and you fall back into old negative beliefs.


The 'Decision Matrix'

The 'Decision Matrix' is a method for permanently changing your limiting beliefs to limitless beliefs that is superior to 'The Work', simple mantras, and 'documents' as it has an extra step to reinforce your new neural networks.


The first step is to identify your limiting beliefs. These are those beliefs that make you feel drained of energy, depressed, anxious, fearful, unworthy, and resentful.


The second step is to identify your limitless beliefs as above. These are those beliefs that will create your new reality, and that make you feel energised, joyful, abundant, loved, loving, and compassionate.


The third step, which goes one step further than 'The Work' and mantras, is to look for evidence which confirms your new, limitless beliefs. And it is this step that reinforces your neural networks and prevents you from falling back into the old neural pathways, limiting beliefs, and consequent thoughts, feelings, actions, and habits. This is the unique power of the 'Decision Matrix', which produces powerful lasting results and a revolutionary change to your life.


The neural connections that represent limitless beliefs may be new, or may be reactivated dormant connections from your early life, before you developed your limiting fears.


This extra step works to actually change the wiring of your brain through a process called 'neural pruning.' Neural pruning, also known as synaptic pruning, is a natural process where the brain eliminates unnecessary or weak connections between neurons (synapses) to enhance efficiency and refine neural circuits. This process helps optimise brain function by ensuring only the most frequently used and crucial connections are maintained. During brain development, the brain overproduces synapses: Neural pruning then selectively removes those that are not frequently used or are redundant, leading to a more streamlined and efficient neural network. In other words, 'use it or lose it'. The extra step ensures that you persist with your limitless beliefs, hardwiring the new beliefs, and actually eliminating connections within the brain circuits that cause you to fall back into your old, negative limiting beliefs. By removing less important connections, pruning helps to refine and specialise neural pathways, enabling the brain to process information more accurately and efficiently. 


Optimising your results

Here are optimising methods and habits for changing your mind and rewiring your brain:


Energy

Decision maximises energy. Successful people have learned how to think according to a series of thought processes that build energy. This lifts us out of our reptilian survival brain. Any problem can be solved, but only when ample energy is brought to the problem. The primal survival fearful ego is associated with drive and hustle and comes from a low energy state; whereas your Higher Power follows a calling, and is totally a effervescent yet calm high energy state of BEing, as though you have been given wings. Feeling stressed worried, and overwhelmed isn't attractive, neither physically or metaphorically. Making a new decision unlocks trapped energy, which fuels creativity, abundance, expansions, limitless beliefs, attracts new thoughts and synchronicities, and makes you feel more alive. You align your emotions with your desired outcomes and state of BEing. You become a supercharged version of the real you. Know that every situation is working our for you: Knowing this makes you feel energised. People looking from the outside will wonder how you got your new 'special sauce.'


Successful people don't focus on problems, which is never the problem, they focus on gratitude. In every problem there is a transformative opportunity. The ability to find this gift is the opportunity to find gratitude. In focussing on gratitude you tap into an unlimited pipeline of energy, that fuels you with resourceful and ideas which provide a solution to your perceived problems. Gratitude thickens the myelin sheaths in the parts of the brain responsible for memory, making them more efficient. This results in you looking for and finding more of that which you are grateful for. The seeds you sow in gratitude reap the rewards in your reality. The fastest way to get to where you want to go is to have gratitude for where you are. For my article on 'Gratitude', click here:



Helen Keller said that "The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but having no vision." By directing your focus away from energy-draining problems and towards energy-draining gratitude, you gain the ability to obtain something necessary for change - clarity. You cannot have clarity in a low emotional state, characterised by worry, overwhelm, resentment, and fear. Clarity is an essential tool for transforming literally any situation. Clarity is the beginning of taking the energies of new empowered decisions and the habit of gratitude, and focussing it into change. It leads to action, which is how you manifest your ideas into the world. When you behave in the habit of clarity, you are actually growing your brain. As you gain clarity, you will naturally begin to visualise your desired future. The brain records what you imagine, as though it has already happened and you begin to create new neurosynaptic clusters, which facilitate new thoughts, that contribute to the realisation of that image into reality. The act of gaining clarity is imagination. Clarity preprograms your brain. You are becoming the transformed BEing, with expansive consciousness because you have got out of the way of your own resistance. For my article on 'Clarity', click here:



The power of questions

Your brain is like a search engine. When you ask positive questions to your Self, you will get an inspiring answer through intuition. The quality of the question you ask will determine the quality of the answer you get in return. The question is the search engine query. The idea and the insight are the search result. Your brain will search for the database that is stored in your brain. In addition, because your individual consciousness is connected to the collective consciousness and also to the Universal consciousness and Universal intelligence. You have the ability to access intuition and insights that are beyond your personal experience. Questions are a powerful mental technology. You may tune into your inner quiet, still voice. Most people are not asking quality questions, so they get unsatisfactory answers. The most successful people have learned to retake control of their minds, and once they have established a solid groundwork through empowered, limitless decisions, the resulting energy, gratitude, and clarity, they use empowering questions to get creative, expansive answers. Questions lead you from the who (BEing) to the how. Constructive questions that produce inspiring answers can only done from a high energetic state.


Jesus said in Matthew 7:7 "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you." Every successful person must have the power of Faith. The final step to take before you take your action. Doubts, fears, and uncertainties leads to your ideas being sent to a graveyard: Faith brings them to life. This avoids the fear of failure, which deflates your dreams. Imagine how you would be in your life if you had no fear of failure: This is Faith. If you knew that with the proper use of your mind, as set out in these three articles, you could produce extraordinary results, you would truly be limitless and transform your life. Life is working for you. Knowing this is an essential habit of successful people. It may not always turn our the way you expected, but it will be working for you, redirecting your life with love. Faith becomes available when you realise that failure isn't a possibility. There is no such thing as failure as 'negative outcomes' (those you weren't hoping for) are those that lead to the greatest growth, evolution, and transformation. The blessings of failure are the following: That life send you the lessons that you need to learn to achieve your greatest possibility; redirection to your vision and transformation; and reflection. These are great moments of Self-realisation. You can catalyse a dramatically different future. Its not failure - its the blessing of revelation. We are constantly being set up by our Selves. The Higher Self, your Higher Power, is constantly guiding us: That part of you that you might also call your authentic Self, Universal intelligence, pure consciousness, God, or love. It knows what your really need, which is not always what you want. It's constantly setting up your ultimate dreams. Adversity becomes your guide and your value. 'Failures' are fodder for your greatest triumphs. Life is always working for you: Have Faith. For my article on Faith, click here:



We must take powerful, joyful action, which moves us out of fear and is aligned with the outcome that we desire. We must take action based on empowered new decisions based on the clarity that you have from a place of serenity, while living in a state of gratitude and Faith. Through action we take ideas and we bring them into our manifested reality. By taking action, we make our next move on the chessboard of life, and we give life an opportunity to respond: This back and forth allows us to is what allows us to get results in partnership with life. When we refuse to take action because we focus on problems and limiting beliefs we eliminate our role in the creative process and deny our Selves access to the resources and tools available to us. We must not take action from this reactive, fear-based egocentric place, that can only create undesirable results. When we take action from a powerful state of BEing our actions produce productive results, no matter what those results end up being.


Conclusions

A belief is a decision. If we all took the higher path of this transformative journey by deciding to change our limiting beliefs into limitless beliefs, which are quite simply the opposite of our limiting beliefs, we would not only radically energise our Selves, we would also be more compassionate, forgiving, unconditionally loving, and we would make the world a better place for certain, one decision at a time, both for our Selves and for us all collectively. Anne Frank wrote “How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before beginning to improve the world!”


Limitless beliefs come from a higher state of BEing, which is who you truly are. This involves a great remembering: Of who you are, and were, before your parents’ fearful limiting beliefs conditioned you into be stuck in your subconscious egocentric fears based on their own limiting beliefs. It’s not your parents’ fault, as they too inherited their limiting beliefs from their parents, who were also unconscious, and so on and so on, ad infinitum. Your parents and your ancestry not to blame - for they were unconscious and no-one wins in the 'blame game' - which is far from a game: It’s pathological and psychotic to project onto others. Carl Jung, the great psychiatrist, analytical psychologist, and all round spiritual Master, said that "One does not become Enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious." The subconscious is where your Soul resides, which needs to be awakened to make you aware of your limiting beliefs.


You can use the 'Decision Matrix' to empower and reinforce your new neural pathways in a lasting way, that is superior to other methods such as mantras in changing your limiting beliefs into positive ones and creating your new reality.


When decisions are made from your higher place, your Soul, those decisions are pure energy, which is love. This is your true home. We all have wings, and we can fly, but some of us don’t remember why. I will see the highest in you until you do too. Isn’t it time that we all decided to fly rather than to cry?


Namaste.


Sending you love, light, and blessings brothers.


Olly


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Hello,

I am delighted and enchanted to meet you. I coach men with 'Deep Coaching', 'Supercoaching', and Transformative Life Coaching (TLC). Thank you for reading this far. I very much look forward to connecting with the highest version of you, to seeing your highest possibility, and to our conversations. Please do contact me via my email for a free connection call and a free experience of coaching on Zoom or in person. 


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I have a Bachelor's degree in Natural Sciences from Trinity College, Cambridge; a Master's Degree in Philosophy from Trinity College, Cambridge; a PhD Doctorate in Scientific Research from University College London (UCL); a Medical Degree (MD/MBBS) from The Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine, London and have been a doctor and reconstructive trauma and cancer surgeon in London for 20 years. I have a number of other higher qualifications in science and surgery. I have published over 50 peer reviewed PubMed cited scientific journal articles, have been an associate editor and frequent scientific faculty member, and am the author of several scientific books. I have been awarded my Diploma in Transformative Life Coaching in London, which has International Coaching Federation (ICF) Accreditation, as well as the UK Association for Coaching (AC), and the European Mentoring and Coaching Council (EMCC). I have been on my own transformative journey full time for over five years and I am ready to be your guide to you finding out who you really are and how the world works.




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