Can you live in a state of wellbeing? Can you change the way you feel, perhaps for the better, just by your own efforts? What if you have been experiencing troubling or unwanted feelings, feelings such as stress, anxiety, fear, or depression, for some time? I would be suspicious of anyone offering easy answers or quick fixes to these challenges, but with sufficient dedicated practice, the surprising answer for many people is "Yes!", you can change the way you feel - by your own efforts!

Finding your own path

Over a period of several years, I have settled on the following practice as being the most effective for my own wellbeing. But everyone is different, and everyone needs to find their own path. What works for one person will not work for another, and what works well one week may not work so well the following week, as the brain changes and adjusts. For many people, the path to wellbeing or healing through mindfulness can be one of continual experimentation and adjustment. That’s why the following is not meant to sound prescriptive or definitive, but is offered as a starting point for your own experimentation.

Indeed, I write what follows with a sense of hesitation, because the things I write about below need to be practised, not merely read about or understood, in the same way that if you want to learn to play a sport or a musical instrument you need to practice, not merely read books on the subject. The intent here is to calm the mind and to counteract over-thinking, to quieten that critical inner voice, to make some space in the mind so that you can start to experience the present moment as it really is. This requires practice, practice, and more practice!

The ideas expressed in the following paragraphs are not my own. They borrow from the ideas of Dr. Steven Hayes (creator of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy), Dr. Jeffrey Schwartz (author of Brain Lock and You Are Not Your Brain), Annie Hopper (creator of the Dynamic Neural Retraining System), and many other teachers, including Dr. Rick Hanson, Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, Eckhart Tolle, Dr. Wayne Dyer, Tony Robbins, and Brené Brown. (See a few of their videos here.)

Neuroplasticity

There is a lot of overlap between the practice I describe here and the meditation practices of many religions, specifically those of most Eastern religious traditions and the mystical branches of Western religions. Although our cultural context is very different, the mindfulness we practice today is essentially the same as that practiced by the Buddha around 500 BCE. Many things have changed since the time of the Buddha, however. We know a lot more about the brain. In particular, we are discovering the significance of neuroplasticity, which is the ability of the brain to change throughout a person's life. Neuroplasticity is necessary for memory and for learning. To remember new facts or episodes in our life, or to learn new skills, the brain has to change. We are discovering that the brain changes by strengthening or weakening synaptic connections between existing neurons, sometimes even growing new neurons. It turns out that the more any given synaptic connection "fires", the stronger it becomes, and the less it "fires", the weaker it becomes.

It is only over the past few decades that we have come to realise that neuroplasticity has a significance for the human condition that goes way beyond memory and learning as traditionally conceived. Although neuroplasticity is most prominent in the early years of childhood, it continues throughout the whole of adult life. Because the brain is neuroplastic, every experience leaves its trace. In other words, every single sensation, image, feeling, and thought that passes through your conscious experience changes connections in your brain. In a sense, your brain learns to get "better" at having that experience, whether the experience is good or bad, pleasant or unpleasant, helpful or unhelpful. The more repetitive the experience, the more the brain is changed by it, and experiences that are accompanied by strong emotions change the brain most of all.

In a sense, this is not surprising. We know that people who experience highly traumatic events, such as war veterans or people who have been the victims of violent attacks, may carry mental wounds that last for the rest of their lives. The more far-reaching claim of neuroplasticity is that every mental event changes the brain. We might say that the brain (in the form of its billions of synaptic connections) shapes the mind (subjective, conscious experience), while the mind (in the form of our conscious choices) shapes the brain (by changing those synaptic connections). The human mind has the remarkable property that our deliberate, conscious choices can and do sculpt the connections in our brains, as indeed does all the conscious activity of the mind, whether "top-down" through conscious choice or "bottom-up" in reaction to our environment. So be careful what you think about! Because, in a very real sense, whatever you focus on, you become!

The Practice, in Brief

  1. Always, always, always come back into the present moment, where everything is okay just as it is. Remember that this moment is always the most important moment of your life. Allow any feelings to be just as they are. Notice any thoughts, but neither believe nor disbelieve them. Just observe with curiosity and kindness. This is a skill that can be learned through practice, most particularly through mindfulness meditation. Once learned, this skill can be applied at any moment throughout the day.
  2. Do whatever it takes to cultivate a sense of calm, contentedness, loving-kindness, warm-heartedness, compassion, forgiveness, gratitude, joy, positivity, optimism, any positive emotion. This could mean doing sitting meditation, walking meditation, positive visualisations, yoga, laughter, physical exercise, taking a shower, anything that generates the feel-good neurochemistry. This could mean cultivating feelings of inner calm and contentment, or cultivating a sense of connection with the body, or cultivating a sense of empathy with others. Many people have transformed their lives by making this their core practice, dedicating time every day to re-training their brains through cultivating positive emotions.
  3. Make the effort to do something positive, something with a purpose, something enjoyable, something creative. Do the things that are most important to you. Take an interest and be constructive, especially when you don’t feel like it! Never wait until you feel “better” before getting engaged with life. I continually remind myself that “Never again am I going to pull back from doing something because of some feeling or belief that I am not well enough or interested or capable.” If you take every opportunity to act positively, it can become a habit.
  4. Break patterns and do new things. The more you break old patterns of behaviour, the more you come to realise how empowering this practice of pattern-breaking can be. This is something you have to find out for yourself by actually doing it! Continually and deliberately breaking old patterns can lead to an attitude of trust and a letting go of the past, because you are always having to move forward into unknown territory.

The Practice, in More Detail

  1. You can only live in the present moment! The past and the future are only experienced through memory or imagination, yet it is very easy to get caught up in trains of thought that carry you away to distant times or places that only exist inside your own head. Because of the way the brain works, thoughts evoke emotional responses in such a way that once you start to think about the past or the future, it can feel like you are actually there, experiencing the event for real. If the event evokes strong emotions this can feel very pleasant, or very distressing. Yet it is all in your head! Thoughts and feelings can be very troubling, but they will not actually hurt you unless and until you start to believe them. Then they can start to hurt you - by changing your brain through the mechanisms of neuroplasticity. Fortunately, these changes are reversible.

    There are many ways to bring yourself back into the present moment. One of the most well-known and widely practice is mindfulness meditation, the topic of this web site. But meditation is not the only way. Some people seem able to bring themselves back to the here-and-now through sheer force of will. Others like to rehearse phrases such as "This moment is the most important moment of my life" as a reminder to come back to the present in times of crisis. I am not going to give definitive instructions, because we are all different and we all change. Find what works for you, and don't assume that what works one week will still work the next!

  2. Your goal is to cultivate positive emotions. It is not critical which particular positive emotions you choose to cultivate because all positive emotions are associated with similar neurochemistry and so tend to reinforce each other. (Actually thinking in terms of cultivating a positive neurochemistry may or may not be helpful; we are all different.) The critical thing is to cultivate warm, fuzzy feelings and not to over-think the process.

    It seems as if a wide variety of practices can be effective here, with different people being drawn to different practices. It could be quiet meditation, or positive, imaginative visualisations, or sending out feelings of lovingkindness, or yoga, or being in nature. Whatever your preferred style of practice, you need to focus on feelings of calm, bliss, positivity, joy, or warmheartedness, not just a dry sense of focussed awareness or insight. With practice, the mind can switch from a state of stress to a state of relative calm in just a few minutes. The more troubled you feel, the more important it is to just do the practice. Make it a habit. For some people, this practice may become tied to an increased sense of embodiment and an identification with something greater and deeper than the brain chatter, but this does not seem to be the case for everyone.

  3. Time to take some action! Sometimes the difference between staying stuck in a rut and living a fulfilling life comes down to actually getting yourself moving, taking the next step, doing something positive and constructive. This is especially true when you are feeling down, discouraged, or depressed, when you really don't feel like doing anything at all, or are wondering whether you will ever feel happy and enthusiastic again. At such times, action has to come before motivation. Rather than waiting until you are feeling better, start acting like you are a happy person, right now! It may seem at first that you are just "faking it", but with a little practice, you soon come to realise that motivation and engagement are only ever a few moments away! If this seems over-optimistic or far-fetched, remember that thoughts and feelings of de-motivation and disinterest are only thoughts and feelings, and can be replaced very rapidly with other, more positive thoughts and feelings. The more you practice, the easier this becomes.

  4. We are all creatures of habit. The more we repeat our habitual behaviours, the more we become stuck in a rut, for better or for worse. What is more, until we learn to pay attention to what we are thinking and doing, moment by moment, we don't notice it happening. Most of the time we are simply not aware that we are stuck in a repeated pattern, that there are alternative pathways we could be following, but aren't. We don't notice what we don't notice. The solution is to break patterns, explicitly and deliberately. Make it a habit to do things differently, at every level. You can start with simple things, like the order you do things as you make breakfast! You'll probably be surprised at the results, as the novelty stimulates and challenges your brain ("Look what happens when I feed the cat before putting the kettle on!").

    Continual pattern-breaking also applies to any kind of meditative practice you do. The habit of daily practice is one habit that you don't want to break, but the details may well have to change as your brain changes. Anything that is practiced regularly and intensively will strengthen certain connections in the brain. As the brain changes, so its needs will change. What works well one week may lose some of its power the following week. When your favourite practice stops working, this is generally a good sign, because it shows that your brain is being rewired. So don't be afraid to flex your practice.

First Aid for Negative Thoughts and Feelings

When feeling overwhelmed by negative thoughts and feelings:

Engage the more rational, top-down, executive part of the brain in recognising that you are experiencing strong emotions and negative thoughts (aka limbic system impairment [Annie Hopper] or the pain body [Eckhart Tolle]). “Think greater than how you feel” or “Get a grip”. Recognise the torrent of negative thoughts and feelings for what they are - just deceptive messages created by your brain.

Either just sit quietly with any troubling feelings or do something that is positive and purposeful, while being fully aware that the negative emotions and thoughts are still there, and are false signals, and that you do not need to do what they say, and that you do not need to wait until you are “feeling better” before living the life you want to live.

Summary

Your experience of life is heavily affected by the decisions you make and, in particular, by what you choose to focus your attention on. Whatever you focus your attention on you are going to experience more of, simply because you will be strengthening certain neural connections while weakening others. The more you think certain thoughts and feel certain feelings, the more likely those thoughts and feelings are to occur again. And regardless of the thoughts or feelings that come spontaneously to mind, you always have a choice about what you do next, and this is critical. You can always choose where you focus your attention! But bear in mind that it can take a lot of practice to re-focus your attention if you have fallen into the habit of negative thinking, or over-thinking, or experiencing negative feelings. This is not easy. This is hard work. But it is possible! This post has been all about that practice.

So, behave like you are already the person you want to be. Behave like you are already a happy person, right now. Never wait for a better time - there isn't one!

When you find yourself over-thinking, the answer does not lie in even more thinking! Just come back into the present moment and be calm!