Chapter 10
Life-Altering Principle #4
Retrain Your Brain
The important thing is not to stop questioning.
Curiosity has its own reason for existing.
One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality.
It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity.
—Albert Einstein
As babies, we have wide eyes and are eager to experience the world and learn all we can about it. At some point, though, most of us effectively decide we've learned all we need to know and shut off that wonder-filled openness to the world. It's as if, as adults, we turn off the record button and proceed to live solely on rewind. The result is experiencing life through a filter of preconceived notions that leave little room for profound new discoveries.
But what if you could return to experiencing things for the very first time? How much would you learn if you felt that everyone you encountered had something to teach you?
You can make this happen. You have the ability to Retrain Your Brain.
Retrain Your Brain is the principle of experiencing life without the filter of preconceived notions.
Life as a Blank Slate
Imagine Leonardo da Vinci trying to paint the Mona Lisa over his previous classic, The Last Supper; or Michael Jackson singing Thriller over the track for Billie Jean; or Jamie Oliver preparing his best pasta salad on top of an existing salmon dish. The result of each of these attempts would be disastrous. The intent of the artist would be lost amid the chaos of conflicting ideas.
Imagine how less enriched the world would be if our great artists had been unable to spawn new works of art due to their inability to move beyond what they'd already created.
For artists to realize a new vision, they must begin with a blank slate. And the same goes for you.
Your life is being held captive if you deny yourself the ability to create new thoughts and ways of being. When such a repetitive condition exists, growth stops, replaced by a state of complacency.
For example, when you want something to eat, you grab a turkey sandwich because you know you like turkey. When you see your spouse after work, you give each other a peck on the cheek and then review each other's day simply because that's your “Honey, I'm home” interaction. Life is about routine—consistent and predictable. Everything is the way that it's “supposed to be,” but you no longer experience the pure joy of being alive.
Try to remember that, at one point, everything was new.
My youngest sons, Isaiah and Xavier, live their lives purely from the state of “I want.” It doesn't matter what it is. The boys will play with anything they can get their hands on. Xavier will eat nearly anything we put in front of him. When people come over, Isaiah views them as new friends to play with. For Isaiah and Xavier, life is about trying everything on. Some things fit, others don't. But there's never an internal debate about whether to give something new a whirl.
Throughout childhood and into early adolescence, we're focused on discovery and personal growth. For most people, this learning process stops at some point during adolescence. But if we work at it, we can keep our eyes and minds wide open for our entire lives. When you're able to do so, you have the power to recreate your entire world and smash the rewind button to pieces.
Imagine how different you'd feel if each morning's shower washed away your mental filters and allowed you to take in the day to come as a blank state. Imagine how wondrous each of these situations would feel if approached as if you were experiencing it for the first time:
- Taking on a work assignment
- Walking in your neighborhood
- Playing with your kids
- Enjoying happy time with your spouse
- Talking to a stranger
- Eating food
- Drinking wine
- Exercising
- Coming home from work
Can you imagine how different speaking with a loved one would be if you put aside the memory of thousands of previous conversations and fully paid attention to how the two of you were interacting? Instead of being rote and repetitive, it would be an exchange of true communication and revelation.
It's also important that you break past the “personal language” you've created for yourself. When someone says X to you, you translate it to mean Y. When you encounter an event that's in some ways similar to Z, you simply categorize it as Z—missing subtleties that could yield deeper understanding. The language you've developed is uniquely yours, but if it's all you speak, you'll never learn other people's languages. And if you rely only on what you know to assign meanings, you cut off the opportunity to see the world from different perspectives. Consider William Shakespeare's famous line from Hamlet:
“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”
For example, you may look at a tree and see life. However, the person next to you might view it as shade; and the person across the street might perceive it as an overgrown weed. Your life directly reflects the colored glasses you're wearing. Consider trying on a new pair of specs.
Of course, there's much to be said for experience. Learning from your past is one of the points of being human. This isn't about wiping your memory clean. It's about not letting what you know blind you to learning even more. The goal is to achieve life as a blank slate as your default way of being.
Free Yourself of Generalizations
A critical step in learning to Retrain Your Brain is to clear away the muddle of generalizations. Lazy phrases such as “that's not me,” “that's just how things are,” or “people are like that” are too often used as easy excuses to avoid the unfamiliar. Becoming keenly aware of how often generalizations influence your thinking—and evasion of thinking—is an important step toward achieving positive, permanent change.
An integral part of this process is questioning your automatic responses. For instance, if you've never eaten Ethiopian food because you believe you wouldn't like it, question why. If you don't have a good reason, then the next time you see an Ethiopian restaurant, stop in and pick something up (I highly recommend the doro tibs wat). If you decide it's not your bag, you're out $10, but you gave it a go. Then again, you may discover it's your new favorite meal.
As a more extreme example, some dismiss an entire subset of humanity due to bigotry: “I don't socialize with that type” or “those people are nothing but trouble.” This type of prejudice isn't learned from experience, but passed down from generation to generation due to ignorance. Holding onto such generalizations does nothing but cripple your ability to fully experience other people…and your own life.
Rid yourself of generalizations to open yourself up to options.
In 2008 my family had a birthday party for my son Xavier, who was turning two, at a terrific place called Pump It Up. It's a facility filled with huge inflatable play areas and a climbing wall. All the kids had a blast jumping around, going through the mazes, and climbing the wall. My wife and I had never been on a climbing wall, so we both decided to give it a try. It was a fun diversion, especially reaching the top and rappelling down.
A few minutes later, I looked around and was shocked to see my 66-year-old mother wearing the harness and climbing the wall! It would've been easy for her to say, “I've never done this before, and I'm 66 years old, so forget it.” But she didn't let a lazy generalization about giving up on new experiences past a certain age keep her from fully living. In a few minutes, she was halfway up the wall. She didn't make it all the way to the top (because she had on business attire and dress shoes), but she broke down a lot of barriers with that climb.
Too often, people fail to try something new. Or they may give it a quick try but give up after encountering the first sign of difficulty. Don't be one of those people. Legend has it that Colonel Sanders had his chicken recipe rejected more than 1,000 times by restaurant owners before he found a partner willing to back him. If he'd simply said, “I guess I'm just not a cook,” think of all the jobs that would never have been created and the millions of customers who would never have enjoyed his chicken.
Close the gap between living in a state of wonder and being dissuaded by the generalizations you've unconsciously put in place to limit your thoughts and your willingness to take on the unfamiliar. Ultimately, your life's true power is in the pencil, not the eraser.
Compression = Depression
As we get older, we tend to compress the details of experiences into a finite set of categories. When we encounter a new experience, we slap one of our existing labels onto it—whether or not it's a good match. While it's convenient to instantly identify anything we come across with as something familiar, it can be terribly limiting; it dampens our ability to see things clearly, make exciting discoveries, and grow. Further, it creates a distorted perspective of the past, which can lead to inappropriate behavior in the present.
For example, pretend for a moment that you were continually praised as a child regardless of what you did. Your compression of those encounters leads you to believe that you can do no wrong. The result is you have problems accepting responsibility for the times when you screw up. Further, when someone is legitimately angry with you because of a mistake you made, you don't really hear what's being said because your reaction can't get beyond, “I'm perfect. What's this guy's problem?” This self-assurance soothes you, but people grow tired of your being out of touch with the world and stop trying to establish meaningful relationships with you.
Conversely, pretend for a minute that you were continually blamed as a child and told you were bad. Your compression of those encounters leads you to believe that you can do nothing right. The result is your feeling awful about yourself no matter how much people like and respect you. You react with suspicion when people praise you and ruin the chances of reaching your potential.
Pay attention to how you internalize and compress your life experiences.
Although this may be painful to hear, a lot of the assumptions you live with every day are built on inaccuracies. As long as you refuse to face reality, you won't be able to distinguish truth from fantasy. So take the time to examine the memories that filter how you experience the world.
Equally important, move the processing of your experiences away from compression and categorization. Compression leads to depression. Try to treat each event as its own experience.
The Gift of Your Pre-Sent Future
In recent years, virtually every self-help doctrine has strongly championed living in the moment to reach your full potential. But that phrase carries a number of different meanings. In this book, living in the moment means not allowing past experiences to blind you to what's happening right now.
In part, that means paying full attention. But it also means letting go of anything from the past that isn't helpful to you. If you have a personal video you play over and over in your head, edit that tape to cut out anything that limits you. Or just turn off the video altogether.
Anything from your past that you choose to relive becomes a part of your identity. Be careful about which memories you commit to.
Every limiting thought hinders the creation of an unfiltered way of being. Think about this the next time you choose to expend energy on something that happened an hour ago, let alone 10 years ago. It's common for people to insert instances from their past into their current experiences, continuously reliving events they believe shape who they are. But if you refuse to give it power, the past will have no impact on what you do with the brand new moment that stands before you.
As for the future, it represents the great unknown. While we sometimes like to believe that we can predict what will happen, the future has its own special plans and frequently does the opposite of what was expected. Many fear the future, but that makes as little sense as living in the past. You can't control either.
And, while living in the moment is desirable, even with the speed of The Flash, it's nearly impossible to do because life happens by the millisecond.
I propose there's a fourth moment in time over which you do have control, however. Harbhajan Singh Khalsa Yogiji, a.k.a. Yogi Bhajan, former spiritual director of the 3HO Foundation, refers to this point in time as your Pre-Sent Future.
To understand the Pre-Sent Future, picture a treadmill (see Figure 10.1). At the back of the treadmill's belt, behind where you're running, is your past. At the front of the treadmill's belt, ahead of where you're running, is your future. The spot where you foot lands is your present.
Figure 10.1 The Pre-Sent Future Treadmill
Living within your Pre-Sent Future requires that you continually load the front of the treadmill's belt with exactly what you want. Your feelings, desires, dreams, and objectives—pile them all up in front of you, perhaps forming a brick wall.
As the belt of the treadmill revolves, a small piece of the wall breaks off and lands directly in your present. Your next step will be met with another goal you've laid out in front of you, and so on.
As long as the future is filled with what you desire and create, as the past loops under the deck and makes its way towards you in an attempt to become a part of your present, it will be blocked by all of your future objectives and hold no power.
The Pre-Sent Future is about being in charge of, and creating, the next moment in your life.
For example, if you covet calm and peace, establish a mind-set of calm and peace while anticipating anything that might disrupt it, and act accordingly. As spiritual guru Iyanla Vanzant put it, “If you see crazy coming, cross the street.” As another example, if you have a huge project due in a week, split it into manageable pieces and get started right away. Don't wait until 24 hours before it's due to begin.
Living within your Pre-Sent eliminates much of life's randomness because it enables you to create the life you most desire by maintaining a sniper-like focus. If you clearly establish what you want your future to look like and load your Pre-Sent Future with your desired objectives, you'll operate from a foundation of clarity and strength.
Otherwise, there's only one thing you'll have coming to you—your persistent past.
The Voice of Conjecture
A key element of Retrain Your Brain is to understand the Voice of Conjecture and how it rules your life. The dictionary definition of conjecture is “inference or judgment based on inconclusive or incomplete evidence; a statement, opinion, or conclusion based on guesswork.”
This describes how most people live. We're swift to form opinions and seldom allow the time to gather all available evidence before setting our decisions in stone.
Think back on your life. How often have you assumed someone acted out of malice only to discover the person meant no harm at all? How many times have you sworn off a friend only to have that person end up being one of your closest confidants? How frequently do you make a decision you later regret?
To move toward life as a blank slate, train yourself to gather enough information to make decisions based on facts, not speculation. The impulse that encourages you to make rapid decisions is what I call the Voice of Conjecture. It leads you to stick with what you know, and avoid learning and growing. The more you give in to it, the less control you have over the quality of your life.
The first step towards freedom is moving the Voice of Conjecture from your unconscious to your conscious mind. This allows you to recognize when it's attempting to impose shortcuts on a rational decision-making process. Once you become aware of the Voice of Conjecture, tell it to wait while you find out what you need to know to make the best choice. Otherwise, if you keep operating as you always have, you'll realize the same inevitable results.
It's unrealistic to expect the Voice of Conjecture to disappear entirely. It's been a part of you for so long that it's tenured in its current position. However, you can work to loosen its hold on you, one notch at a time. The more you do so, the greater the benefits you'll reap from interacting with life as it happens.
Your Very Own Crystal Ball
Finally, I want you to think about events in your life that you were hesitant, or even refused, to take on because you couldn't possibly know the outcome. Whether it was a confrontation with a friend, riding the new Dive of Death roller coaster, embarking on a new career, or telling someone “I love you,” reflect on as many of these Y
No moments as you can.
Most people will choose what's most familiar over embarking on a journey where the potential rewards are great but the outcome is uncertain. Is that what you did?
You hold in your hands your very own crystal ball—because if fear keeps you from pursuing what's unfamiliar and uncomfortable, it's easy to predict your future. It'll be exactly like your past.
Your crystal ball shows that you'll be alive in the future. But will you be truly living?
If you're comfortable where you are and don't feel the need for challenges, why consider a different path? After all, you're not hurting anyone, are you? The honest answer is yes. You're hurting yourself. And you're denying the rest of us the possibility of benefiting from your contributions. You've given up on life and you don't even realize it.
Retrain Your Brain to let go of the past, make new discoveries, and open yourself up to fully experience all the universe has to offer. You have extraordinary contributions to make and an incredible life to share. But you must be willing to quiet the Voice of Conjecture and take on what makes you most uncomfortable.
Being afraid of the unknown is perfectly normal, but sticking exclusively with what you know is a death sentence.
What will your future hold?
- Experience life as a blank slate without the filter of preconceived notions.
- Everyone you encounter has something to teach you.
- At one point, everything was new.
- Reawaken childlike discovery within you.
- Move past your own personal language.
- Compression leads to depression. Try to treat each event as its own experience.
- Don't let what you know blind you to learning even more.
- Remember Shakespeare's observation that “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”
- Anything from your past that you choose to relive becomes a part of your identity. Be careful about which memories you commit to.
- Rid yourself of generalizations and you'll open yourself up to options.
- Take control of your Pre-Sent Future.
- Follow Iyanla Vanzant's advice: “If you see crazy coming, cross the street.”
- Keep your past exactly where it belongs.
- Quiet the Voice of Conjecture.
- Embark on journeys where the outcome is uncertain but the rewards are potentially great.
