WHAT IS A "STATE OF MIND" AND WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?

 Our greatest ally or resource is our STATE OF MIND. Mind and body are ONE system and the combination of the feeling a person is feeling at any given moment and the way they are thinking, which includes all the senses, is referred to as their "STATE" or state of mind.

Our "STATES" change throughout the day, and they are mostly driven by the thoughts we think and the company we keep a.k.a. our environment. A less known fact is that we can change our STATES quickly by simply changing our physiology (posture, gesture, head position, breathing rate, muscle tension, etc.)

For example, if you're feeling down, try laughing aloud in an exaggerated way for a minute and feel what happens. When feeling depressed, simply look up. One cannot feel depressed when holding their heads and shoulders high and looking up. Want to stop crying? Look up. Try smiling; the muscles that are engaged in smiling automatically change your STATE.  Anytime you adopt the postures of positive states, you are on your way to getting into a positive STATE.

What happens is that once your body takes on the posture of a positive state, your neurology—they way your neurons fire in the brain—automatically follows and starts to fire the accompanying neural pathways for that STATE. It's like clicking on a function button on a software program that allows the program to show up on your computer screen. Clicking to a new posture triggers your neurological programming to come to the surface and in about 70 seconds your body fills with all the corresponding chemicals within that neurological pathway.

We have thousands of neurological programs in our brains, but what most people don't know is that we can tap into them on command. In NLP there is a term called the "As If" frame. This frame allows a person to suspend those limiting beliefs which have negative impacts on their lives and try on more useful beliefs, safe in the knowledge that they are only 'pretending' to believe something different. When you pretend to go into a certain state, your nervous system gets the idea very quickly, and the state soon manifests. Because the brain doesn't know the difference between what is real from what is imagined, the neurons fire to what we are imagining in our minds. So when you change your posture, you automatically change how you think and at this point you are literally rewiring your brain.   And the more you do this the easier it gets.

Did you ever notice that when you're around another person who is a real downer that you start to get influenced by them? I catch myself doing this now and again and change my physiology immediately while in their company.  How about when someone is complaining?  Do you find that you start complaining too?  It’s because by listening to them, that causes you to remember times when you’ve had complainta, and as you start to remember the details you are causing those neurons to fire in your brain that belong to that neural pathway.  Neural pathways are like little software programs.

Did you ever out of the blue start having a negative behavior and were baffled as to why? Try remembering what you were thinking just minutes before and that will be your clue. No one triggers negative neurlogical patterns without first having a thought about them first.

Have you ever had a dlay where nothing was going right and all you could think about is how terrible you feel and then run into someone who instantly changes your mood in a positive way? It's not the person who caused your mood change; it was you thinking new thoughts in an instant. That person caused you to download positive programs on contact. Maybe you find that person funny and they make you laugh so that is what you remember.  Maybe you are attracted to them so instantly you tap into those feelings of love.  All you did was tap into those programs that already exist in your brain. Hard to believe, but very true.

We are running neurological programs all day long. Most of us don't know that we can tap into the good ones on command because we have a belief that we can't, because no one ever taught us that we could. Learning how to change your beliefs is the single most effective way of changing your life and becoming a new person.

Until then, Fake it until you make it!







 


Comments

Amy
12/01/2011 7:45pm

As the semester winds down at the college I find your 'state of mind' blog uplifting and inspiring. I have tried my best to coach my students all semester long to think positively as they transition from students to nursing professionals. Recently, I have even tried to change certain words in my vocabulary to help them reach for a new level of confidence...."I believe..." "I know you can..." "you deserve.." I am banking on these suttle liguistic changes to make a difference in my life and in theirs!

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