|
|
|
|
|
|
Do you want to be happier, more connected to others and a better problem-solver? Karen Salmansohn says we all once were Zen masters when it came to interacting with the world around us, but our brains change as we age—becoming more focused and inhibited—and now you may need to retrain your brain to expand your consciousness. Take her advice and tap into the little buddha inside of you!
I’ve recently discovered how babies are little Zen masters. They’re highly conscious beings, able to use their brains to learn about life at supersonic speed—noticing the quirkiest of details—seeing delicious slices of reality that we adults often miss. And I’m not just saying all this pro-baby stuff because I’m eight months pregnant and about to become the proud mommy to my own baby Zen master. I’m saying this because I’ve been reading up on the fascinating neuroscience behind how a baby thinks. And I’m here to tell you, we adults can learn a lot from babies.
Here’s the neuroscientific scoop: Babies have more brain cells and fewer inhibitory neurotransmitters than us grown-ups. As a result, babies have a greater expanded consciousness than us grown-ups! Says who? Alison Gopnik, a University of California at Berkeley psychologist and the author of The Philosophical Baby: What Children’s Minds Tell Us About Truth, Love, and the Meaning of Life.
According to Gopnik, a pruning process is found in our adult brain that allows for only a limited view of life. As a result, we might find ourselves instinctively choosing to focus strongly on the wrong bits of information. Or we might find ourselves neglecting important possibilities and helpful perceptions that could empower us to live more lovingly, successfully and happily.
A baby’s brain has many advantages compared to an adult’s brain. The “narrow consciousness” of our adult brains makes us a bit lacking when it comes to creativity and problem-solving. Plus, our limited consciousness also makes us less open to adjusting to the new and less able to be in the now.
In contrast, a baby’s brain is like a lantern—spreading the light of awareness—that can sort through lots of seemingly irrelevant information and be more receptive to discovering highly rewarding solutions or intriguing, innovative concepts. A baby’s brain is also better able to notice beauty and experience delight wherever it wanders—being fully appreciative of the new, and present in the now. You’ve heard of the Buddhist concept of “beginner’s mind?” Well, a baby is blessed with the ultimate beginner’s mind!
What babies and jazz musicians have in common
1. Beating inertia. We all have inertia — that resistance to change, especially major change that disrupts our living patterns or way of thinking. Sometimes it’s not difficult to overcome — we can get excited to make a big change and want to overhaul a certain part of our lives. The joyous path, though, is in the middle ground between no change and drastic change. It’s in small changes — as small as possible. Small changes mean it’s not hard to get started, but also that the change is sustainable. If you make a drastic change, there is a great likelihood that it won’t stick very long.
If you’re feeling that inertia, set out to make as tiny a change as you can — just get out and walk for 5 minutes, or start writing or painting or playing your violin for 5 minutes. You can do anything for 5 minutes — it should seem ridiculously easy, but that’s the point.
2. Beating the resistance of others. This resistance can be even tougher to beat than your own inertia — very often people in our lives do not want change. They’ll be negative, or even actively try to stop us from changing. There are various strategies for beating this: ask for their help and get them on your side, or negotiate a way for you to make change without disrupting their lives too much, or if necessary, cut them out of your life for a little bit. Read more.
3. Finding the joy. Here is the key to it all. Forget the rest of these steps if you need to, but never forget this one. Doing something you hate is possible, for a little while, but you’ll never sustain it. If you hate running, you’ll never keep up the habit for long. You need to find the joy in doing the activity, and when you do, you’re golden. So either choose an activity that you love, or find something to love in the activity, and grab on to that.
4. Keeping the joy alive. Joy can be fleeting, and to keep it going, you need to nurture it. This is an art form, and I can’t give you step-by-step instructions here. If I could, I’d be a billionaire, as it would change the world. But some advice: be grateful for your joy, every day. Be in the moment with that activity, instead of having your mind drift elsewhere. Refresh your joy often, by starting over or approaching things from a new angle or doing something a bit differently. Find new people to share this joy with, people who love it as much as you.
5. Celebrating the little victories. We often get discouraged because we’re not as far along as we’d like: we don’t have those six-pack abs yet (after a month of exercise!) or we’re not a full-time blogger yet (after three months of blogging!). But we forget how far we’ve come. Every step along the path is a victory, not because we’ve accomplished a goal but simply because we made the step. Celebrate those steps — jump up and down in joy, scream Halelujah, brag about it on Facebook, post a victorious message in bold marker on your fridge. You rock.
6. Making it a part of your life. Whether a change stays with you forever or not, making a change has value, in the momentary joy you get from doing it, and in what you learn from it. But making a change stick can be a great thing. To integrate change into your life, it must become a part of your daily routine. If you want to meditate, you need to do it at a regular time: right after having your coffee and before showering for work, for example. Having the coffee becomes your trigger for this new habit, and as the coffee is already integrated into your life, it becomes an anchor upon which this new habit will be grounded. The more times you do the new habit after this trigger, and the more regularly you do it, the more firmly it will stick.
One last note, to anyone making changes: you will fail. I don’t say that to discourage you, but to release you from the fear of failure … because if you already know it will happen, then there’s no pressure to avoid it. Failure is an inevitable part of change, and in fact it should be celebrated — without failure, we’d learn nothing. Fail, fail often, and learn. Then you’ll be better equipped for the next attempt. Find joy in every attempt, in every victory, in every failure, and the change will be a reward in itself.
Download Wale – Eye of the tiger
