It’s in Your Hands

Highways, bush bashing and neuroplasticity Many of us travel down roads every day that lead us towards a destination that we really don’t want to reach. We wonder why we keep choosing to drive down roads that are rough and uncomfortable. Often it feels as though we do not have control over that choice. We travel these roads so often that they become major highways in our brain. Let me give you an example. You’ve had a challenging day at home, school or work. Your first reaction may be to reach for food, alcohol, your phone or your controller. You know that once you start, it will become harder and harder to stop. Yet, knowing this, you continue to consume your food of choice, your alcohol of choice, and spend hours scrolling through social media or playing your game well into the night. Before long, you find yourself driving down a rough road, which could be any one or a combination of disappointment, self-loathing, anger, resentment, frustration etc. Again, you find yourself heading in a direction that you really didn’t want to go. Changing that familiar pattern of travel requires creating a new pathway in your brain, which is similar to clearing a new road in the bush (bush bashing). Up until the 1990s, it was thought that the brain’s plasticity was limited to early childhood, but as a result of scientific research, it is now known that the brain retains its plasticity throughout life. Through retaining this plasticity, the brain is able to learn new skills and form new neural pathways irrespective of age. Neural plasticity means that the dirt roads you create when you start bush bashing (clearing the bush) can eventually form new major highways, leading to greater connections and more positive destinations. This can efficiently be achieved by changing your language. Using the specific ER language daily means that you are able to achieve the permanent neural changes that you desire. You can then travel those new neural highways, creating outcomes of your choice. It definitely hasn’t happened overnight. Just this morning, so many things happened with ER and the language and being emotionally intelligent. It is so embedded in our thinking that we don’t even notice. It really has changed our neural pathways! —Amy Klitscher Year 7 Coordinator At first, the choice between the highway (old pattern of thinking) and the dirt road (new pattern of thinking) will be challenging. But remember, the more you use the dirt road, the faster it will turn into a major highway. The old thinking pattern will eventually revert to becoming part of the bush and harder to travel. ER gives you the language, the tools (PETs), and the incentive to keep bush-bashing, because you know you are building a road to a more positive destination. It will change your neural pathways, increasing all aspects of your fitness: physical, mental, and emotional. Let’s begin by addressing the first language change. It involves eliminating judgment, not only towards yourself but also towards other people and circumstances.