It never fails to amaze me the way our entire experience occurs in our brains.  The implications of this are that we can be taken for a ride by the crazy ways in which it works, or we can understand its functions and use the tool to our advantage.

A brief and simplified lesson in neuroscience:

Your prefrontal cortex has an executive role in the brain, monitoring functions such as planning, communication and proper social behavior.  This part of your brain involves an aspect of choice, and for this purpose I will compare it to a computer desktop.  On this desktop you can choose to recall, or click on, a specific thought or memory.

The amygdala processes memory and emotional reactions.  When something occurs in your life that produces an emotional response, be it positive or negative, the amygdala releases serotonin, which can be described as a little dose of emotional fluid.  These little serotonin doses of happy, mad, sad, scared and so on are then tacked onto their respective memory like, as neuroscientist John Medina puts it, post-it notes.

When one chooses to recall a specific memory on their prefrontal cortex desktop, the serotonin dose attached to it is released into their processing experience as well.  This explains why recalling certain happy or sad memories brings back the emotional reaction that was previously tacked to them.

So how do we get over things?  Just focus on clicking the happy icons and trying to hide the sad ones in an emotional Recycle Bin?  I’ve been thinking about this one, and I think there’s a much better solution.  It is possible to replace previously instated post it notes for updated and reviewed notes based on new information.   By going back and reprocessing memories with a more rational mind we can replace the emotional post-it note tacked to a specific experience for one that is more in line with the truth.  This is why psychologists take patients through their painful childhood memories, helping them to reprocess memories tacked with a child’s illogical emotional response and replacing them with a rational and mature adult interpretation of events.

There is no way to hide our memories on our vast prefrontal desktop, and external events can trigger the neurons that bring a certain item flying up into main screen like an annoying popup.  We can be much happier if we make sure no nasty post it notes fly into our experience, and that at worst they will read “This was hard, but I learned from it”.

"I'll start tomorrow", "just this once"...  How many times do we hear people sacrificing the present moment for an elusive "someday"?  The truth is, there is only one moment that we can control, and it's shorter than a millisecond - it's right now.

It's true that character is borne from habits are borne from actions, but there are much more interesting (and practical) implications if you look at this common phrase backwards.  Each one of your actions is reinforcing a habit - for better or for worse.

Recent studies in neuroplasticity show that, unlike what was believed for many years, the brain is not wired completely during childhood only to remain static through adulthood.  We are not "stuck" with the wiring that we had no part in creating, which introduces a lot more power and, as it goes - more responsibility.  Studies show that through adulthood the human brain has the capacity to rewire itself.  And just how does it manage this? Repetition.

Just like repeating a particular action makes it easier, mentally repeating an idea reinforces a thought pattern.  The implications of this is that changing yourself to Who You Want To Be just requires the initial resistance your brain puts up when you act against the wiring of your neural pathways.

We grow when we're outside our comfort zone.  Keep pushing new actions until they are re-wired as the default response.  No moment is merely a means to an end, each holds the infinite power of creation.