'Re-wiring' for Development

There's a dual process to creating new systems.

Firstly, we have to dissolve the old. Secondly, we have to create the new. But it's a simultaneous process. Take mindset for example. On the one hand we have behavior or thinking processes that are limited. They no longer serve us. 

It's important to create awareness around such limiting patterns of thought and behavior. Becoming aware of what no longer serves us is the preliminary first step to using an expansive mindset. At the same time we have to work at creating new neural networks aligned with where we want to go. 

Research on neural plasticity has shown that it is possible to re-wire our brains. But if we don't consciously take action to build new, more relevant neural networks we can easily slip back into those old patterns that are not serving our development. 

We struggle to realize that these old patterns have been built up through years and years of conditioning. Not only that, they've been passed on from generation to generation too. 

Our brains have been hard-wired to drive automatic perceptions. Building new neural networks requires very conscious and deliberate focus and work as well as positive affirmation of these new networks through thought, feeling and action. 

As the psychiatrist Jeffery Schwartz noted, "not only do mental states matter to the physical activity of the brain, but they can contribute to the final perception even more powerfully than the stimulus itself."