Finding true happiness starts by learning how to step back from your automatic reactions so that you can make choices which will bring love, joy, and abundance into your life. This sounds simple, but it is quite a challenge because your brain has been conditioned to follow old mental patterns that do not serve you well. Science calls these patterns neural pathways and everything that you learn in life creates one of these connections in your brain. For example, suppose you observe at an early age that a certain type of situation makes the people around you nervous. In your brain a few neurons (thinking cells) connect together so that you will remember to associate that situation with anxiety. This is how your neural pathways begin. Every time that you observe or experience a nervous reaction in that type of situation, that neural pathway gets bigger and stronger. Eventually it becomes your automatic unconscious reaction. The same thing happens with all of your inherited beliefs - small neural pathways that you develop as a child grow into major information highways that control your outlook on life. You did not choose these mental patterns yet they will be etched into your brain forever - unless you decide to change them.

The good news is that you have the power to create new neural pathways that are in harmony with whom you choose to be in the world. In the example above, instead of automatically following the old pattern and becoming nervous, you can consciously decide that it is OK to be calm. When you do this the neurons in your brain will immediately create a new neural pathway for this behavior. Every time that you choose to have a calm reaction, that new pathway is reaffirmed, and it will get stronger and deeper. At the same time your old inherited pathway of anxiety will become weaker and smaller from lack of use. Eventually the new pattern of calm behavior will take over and become your automatic reaction. 

 

“As a single footstep will not make a path on the Earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path we must think over and over the kinds of thoughts we wish to dominate our minds.”   

These words were written by Henry David Thoreau over 150 years ago, yet they perfectly describe the way that your original neural pathways were formed, and how you can create new ones to take their place. You can use this same process to transform all of your old habits and beliefs, so that over time they become aligned with your conscious choices. As each old reaction comes up you look at it and decide if that is who you wish to be. If not, then choose different behaviors, thoughts, and words that are aligned with the natural wisdom of your heart. Making these conscious choices creates new neural pathways in your brain that get stronger and deeper as you continue to reinforce them. This is the essence of living mindfully. The goal is for all of your thoughts and actions to be guided by powerful neural pathways that follow the wisdom of your heart. Staying on this path of gentle transformation will make your life a beautiful reflection of the person whom you choose to be.