Are You Ready for New Adventures?

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These past few weeks, I’ve had the opportunity to talk with people about what I want.

Not, “What do you want for lunch?” or “What do you want to do tonight?” but actually “What do you want out of LIFE?”

And as I was asked these questions, I kept catching myself responding with “Well, what I don’t want is…” which is not the best answer for anyone who desires to create a life that they WANT.

While knowing what we don’t want is great because it clarifies what we DO want, it is not where we want to be putting our attention.

I KNOW this information, so why wasn’t I applying it?

Sure, I could blame it on trauma, experiences, shame – “If you want things, you are greedy, selfish, and full of yourself!” (Anyone else heard that one before?)

But I also know that putting focus on those factors (which are completely subjective) don’t actually solve anything. Yes, they happened (subjectively) but by focusing on the problem, it doesn’t allow us to focus on the solution.

Albert Einstein once said

“We can’t solve problems using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”

So let’s take out the subjective ‘Why?’ and ask it objectively – “Why was I focusing my thoughts on what I don’t want”?

It’s actually a pretty simple answer – my brain.

Our brains are made up of neural pathways (getting science-y, but stick with me…) that have been paved over and over with the thoughts we think each and every day.

Sometimes this can be a good thing – we don’t have to think about getting up and going to the bathroom when we have to pee, we just go.

When we feel hungry, our brain doesn’t have to ask “Why am I feeling this way? Is it because of ‘this’? Or maybe because of ‘that’?” Nope! Your brain has created a neural pathway to eat when hungry.

But in other instances, these neural pathways aren’t so helpful.

Like when we’re leaving work after a stressful day, a neural pathway formed could be to go through a fast food drive thru for dinner.

Or when you don’t get as many likes on your posts as you wanted and start to feel bad about yourself – that’s a neural pathway.

These two examples of neural pathways aren’t so great because if something that you perceive as negative happens, your brain has a habit of going down that same ole’ road again and again.

And these roads get so ingrained that they are hard to veer off of.

This is why it’s so hard to create new ways of thinking. It feels like you’re pushing against something.

One way to change those ways of thinking is through affirmations by writing them and repeating them out loud everyday. By doing so, we are creating NEW neural pathways.

So instead of seeing $5 in your bank account and thinking “Oh my god, I’m so broke” you can now say “Thank you so much for the abundance coming into my life that I can’t even see yet.”

And no, having that thought doesn’t magically make money appear in your bank account. But neither does having the thought “Oh my god, I’m so broke”.

So as you can see, our brain has been programmed. And unless we intentionally change the program, it will stay the same and dig deeper into those unhelpful neural pathways.

This is the same for deciding, knowing, and expressing what we want.

We say “Well, I don’t want this thing” because we are reaching from our ingrained neural pathways. “Well, I didn’t like when I was broke so I know I definitely don’t want to be broke.” A neural pathway to being financially abundant hasn’t been paved yet!

We are literally bringing our past (that we don’t want) into our present (where all of our power of creation lies).

So if you want to create something DIFFERENT than what you’ve experienced in the past, you must create new neural pathways.

(I have said neural pathways so many times that I am now a scientist. You can now call me Dr. Shay).

It may be difficult and uncomfortable to notice our thoughts and observe how they are creating our current realities. It can be a slap in the face at times to think that you have created the reality you’re living (if it’s not what you truly desire).

Our job is not to reach for the “Why oh why is this happening to me?” mentality. Our job is to allow this information to be brought to our attention – without any judgement – then use our power to choose something different.

(If this message resonates with you and you haven’t tried meditation, I highly recommend it.)

If we really want to transform our current reality into all that we desire, we have to stop creating the past over and over and start creating new roads for us to explore.

“Because of the power of neuroplasticity, you can, in fact, reframe your world and rewire your brain so that you are more objective. You have the power to see things as they are so that you can respond thoughtfully, deliberately, and effectively to everything you experience.
Elizabeth Thornton

Let’s use this incredible power.

Til next week…
Shay ❤

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