"Your mind will be like its habitual thoughts; for the soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts. Soak it then in such trains of thoughts as, for example: Where life is possible at all, a right life is possible.” Meditations By Marcus Aurelius
We all know we are not supposed to be negative right? That if we are negative we’ll see negative. If we see the posItive, same thing. Blah, blah, blah. Yada, yada, yada.
Here’s the science behind why (and the reason so many self help gurus have a made a fortune) - Its just simple science, folks.
The Reticular Activating System or (RAS) is the part of the reticular formation in your brain-stem. The purpose of this little miracle is to filter out the trillions of messages, signals and stimuli we encounter each and every day. In short, it prevents sensory overload. Too much stimuli and we melt down. Too little and were bored. This keeps us in check and has much to do with what we focus on.
How about a little Reticular Activating System experiment?
Think about one of your knees and focus on the little fibers from your clothing touching your knee? Feel it? Were you aware of it before? Try it with your arms, shoulders.....an amazing amount of stimuli at play.
Focus on everything that’s BROWN in your room/wherever you are. Lots of brown, huh? Now try it with RED. Same result?
In short, we see (and respond physically and emotionally) to what we focus our attention on.
Challenge this Week: For 24 hours, focus exclusively on the positive....see what happens. Oh and here is the good news, the Reticular Activating System, yeah, it can be trained.
Here’s to science....... *raises coffee cup*
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