Becoming the greatest expression of you

Becoming the Greatest Expression of You

In recent months I’ve been talking about Becoming the Greatest Expression of You and teaching the hypnosis and neuroplasticity techniques so that you can be the greatest expression of yourself. I’ve often referred to this process as neurohypnosis.

The changes that people have reported to me who use this practice each day have been phenomenal. People are losing weight, reducing symptoms of autoimmune diseases like diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis, living better with cancer, minimizing pain, overcoming stress and anxiety and achieving their dreams.

Overall, this neurohypnosis process is helping people to be healthier and happier.

How and why does this process work? Neuroscientists tell us that neurons that fire together, wire together. When we are thinking the same thoughts, having the same emotions and acting out the same behaviors, neurons in the body repeatedly fire to each other – especially when emotion is involved.

These thoughts and emotions become addictive and keep us stuck in the same patterns of behavior.

Being the greatest expression of you allows you to be deeply fulfilled with who you are.

Not good enough became part of my personality

Here is a personal example that I wrote about in Becoming Slender For Life. “When I was 8 years old, my dad sold his 160 acre farm—all the cows, pigs, chickens, lambs and my horse. We left the big farm house and the wide open spaces of southern Minnesota for a small apartment above a motel that he bought in Iowa. I did not want to move. It was explained to me that my brother, who was 17 years old, did not want to farm and was moving to San Diego after graduation. And since I couldn’t do the work he did, and my dad didn’t want to do all the work himself, the farm had to be sold.

But what I heard was: I’m not good enough, I’m not capable and it was my fault we had to sell the farm. For many years, not good enough ran my life. For far too many years I lived my life with this perception. I accepted evidence that I was not good enough and added it as proof to support my perception.

One day many years later at a family reunion, one of my uncles asked my dad why he sold the farm. He replied that my brother didn’t want to farm and that I was only 8 years old at the time. An 8-year-old could not do the work of a 17-year-old and that at the age of 45, my dad didn’t want to do all the hard work himself.”

Invisible barriers

WOW! The emotional hit of my thinking that my Dad was telling me that I’m not good enough, hard-wired those neurons together. For the next 30 years, I lived my life with that belief. Not good enough became part of my personality. And every time those neurons fired I got an addictive hit of the chemical release from those neurons.

Intellectually, I could tell myself that that belief wasn’t true. But, and here’s the rub, when I tried to will-power my way to being good enough, my body went into chemical withdrawal because those neurons weren’t firing.

The wonkiness that my body experienced soon had me back in my safe, familiar, comfortable, known belief that kept me from moving forward with my goals.

These are the invisible barriers, the boundaries you create in your mind. Stuck in your tracks by a thought, by the feeling that some places are off limits, that where you are is safe as long as you stay put.

Lizard brain

Here is another way of understanding it: When you first learned to drive a car, you used your frontal lobe (new brain) to turn the key to start the engine. You put the car in reverse, backed up, stepped on the break, shifted into drive, got to the corner, stepped on the brakes, put on the turn signal and turned the corner. All very conscious thought.

Today when you drive, it’s become part of who you are. You no longer consciously think about stepping on the brake, you just do it. Your old brain (lizard brain) handles driving automatically. It’s the servant driving the master.

That’s how it is with personality traits like not good enough. It’s not a conscious thought to think that way. You don’t wake up in the morning thinking that this is a great day for me to be not good enough. It’s just your autopilot, it’s what you do.

Use your imagination

Due to the size of the human frontal lobe, you can make thought more real than anything else. You can create a new image of yourself just by using your own imagination.

When you are truly focused your brain does not know the difference between what is real in the external world and what you imagine in your mind. The thoughts you are embracing will become just like a real life experience in your mind. The moment this occurs, your brain up-scales its hardware to reflect what you’re imaging and intentionally thinking about.

The result is that when you change your mind, you change your brain, and when you change your brain, you change your mind.

What you repeatedly think about and what you focus your attention on is what you neurologically become. According to neuroscience you can mold and shape the neurological framework of yourself by the repeated attention you give to any one thing.

Rewire your brain

The good news is that neuroscience has proven that you can rewire or change your brain at any age. This ability to change your brain is called neuroplasticity. In fact, you can literally change your brain just by thinking differently.

Studies have shown that the brain does not know the difference between what it is thinking internally and what it is experiencing in its external environment.

In other words, if you are thinking that you are being chased by the saber-toothed tiger your body does not know the difference between actually being chased or imagining being chased. If you are imagining be chased by the tiger, your body produces that exact same chemicals as if you were literally being chased.

The opposite is also true, if you imagine relaxing on a Maui beach with the same level of emotion that you use to imagine fearful situations, your body produces the same brain tranquilizing chemicals as if you were really relaxing on the beach. (How Deep Relaxation Affects Brain Chemistry)

When you memorize being your best self – the greatest expression of you – and that becomes your norm, then you change your thoughts, you change your emotions and as a result your behavior changes. You create a new genetic expression that opens that path for health.