Thoughts Made Real

Grace Moy O’Brien

(published in EZ Australia vol. 16- 19/20)

Can you make your thoughts come true? Well, neuroscience says that it is possible. It depends on how mindful you are of your thoughts. When you think, your brain fires electrical impulses and forms neurological connections and pathways that reflect your thoughts. As world renowned neuropsychologist Donald Hebb states, “nerve cells that fire together wire together.”

This process gives rise to emotions corresponding to those thoughts, and your body undergoes a physiological and chemical change as a result. Angry thoughts evoke emotions of anger, and the internal laboratory of your body produces the corresponding hormones and chemicals that match that emotion. If you keep thinking the same thoughts, and continue to feel angry, you will trigger a repetitive loop that ultimately hardwires your brain and you end up being an angry person. This then becomes your natural state of being.  

So, can you change who you are by changing the way you think, ultimately creating a new reality? Neuroscience’s answer is yes.

Take the above example. When those repetitive angry thoughts become hardwired, you could say that you are locked into a habit of being angry. How do you then break this habit? The first thing is to become mindful of the silent incessant non productive chatter that goes on in your head. Be aware that it is pointless to keep telling yourself not to think the very thought you don’t want! This is because it is very difficult for the brain to process a double negative. Say if I were to tell you that no matter what you do, you must not think of a green elephant. What just happened there? Your brain had an image of a green elephant before you told it not to think it!

A better tactic would be to change your focus and choose a different thought. When you no longer think those angry thoughts, the nerve cells will stop firing and the hardwiring will be disconnected. 

Neuroscience tells us that it is equally if not more important to also feel the emotion that goes with that thought. For example, thinking of love and peace needs to be accompanied by the feeling and emotion of love and peace in your body, as this sets off a cascade of positive chemicals to bathe your cells. 

As modern day prophet, teacher and author Neville Goddard puts it:

“Health, wealth, beauty, and genius are not created; they are only manifested by the arrangement of your mind - that is, by your concept of yourself, and your concept of yourself is all that you accept and consent to as true.”

So imagine the life you want, feel it, breathe it! And wasn’t it Albert Einstein who said, 

“Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.”