Hack Your Brain: How To Free Your Mind

At times, we feel our potential is blocked by feelings of insecurity, self-doubt, fear, or simply a lack of self-confidence. These blockages are not always easy to reduce. At those moments, our inner blockages are not open to suggestions of the mind or kind suggestions of others. In these moments, we need a strategy that directly impacts the emotional structures of the brain. In today’s session, we look at a few examples of situations where our own potential is blocked.

When making a decision, consciously or unconsciously, there are many inner voices that try to drive us. Some voices are loud and clear, others are shy and more difficult to hear. In today’s session, we will have a closer look at these voices. Although voices that are important to our life purpose can be powerful and fully present today, at times they lose power over voices that are related to feelings of insecurity, fear, or self-doubt. As you will come to learn, our decisions and behaviour are a result of two processes: the fast and slow process. When both processes are in conflict with each other, this can bring us in a challenging situation.

In this session, we are going to have a look at those situations that pose a challenge on us due to the fact that our reward system is trying to powerfully influence our behaviour. These are situations where we are trying not to overeat, reduce our sugar intake, drink less or no alcohol, or stop smoking. In these situations, we experience a conflict between the reward system that is driving us toward ‘forbidden’ goods and the prefrontal cortex, which is trying to achieve your long-term goals.

The most common inner blockages are caused by too much activation in the brain region that is connected to feelings of anxiety, stress, insecurity, and self-doubt: the amygdala. Although we need the amygdala for survival and our emotional lives, too much activation can seriously block our potential and present us with a real energy drain. You will find out how the activation level of the amygdala and prefrontal cortex fluctuates during the day and consequently, influences our behaviour in different ways.

Self-regulation is one of the most important predictors of success in life, both privately, as well as in our professional life. There are two different categories of self-regulation strategies. Today, we are going to have a look at the first category - the so-called cognitive self-regulation strategies. These strategies are called cognitive as they need the prefrontal cortex, our mental battery, to be applied. We will have a look at cognitive re-appraisal and perspective change as two powerful strategies, which can help us prepare for or process challenging situations.

In this session, I will introduce to you a very powerful self-regulation strategy: a non-cognitive self-regulation strategy. This is a strategy that can strongly reduce our inner blockages and give our prefrontal cortex a boost. Moreover, this is a strategy that, in the long run, will prevent inner blockages from building up that intensely. This is the key to unlocking your inner power and releasing your unique potential.

Today we will put the newly acquired theory from yesterday into practice. Experience how you can apply mindfulness meditation by activating the Direct Experience Network in our brain and de-activate the Default Mode Network, or monkey mind. Regularly usimg mindfulness meditation can be a real life changer. In the long run, it will permanently calm the monkey mind, reduce your inner blockages, and give smoother and more powerful access to our inner power and unique potential.