Here are five solutions to support you in rewiring your brain for your New Year’s Resolution success.

• Given that change is natural to my brain chemistry, why do I set the same goals each year to lose weight, eat healthier, exercise more or choose better relationships?
• How is it that I keep repeating the same patterns?

To answer this we first need to look at how your brain circuitry causes your habits. Every moment of every day your brain is recording all subtle and significant experiences. It takes this data and uses it to build what we call your neural architecture of experience. This results in the culmination of who you know yourself to be, why you think and feel the way you do, why you react the way you do and why you choose to do what you do. Your neural architecture is comprised of billions of neurons that connect to form networks or what are known as ‘brain maps’. Your brain maps correspond to all categories of your life experience. This is essentially the biological process of learning (or unlearning) and the resulting development of your habits of thought, emotion and action.

Similar to a road map, your brain maps serve as a reference for the roads you have travelled and guide you along your current life journey. They tell you where you have been, where you are and where you could go if you choose the same path. Similar to driving on auto-pilot to familiar destinations, the more you activate a brain map the stronger it becomes.

If you want to change your relationship with food, your body or your fitness level you will to need to identify a new road to travel down that is related to how you think, feel, perceive, imagine and act. Therefore, it is not enough to simply embark on the latest nutrition program or fitness routine and expect this to change your brain map! This is one of the pitfalls most people make that leads to a cycle of disappointment and frustration. You have to change your brain structure and function through the same biological means that creates your habits.

Let’s return to the most common question our clients ask, ‘Why do I keep repeating the same patterns over and over?’  Our answers:

• Every time you repeat a pattern you recycle the past, strengthen existing brain maps and make future change more challenging.
• You are only applying one element needed for change – action. You can’t rewire by action alone.
• You have to be willing to identify and rewire your existing brain maps on all levels of change; thoughts, emotions, perceptions, images and actions.

Perhaps you’ve heard it said before, ‘The only constant in life is change.’ Breakthroughs in neuroscience have led to a clearer understanding of how your brain holds the answer to changing your habits. The term neural plasticity has emerged to represent the brain’s capacity to change. One such discovery is that we are constantly developing new brain cells through a process called neurogenesis. Not too long ago it was believed that the brain cells you were born with were the only brain cells you were going to get.  As you can imagine neurogenesis has significant implications for people with brain conditions as well as anyone seeking to have good brain health into their Golden Years.

According to Norman Doidge, author of The Brain that Changes Itself, a second major finding is that your brain responds plastically to change by reorganizing or rewiring itself. He discovered the specific factors that cause your brain to rewire itself; how you perceive, think about, feel about, act towards and imagine a desired change.  Doidge’s findings challenge the dominantly held view that the functions that make up brain structures are hardwired and thus cannot change.

The discovery that you can rewire your brain is exciting in two ways:

1. It provides confidence that change is possible
2. It offers direct solutions to capitalize on the plastic nature of the brain to make desired changes last 
   You have the power to change & thus to be, do and have what you want.

   
   

Lasting Happiness

Did you know that the holidays offer an opportunity for you to strengthen one of the top predictors of lasting happiness? Here are a few hints about what we are referring to. Lasting happiness is not found in…

• Buying presents or opening presents.
• Eating festive foods or drinking holiday spirits.
• Holiday rituals, work bonuses or vacation time. 

 Socialize to Increase Your Health & Happiness

The magic of the holidays can be found in your human encounters. Lasting happiness is cultivated through your relationships with others. Research shows spending time with others causes your brain to release oxytocin and opioid peptides. These are powerful healing hormones that increase relaxation, calm the mind and reduce stress. To help demonstrate the importance of social connections, let’s consider what happens when you don’t engage in regular socializing. Not spending time with friends has been shown to be as detrimental to your health as smoking or being overweight according to Harvard Medical School.  That is a bold discovery and offers a strong incentive to allow your holiday socializing to be a source of health and happiness.

 Be a Leader of Connection vs. Disconnection

If you are like many people during this time of year your social calendar is full. Although social busyness can be a source of stress, if you are conscious about the benefits you can use it as a powerful strategy to replenish and rebalance your energy levels. Allow the holidays to serve as a resource of social support and meaningful connections. To assist you with making your holiday socializing meaningful we invite you to become a leader of connection vs. disconnection. Here are basic guidelines to foster connection in your communications; 

Coaching and Counseling

 Kim Ward Ph.D. and Hilary Stokes Ph.D., founders of Authenticity Associates Coaching and Counseling, have worked as a team for over 15 years. Their mission is to empower people to achieve their authentic potential. They specialize in bringing the synergistic power of mind, body and spirit to individuals and couples. They are passionate about combining the best of holistic and traditional approaches to realize whole body wellness. If you are looking for a holistic approach to improving your life please contact Hilary Stokes Ph.D. & Kimberly Ward Ph.D. at Authenticity Associates.

It is common to get caught in a cycle of being so busy working hard, that you don’t have time to work smart. This might look like pushing yourself harder and harder trying to increase your output without taking the time to improve the process and replenish your reserves. Work takes priority over everything else from time spent nurturing relationships, engaging in a healthy lifestyle or adequately restoring your energy. Working hard can be likened to using 80% of your effort to produce 20% of your results.

Work Smart Surplus

Most people think there is a limited amount of time and energy. They are operating under the premise that they better use it before they lose it. Do the work now while they have the time and energy because eventually it is going to run out. However, the scientific truth is there is more than enough, in fact according to quantum physics there is a surplus.

Zero Point Field – Everything Is Energy

Let’s break this down for you. According to the Zero Point Field, everything is energy. In fact the Zero Point Field demonstrates that we are comprised of 1 billion parts energy compared to 1 part physical matter. Your action is found in the 1 part physical, while your thoughts and emotions (or your mindset) are part of the 1 billion.

Mindset Leverage

Tapping into the power of your mindset gives you huge leverage. When you focus on your mindset first you are working smart. Mindset leverage allows you to use 20% of your effort to produce 80% of your results. Your thoughts and emotions are your largest energy generators according to the Zero Point Field. They are 1000’s of times more powerful than your actions.

Work Smart Practice

1. Align your thoughts and emotions with your actions. Identify 5 reasons why your current actions and goals are important to you. Make sure you can easily tap into your feelings about this.
2. Visualize so that you can materialize. Spend time imagining yourself accomplishing your goals and dreams. Be sure to engage your five senses and feelings of inspiration connected to your goal.
3. Take Inspired Action. After visualizing your success, clear your workspace and spend the first 90 minutes of your day engaged in your most important action.

Coaching and Counseling

Kim Ward Ph.D. and Hilary Stokes Ph.D., founders of Authenticity Associates Coaching and Counseling, have worked as a team for over 15 years. Their mission is to empower people to achieve their authentic potential. They specialize in bringing the synergistic power of mind, body and spirit to individuals and couples. They are passionate about combining the best of holistic and traditional approaches to realize whole body wellness. If you are looking for a holistic approach to improving your life please contact Hilary Stokes Ph.D. & Kimberly Ward Ph.D. at Authenticity Associates.

It is universally accepted that the state of your mind affects the state of your body. If you feel stressed out and overwhelmed you are likely to experience fatigue and muscle tension. Equally, if you feel happy and calm you are likely to have more energy and physical vitality. The mind and body exist within a dynamic relationship whereby every cell contains the essence of your thoughts and emotions. The implications of this are profound when you consider that you are having a 24/7 conversation with yourself.

Glass Half Full

What is the quality of your conversation? Do you tend to see the glass half full? If you answered yes, you can expect to have higher levels of happiness, life satisfaction and improved health. If you answered no, research shows that pessimism and high stress compromise well-being and lead to significant loss in confidence, motivation and productivity. In our work as a team for the past 15 years, we feel fortunate to have spent 10 of these years working in alternative medicine witnessing firsthand the mind, body and spirit connection to health and well-being.

Stress

An interesting fact you may not be aware of is that stress actually makes people less intelligent. When you don’t deal with stress effectively your thought process becomes rigid and simplistic and your ability to perform mental tasks and solve problems is diminished. Stress literally decreases oxygen flow to your brain thereby decreasing your mental clarity and creativity. It excites your nervous system causing you to feel edgy and less emotionally resilient and flexible with yourself and others. This is hardly the optimal mind-set for your health and success.

The Happiness Habit to Change Your Brain

Brain plasticity is an area of study that has received significant attention in the last 5 years. It refers to the ability of the brain to “re-wire” itself in response to conditions. What this means to you is that if you want to be happier you can change your brain by practicing new habits of mind. Contrary to popular belief, you don’t BREAK habits you simply REPLACE them. When you practice new habits you naturally weaken old ones. In doing so, you change your brain. Increasing happiness takes practice and conditioning much like building muscle mass through weight training. Comparing happiness to muscle development is a paradigm shift for many people. If you want to learn a new language, improve your tennis serve or build bigger biceps it is universally accepted that you must practice these new skills. The same is true for emotional well-being training.

Happiness Training

What are the specific areas of training that have been shown to increase happiness? First consider that happiness is not just an emotion. Happy people have identifiable happiness characteristics that lead to seeing the glass half full, which anyone can develop with focus, practice and conditioning.

Top Four Happiness Characteristics

1. Purpose in life—Do you feel your life has meaning and that you make a positive contribution?
1. Self acceptance – Do you appreciate who you are?
2. Strong social relationships–Do you have a core group of people who you connect with regularly?
3. Feeling of control—Do you feel empowered to make desired changes in your life?

Happiness is a universally aspired state of being and more than available to every one of us through practice and training!

Coaching and Counseling

Kim Ward Ph.D. and Hilary Stokes Ph.D., founders of Authenticity Associates Coaching and Counseling, have worked as a team for over 15 years. Their mission is to empower people to achieve their authentic potential. They specialize in bringing the synergistic power of mind, body and spirit to individuals and couples. They are passionate about combining the best of holistic and traditional approaches to realize whole body wellness. If you are looking for a holistic approach to improving your life please contact Hilary Stokes Ph.D. & Kimberly Ward Ph.D. at Authenticity Associates.

An ancient proverb reminds us that only brave souls walk the human path, for the earthly existence is enshrouded in a veil of illusion. Choosing to walk a spiritual path provides an opportunity to live life with an open heart. Living open heartedly means we must fearlessly face our old patterns, transform self sabotage and bring the light of conscious awareness to our shadow. This is a lifelong excursion. There is a common misconception that living spiritually means everything gets easier yet this is often quite far from the truth. Speaking from personal experience the road can at times get quite bumpy regardless of how many years or hours of spiritual practice. It is true that the solutions for dealing with challenges tend to become simpler however the journey is not necessarily easier. As teachers of the principles we are humbled by how often we feel like beginning students. It is however this variety and diversity that electrify and intensify the ride of evolution.

Spiritual path

The spiritual pathis not a linear path on a horizontal surface. This would be too boring and quite unfulfilling. It is rather a dynamic journey filled with many twists and turns and ups and downs. The inherent complexity and dynamism provide the thrill and momentum on the ride and are in fact the necessary ingredients for the evolution of the human soul. The more you experience yourself going up after being down or balancing yourself around a steep curve the more you gain mastery of your emotions, thoughts and behaviors.

Spiritual Bypass

An interesting phenomena known as spiritual bypasscan deter one from the path of true transformation. According to John Weldwood, spiritual bypass is a term used to describe what happens when spiritual practice and principles are used to avoid dealing with the emotional complexity of being human. In this sense spiritual bypass looks like seeking an enlightened state while denying the fact that you haven’t completely dealt with an issue or resolved a hurt. It is prematurely attempting to put an issue to rest while claiming an awakened state of mind regarding it. As such emotional challenges, patterns of self sabotageand past hurts are minimized and avoided in an effort to appear spiritually enlightened and nonattached.

Spiritual Being, Human Being

In an interview with John Weldwood titled Human Nature, Buddha Nature, Weldwood discusses common pitfalls due to spiritual bypass. Specifically, attempting to be more spiritual than human creates a natural disconnect. It has been said that we are not human beings having a spiritual experience but rather we are spiritual beings having a human experience. This statement does not deny or supersede the relevance of the human experience but rather includes it fully. When we attempt to rise above our humanness we create separation and dissonance between mind, body and spirit. This is the opposite of Universal Oneness that is so often highly regarded as spiritual truth. After all, as long as we exist in the human realm to deny this basic reality is to disallow our full spiritual potential in the present moment. Perhaps the statement, ‘Be here now’ sums this up.

Face Your Feelings

Spiritual bypass can occur when the desire to be a star student of spiritual principles surpasses authentically dealing with the messiness of human emotions. ‘The only way out is through.’ This statement has certainly applied to our personal experiences as students on the journey. It is the understanding that the only way out of suffering and into enlightenment is to stop avoiding feelings and instead courageously face them by going through the emotional process. For example maybe your spiritual practice includes living in gratitude, acting from love or spreading peace wherever you go. Yet let’s say you are feeling stressed or upset and not authentically aligned with peace or love. Perhaps you are not dealing with issues you are experiencing in a relationship or you are repeating an old pattern that is causing you to feel regretful. You could go through your day believing you should write a gratitude list or meditate on love or repeat positive affirmationsor only wish peace for yourself or others. Understandably by doing these practices you may actually feel better yet more than likely this is temporary. This can be likened to spreading a layer of asphalt over a pothole in the road without fixing the underlying structure. It may temporarily resolve the issue and make the road smooth but eventually the pothole will emerge again. Said another way, this is like attempting to experience a happy ending from an unhappy journey. This doesn’t work. Given you have feelings to be felt, if you pretend you don’t have feelings by avoiding them you will simply add to the size and weight of the pothole of emotions under the surface. These feelings will continue to reemerge until they are addressed.

Spiritual Authenticity

Many people would agree that being authentic is a spiritual principle whereas being in-authentic or pretending to be something you are not is not being very spiritual. So how does one believe they are spiritual when authentically feeling negative feelings or thinking unloving thoughts? We agree it can be challenging to honestly acknowledge unloving, unkind or even inappropriate thoughts, feelings or behaviors. It was Sai Baba who said the only difference between himself and others is that he has transcended guilt. Perhaps there is a vital lesson here. What if you did not feel bad or guilty for any personal shortcomings? What if you offered yourself the compassion and forgiveness you so willingly give to others? What if you courageously faced any shortcomings until transforming them?

Move Your Emotional Energy

To help with this we would like to offer our approach to working with emotion. Let’s consider a new definition of emotion. Emotion is simply energy in motion. As such, if you feel uncomfortable feelings notice how they are experienced in your body and allow this energy to move. In order to do this effectively, it is essential to stay out of your head, your story or your reasons for what you are feeling and why you are feeling it and instead just allow the feelings to move through your body. This can be likened to a form of mindfulness meditation regarding your emotional experience. Given this definition or perspective, you are actually working with the natural rhythm of emotion. This may be experienced as sensations of contraction and expansion. At first you will feel contracted and then as you allow your emotional energy to move it will release itself and you will feel relief or expansion. It is possible to experience an internal shift from contraction into expansion swiftly and simply when you move your emotional energy from your body vs. your head. This idea takes into consideration the importance of actually feeling your feelings vs. just talking about your feelings or avoiding feeling. After tending to your emotions you are now authentically ready for connecting with more loving states. Moving through contraction into expanded states of emotional relief offers fertile ground for applying spiritual practices such as gratitude, positive affirmations, peace or purpose.

Spiritual and Human Experience

To fully embrace both the spiritual and human experience is courageous, dynamic, at times messy and deeply enriching. There are highs and lows on your spiritual path but rest assured this too shall pass. Courage and fearlessness are called into being to live both the spiritual and human experience fully. Tools on the journey include a still mind, embracing change, living on purpose and residing in the present moment.

Coaching and Counseling

Kim Ward Ph.D. and Hilary Stokes Ph.D., founders of Authenticity Associates Coaching and Counseling, have worked as a team for over 15 years. Their mission is to empower people to achieve their authentic potential. They specialize in bringing the synergistic power of mind, body and spirit to individuals and couples. They are passionate about combining the best of holistic and traditional approaches to realize whole body wellness. If you are looking for a holistic approach to improving your life please contact Hilary Stokes Ph.D. & Kimberly Ward Ph.D. at Authenticity Associates.

The Law of Exposure states, what you expose yourself to dramatically shapes how you think, feel and act. Applying the Law of Exposure proactively takes deliberate action daily. It is a moment to moment conscious choice. If what you expose yourself to is not a reflection of that which you want to create more of in your life than you are going to be working against yourself.
Do the television programs you watch represent how you want to think, feel and act?
Do you watch programs or movies that reflect your values, goals and highest good?

Success = Your Values, Goals and Highest Good

Everything is programming your mind. Your mind records everything you experience, whether you consciously remember it or not. This includes all sensory and perceptive exposure to people, your environment, music, the computer, television etc… What you take in from your environment influences how you think, feel and act. Is your environment programming your mind for success or failure? If it represents your values, goals and highest good then you are programming your mind for success. If it does not reflect these elements than it is time to evaluate what you expose yourself to.

Programming Your Mind For Success

Make a list of what you expose yourself to on a daily or weekly basis. This list includes television programs, music, movies, internet, people, environments, social scenes, etc.
Do you feel uplifted or drained after watching television or being around certain people?
How often do you read or watch the news?
How can you make your environment reflect health, vitality, well-being and success?

Consider watching more comedies, choose to read a good book or spend time in nature, post inspiring quotes or touching pictures at your workspace, and choose to be around positive people.

Coaching and Counseling

Kim Ward Ph.D. and Hilary Stokes Ph.D., founders of Authenticity Associates Coaching and Counseling, have worked as a team for over 15 years. Their mission is to empower people to achieve their authentic potential. They specialize in bringing the synergistic power of mind, body and spirit to individuals and couples. They are passionate about combining the best of holistic and traditional approaches to realize whole body wellness. If you are looking for a holistic approach to improving your life please contact Hilary Stokes Ph.D. & Kimberly Ward Ph.D. at Authenticity Associates.

If you are not getting the results you want from your New Years Resolutions than it may be time to apply the Law of Exposure. Simply stated, what you expose yourself to dramatically shapes your thinking, feeling and acting. In other words, you are a product of your environment. Consider that watching the news can be hazardous to your health. Research reveals just minutes of watching the news can increase your heart rate, blood pressure and irritability while decreasing your immune response. The Law of Exposure applies not only to those elements of your environment that directly tempt you but also to those indirect elements that cause high stress.

High Stress & Relapse

High stress is the number reason people relapse, fall off the wagon or get sidetracked from following through on their New Years Resolutions. Direct temptations include; hanging out at your local dessert shop or purposely walking by the open box of donuts at the office if you are trying to lose weight. They also include going to a smoky bar if you are attempting to quit smoking or cut back on your alcohol intake. Indirect factors include anything that causes high stress levels such as watching the news, hanging out with people who complain or focus on the negative side of things, procrastinating, overfilling your schedule or whatever you perceive to be stress producing.

Consciously choosing what you take in, what you allow to influence you in the form of people, all forms of media and technology, your environment etc… is one of the most important choices you make on a practical level each day to create results with your New Years Resolutions.

Coaching and Counseling

Kim Ward Ph.D. and Hilary Stokes Ph.D., founders of Authenticity Associates Coaching and Counseling, have worked as a team for over 15 years. Their mission is to empower people to achieve their authentic potential. They specialize in bringing the synergistic power of mind, body and spirit to individuals and couples. They are passionate about combining the best of holistic and traditional approaches to realize whole body wellness. If you are looking for a holistic approach to improving your life please contact Hilary Stokes Ph.D. & Kimberly Ward Ph.D. at Authenticity Associates.

Every thought and emotion has its own energetic signature or wave frequency. Quantum mechanics has demonstrated how a wave frequency can be altered. The shape of a wave has peaks and valleys. Energy waves are encoders and carriers of information with an infinite capacity for storage. When you overlay an opposite shaped wave on to an original wave, the original wave is straightened. Essentially you cancel out the characteristics of the original wave by overlaying a new exact opposite set of peaks and valleys on top of it. You change the energetic signature.

Sound Waves

This has been demonstrated with sound waves where researchers are attempting to create a quiet environment. You can use sound to literally cancel and silence unwanted noises. This technology is used for corporate offices adjacent to noisy businesses or in doctors and counseling offices where voices can be heard between treatment rooms or in the car industry to make engines quieter.

Mechanics of Changing Thoughts

Let’s extend this now to understanding the mechanics of changing thoughts or emotional patterns. Comprehending this is taking into consideration the subatomic causal level of thinking and feeling. If you identify an exact opposite positive thought to counter a negative thought you are using this principle. Take a moment and think about the word stress. Now take a moment and think about the word relax. Think about the word fear and now the word safe. It sounds simple and it is. The trick is you have over 60, 000 thoughts per day to work with. In any case, this is the basic idea and where the positive thinking movement has made a powerful impact in changing lives.

Health Awareness

You can apply this awareness to your health. The body has 60 trillion cells. Each cell has its own energetic signature or wave frequency that is highly sensitive to your thoughts and emotions.

Goals and Dreams

You can apply this to creating your goals and dreams. Like energy attracts like energy. Focus on what you want and get what you want. Begin to live from the place of already having what it is that you desire and notice how events, circumstances and people begin to show up in your life to help you create exactly what you want.

Coaching and Counseling

Kim Ward Ph.D. and Hilary Stokes Ph.D., founders of Authenticity Associates Coaching and Counseling, have worked as a team for over 15 years. Their mission is to empower people to achieve their authentic potential. They specialize in bringing the synergistic power of mind, body and spirit to individuals and couples. They are passionate about combining the best of holistic and traditional approaches to realize whole body wellness. If you are looking for a holistic approach to improving your life please contact Hilary Stokes Ph.D. & Kimberly Ward Ph.D. at Authenticity Associates.