Some 20 years ago, when neuroscientist and physiologist Igor Mitrovic began collaborating with me on the development of EBT, I began learning more about how the method was changing the brain.
As you start your EBT Journey, appreciate that switching over to this new brain-based paradigm of thinking about life and reshaping your automatic responses requires using the method and moving through the EBT Program gently over time.
The ideas of EBT are all pure neuroscience, but they are so radically different from cognitive or medical models that it takes hearing them many times and in many ways before you say, "Now I get it!" and feel a wave of relaxation in your body.
The purpose of this blog post is to share a couple of these ideas with you, my big three learnings about life that were most unfathomable but extremely helpful to me.
Take Charge #1. We are our circuits.
This was the most challenging one for me to accept. I can see my hands, and they are real. I have sensations in my body, and they are real, too. I can be aware of my thoughts and impulses to take various actions.
Yet all of them are controlled by which circuit my unconscious mind, my emotional brain, happens to have activated in the moment. Each of us has trillions of connections between circuits in our brain, but we focus on the precise wires that control our responses in EBT.
Take Charge #2. Circuits activate brain states.
Circuits are stored in the amygdala, and when a wire is activated, it creates a physiologic brain state. Every cell, organ, and organ system is impacted by our brain state.
Even though there are thousands of brain states, only five resiliency skills are needed to control them, so EBT uses a five-level stress system: the EBT 5-Point System of Emotional and Behavioral Regulation.
Take Charge #3. We can change our brain state and our lives.
The brain-based approach to controlling life is to be a great "consumer" of brain states. If you do not like your thoughts, feelings, sensations, or behavior, remember that they are results of wires. Do not analyze "why" you are having a particular experience. You are having it because your brain has activated that circuit.
If you do not like that experience, reach for your Spiral Up! mobile app and identify which of three Spiral Up! pathways you want to use – 1, 2, or 3 – and use the corresponding tools to spiral up to Brain State 1, where you are naturally strong, good, and wise.
Begin thinking of life in terms of EBT.
As you move through your day today, remind yourself that the most direct way to change your health and quality of life is to recognize that you are experiencing life through the lens of whatever wire your unconscious mind happens to have activated, but you are in control. Do not judge that experience or ruminate about it. You don't have time, as life is short! Instead, reach for your app and spiral up.
No matter what was bothering you, you have just practiced optimal resilience and, with each spiral up, drawn upon the power of neuroplasticity to change your brain and take control of your life.