blah blah
G: I wrote
a tiny bit more in our vacation post, but you might want to wait until
I'm finished one day to go back and read it all. At the moment I can't
remember anything we did to report on, except on Saturday we went to a
party at Tim's house, and had a lot of fun. Other things that happened
this week: yoga, house cleaning, teaching lots of classes. John
and I went running just down the hill and back with Joey one night
(about 1.7 miles). I guess I don't feel much like writing news today,
so that will be all.
dishwashing and brainwashing
J: Here are several ways you can
physically rewire your brain:
- Physical trauma — not recommended; results are usually bad.
- Psychological trauma — ditto.
- Surgery — expensive and difficult, with varying success
rates.
- Chemicals — tricky, but effective for some; risk of
addiction.
- Meditation — ditto.
- Force of habit — the cheapest and most reliable way to
rewire your brain is by active, willful repetition. For some people
this is also a difficult method to implement.
This is what washing dishes (and then falling in love with washing
dishes) taught me, in an amazingly short time. The best way to
reprogram yourself is to run a program over and over, until
it
wants to run itself. The habits you form with your whole body
modify your thoughts and feelings, and even your personality. Recent
scientific studies have shown that these habit-induced modifications to
the brain are physical— new neuron paths grow, new chemical reactions
happen.
We are all constantly brainwashing ourselves, usually inadvertently.
Not all brainwashing is good, so choose your habits carefully when you
can. It's difficult to rewrite or delete a program that's already
running. Often this requires running new routines to attack the
unwanted one.