Most people do not realize how powerful their brain is. Most people do not realize that each one is the programmer and the operator. One could call the brain the most sophisticated computer ever created. Our brain has a neuro network that is unending. It is said that there are over six billion people populating the Earth. Six billion computer brains! Each brain is programmed by culture, parents, ethnic group, religion, school, governments, politics and so on. Therefore each brain is never identical to another brain. Amazing!
From my research, it appears that the operator of the brain uses emotions, experiences and beliefs to determine the program along with the acceptance of what one is taught as well as the acceptance of what our churces profess, movies, books, schools, friends and relatives.
If we don't like the life we are living, we can change it by changing the program running. I grew up in Texas during the time of segregation. There was so much bigotry and prejudice and I went along with the program. However, I had a dream of traveling the world and an opportunity came when I was 23. I began working for the Foreign Service branch of the U.S. State Department as a code clerk with my first post of duty being the embassy in Paris. Talk about a change in programming! It didn't take me long to realize that what I had been taught about segregation was a big lie because I found intelligent and wonderful black people in Paris and working with them at the embassy.
Beliefs are changeable. I have found that when a person's belief is locked into the brain and the person is unwilling to change it, then it becomes a closed mind. It is through knowledge and experience that we change our beliefs. Knowledge gives us power to make choices.
I have learned over the years to shed beliefs that are limiting and this has meant giving up resentments, guilt, prejudices and bigotry. Along with that I have given up jealousy, lack, and a host of other limiting emotions and attitudes. Periodically I take an inventory of my beliefs and attitudes and if I find them limiting, I change them. There is a wise statement that when we change our attitudes then we change our minds. When we change our minds, we change our lives.
Well said. When I look back at myself over fifty years, I often see someone I really don't like in some way. But later on in the timeline I see the change of heart needed to make a better, more balanced person. My twenty years in South Africa has been one long epiphany.
It's a pity that so many people disbelieve that people can and do change.
Keith