Imagining your way out
While we'll probably never again be blank slates, it's not too late to change even as adults. Old dogs can learn new tricks.
Thanks to Rufus for pointing out this fascinating article. The author, a neuroscientist named Susan Greenfield, discusses how the human brain continuously -- not just in childhood -- remains plastic and changes at the microcellular level in response to experiences and stimuli.
She briefly describes an experiment involving three groups of adults who had never played the piano. One group sat in a room with the piano but had nothing to do with it, a second group was given intensive piano lessons, and the last group was told to imagine themselves going through the piano exercises. The brain scan results? Not surprisingly, the control group (the one that did nothing) showed no changes in their brains. The group that did the piano exercises showed significant structural changes in the parts of their brain that govern finger movements, but most surprisingly of all, the group that imagined playing the piano showed almost as much change in their brains as those who actually played the piano!
Greenfield's article dealt with her worries about the effect of technology and psychoactive drugs on our brains; however, for me, that piano experiment struck another chord: What implications does this have for people like me, people who need to heal from trauma?
Here's another interesting article about "lies" versus what we might call "future truths." In the experiment described in that article, college students were asked about their grades and academic histories. Almost half embellished their records, but instead of becoming tensed and stressed when lying -- which happens to people who are lying in order to cover up crimes, for instance -- they became more relaxed as they lied. To paraphrase the article, this was because their goal was not to deceive; rather, the "lies" can be seen as a statement of aspiration or an attempt to project themselves toward their goals. In earlier studies, the research team found that students who exaggerated their grade point average actually went on to bump up their grades, often by the very amount they exaggerated.
I'll admit that I'm engaging in dubious speculation and making connections that may not be sound. But what I read in those articles resonates so much with my own experience. Imagining things: that's exactly what I had to do to get healthy. I told myself all the good things I wanted to believe about myself, and I acted as though I really believed it. There is a starting point: you, unhappy, feeling broken. Then there's a goal point: you, healed, whole.
How do you bridge those states? How on earth do you get to the goal? There's no map or set of instructions. All you can do, really, is imagine yourself there. In my case, I suddenly, almost magically, found myself there. My old thought habits are greatly diminished, if not totally gone. Granted, the magic was only in hindsight; I did a lot of work, invisible work because it was all in my head.
How the fuck do you change your head, you might ask? Well, it's YOUR damn head! You have a CHOICE.
This fucken works, man. I'm not the same person I used to be. My brain is different. It is absolutely possible to change something as seemingly fundamental as your personality.
