Practicing Yoga, even when anxious.

In my eight week series Returning to Ease, to help work with and manage emotions, I outline the difference between the brain and the mind. 

Here is a Cole's Notes summary of the difference between the brain and the mind. When we realize that the mind is not simply the thoughts in the brain, we can use the mind to change the brain.

Now, for a speedy review:

BRAIN: is part of the extended nervous system that’s distributed throughout the body, about a 100 billion neurons in the skull of the brain.

• Allowing an action potential through a neurotransmitter, across a synapse and then the receptors  receive the action potential  -- 2 neurons communicating with each other,

• Neurons which fire together wire together—learned behavior becomes how we are acting.

• The brain works from the connections of the synopsis from one bridging to the other. The probability of the pathways is based on habits: what we see; what we believe.

The mind is not simply the thoughts that occur in the brain.

 A core aspect of the mind:

·      it’s relational and embodied.

·      a processor that regulates the flow of energy and information—HOW IT IS PERCEIVED

 The mind is a relational and embodied processor.

The mind is the emergent self-organizing process that’s arising from both the body and our relationships (with each other and the world).

The mind is a processor, it is not JUST taking its cues from the brain! It is taking the information and then processing that information into its view of what is happening.

The good news about the mind:

The mind can change the natural proclivities of the brain.

You can use the mind to change the brain.

We change the brain--what are thoughts--are by PAUSING. After reviewing mindful techniques and many tools to help with hard emotions, I have seen that to manage and work with an emotion we pause, stop the thought that is pulling us into negative perceptions.

In the next blog entry, I will outline how this can be experienced.