More than you can imagine

Our brains have the ability to heal themselves, as Dr. Doidge describes in his book The Brain’s Way of Healing: Stories of Remarkable Recoveries and Discoveries.

Neuroplasticity is one of the main discoveries about the brain in the twentieth century. It has dismantled the idea that the adult brain remains fixed and unchanging for the whole of our lives.

Thinking, learning and acting change how our brain functions, and even its physical anatomy.

Many of us think that what happens to us – how clever, healthy or able to speak languages we are – is determined by our genes. We think that we come with certain immutable capacity that limits our ability to do certain things.

But science has discovered that what we think, sense and learn changes our neuronal activity. This doesn’t mean that we have endless possibility to do whatever we want to do, but it does mean that our lives are not determined. We can do more than we imagine.

When we stop listening, learning and opening up to others we’re making choices about who we could potentially be.

The internal narrative about who we are and what we can achieve is more powerful than we think. It creates connections in our brain that influence how we see the world around us.

We don’t get where we want because we run fast and are clever but because we’re open: we see and imagine more about ourselves and about others.

#imagine #narrative #neuroplasticity