Mastering your mind

“until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life, and you will it fate” Carl Yung

 The quest to understand the brain, the most complex object fascinated humans for a very long time.  The last hundred or so of serious scientific and experimental studies revealed a great deal about the workings of the brain.  For example, we now know that our senses turn into electrical signals, different parts of the brain process these electrical signals, how muscles are controlled and how memories are created.  We even know which brain region get activated when we hear, think, see, feel, imagine or dream.

 However despite the achievements and leaps of success, neuroscientists have been unable to produce a coherent understanding, formula or theory to explain exactly how the brain works.  It is suggested that our brain is the product of half a billion years of evolutionary development.  It performs limitless activities – memory, thinking, perception, reasoning, attention, emotions, impulses, etc.  The brain uses an extremely complex range and types of cells, connecters, receptors, etc.  It is estimated that our brain has:

• 100 billion number of nerve cells
• 1 million numbers of neural connections formed every second.   

 In the last 20 years or so significant scientific inroads were made towards understanding emotions. The large amount of neurobiological data emerging that give us glimpses of understanding of how the brain centres for emotions move us to anger or tears, and how deeper parts of the brain, which stir us to love, fight, sympathise,etc. are channelled for better or for worse.  The new insights challenges the traditional Western focus on intellect and views of the brain as a rational, factual, calculating sophisticated super computer.  It highlights equally important factors such as emotions, environment and circumstances in every day human behaviour and human interactions.

Until now our upbringing, our education, our values and ethics has been hugely dictated by the Intellect. The role of Emotions in these areas has not been appreciated and left to chance.  In fact, Western culture regarded emotions as wishy- washy even backward traits of unsophisticated people.

Whether we are the result of creation or evolution, nature or nurture or we act mostly in rational or emotional manner; our minds are a treasure chest of facts, figures, information and our subconscious is a memory bank of events, experiences and wisdom.

Throughout this programme/book, we explore ways to appreciate our minds and develop strategies, tools and techniques to maximise our potentials based on our own volition rather than being led and coerced by others. 

We can learn to exercise control over our mind. If we are not happy the way things are, we can change it.  Anything that is not desirable and not compatible with our wishes and demands can be changed. 

 All we need is to do two things:

1. Take control of our mind by becoming self-reliant and learning to develop an enabling attitude that is based on self-belief, self-assurance, self-acceptance, self-respect and self-approval in whatever we do.
2. Take control of our mind by stopping and reigning in negative, limiting, restricting, restraining and off-putting attitudes arising from our fears, guilt, arrogance, deceit and lack of confidence and self belief. 

Here we look at the following:

1. Historical Background
2. Brain, Mind and Conscious
3. The Multi-mind
4. Decisions and Distortions
5. Heart and Mind
6. Rational and Emotional Intelligence
7. 7 Tips on using your Mind effectively.