The power of the mind is so strong, it programs your whole DNA. Find out how your thoughts, subconscious, and unconscious affect you.
How the Human Mind Affects the Body
How Does Mindset Affect the Perception of Reality?
Every second of every day your body is physically reacting and changing in response to your thoughts. It’s been proven again and again that every thought is so powerful that it causes your brain to release neurochemicals which heavily influence your perception.
In fact, these are so powerful that they quite literally become encoded in your DNA.
Happy, confident people create their own happiness and confidence. They harness the power of their mind to create the outcomes they want by believing in their true self and achieving what they set their mind to―the doors of opportunity are open to them.
But, miserable people imprison themselves in negative thoughts, creating walls and dead ends. Their lives are filled with scarcity as they recall all the reasons why they haven’t led a happier life.
They just can’t seem to get beyond their negative feelings. They can’t think beyond their emotions. They are imprisoned by what is called the memorized self.
Your reality is created by your mind. How you see things becomes your destiny. If you want to change the direction of your life, you must change your perception.
So, how do you break free of old, inaccurate perceptions encoded in your DNA to achieve what you want in life? You’ll find out as we go along, but first...
What Is the Memorized Self?
The memorized self is your view or perception of who you believe you are. It’s created through repetition of the associations we make between thoughts, emotions, experiences, and behaviors.
This ongoing internal conversation becomes known as your implicit memory or implicit belief. This type of memory is stored in your neural pathways, and DNA and heavily impacts how you view yourself and who you become.
Implicit memory is made up of unconscious cognitive and emotional patterns relating to ourselves and other people. It’s the kind of memory you’re not even aware of as it’s been learned so well it just makes you feel like you.
It guides your experiences, behavior, thoughts, and feelings basically on autopilot without any effort from you.
Think of the implicit memory like a set of instructions or procedures in the brain and on your DNA. It's set in your subconscious mind, and implicit memory is created early in your life.
The Connection Between Implicit Memory and Early Life Experiences
Changing a procedure so embedded in your mind and body is by no means easy as we are not really fully conscious of what’s driving those thoughts and negative core beliefs.
Implicit memory begins forming at a young age, from in-utero up to about 7-8 years old. It starts to create the basis of our character.
At this age, theta brain wave patterns are dominant and this dominance means you are easily influenced by your environment in terms of how you should see yourself. As a child develops and grows, it’s not due to a genetic blueprint alone, but their environment also affects their development sequencing, and strong associations formed.
Because of this, early life experiences play a huge role in shaping how the human brain functions and how implicit memory functions. For example, if you have a traumatic experience early in childhood when the neural systems responsible for fear are still developing, then this can have a negative effect later on in life.
High-risk children who live in chronic chaotic environments literally change their baseline responsivity. These types of patterned responses form into implicit memory that program your response to your environment and experiences.
Children are a product of “signaling.” What I mean by this is the process that either strengthens or weakens our perception of ourselves either genetically or environmentally.
Children can often make incorrect observations of their experiences, which can lead to negative thinking and a negative outcome: fear, anxiety, negative beliefs, extreme consciousness of the self, destructive response to pain, lack of drive or desire, and addiction.
But, this doesn’t mean you are stuck like this. Just because you had a poor childhood or developed bad habits at an early age doesn’t mean you can’t change your implicit memory.
Implicit memory is procedural. This means if it’s going to change, it needs a strategic approach.
You can override your current implicit memory. Once you set your mind to it, you can and will change what’s encoded in your DNA.
How Do You Change Your Current Implicit Memory?
So what should be your strategy for changing implicit or procedural memory? Well with procedural memory, you can’t just tell yourself “Don’t be stubborn!” and hope for the best.
Procedural memory stores the instructions for our automatic responses, but more importantly, it’s the basis of our character and makes up those parts about yourself that are unique to you.
Change is not going to happen immediately, but with deliberate practice and repetition, you can turn the desired belief, emotional state, or behavior into a permanent way of being.
Once we learn to see ourselves in a healthy way, our new emotional states and behaviors become “programmed” into the procedural memory system. This frees us up from being self-absorbed and allows you to become better attuned to your relationships in a healthy, productive way.
Belief is encoded in procedural memory. Since belief drives the memorized or procedural self, it is important to produce positive, realistic thoughts as it is our perception of ongoing experience that shape belief.
An example of how implicit, procedural memory can be changed comes from a personal experience, when playing golf.
RELATED: How Exercise Improves Cognitive Function And Overall Brain Health
I was a self-taught golfer. My swing, the way I held the club, my stance, and so on were developed to compensate for a slice.
I had played golf like this for years. I finally decided to go and take some golf lessons and now, I was up against it because I had learned my old swing so well, the change did not come automatically; it took a concerted effort to learn the better way.
The old neural pathways in my brain interfered with the new ones I was trying to create. It’s hard to interrupt a well-established procedure.
Truth is, the original neural pathways, though weakened, may continue to show up at times, until the new neural pathway becomes so well learned that the old one dissipates. In other words, the new, regulated pathways eventually replace the old ones.
Forming a new “procedure” or implicit memory can take a while to learn but once you can see the way an incorrect view of yourself drives physical and mental health, you can learn how to develop a healthy implicit memory. A truthful and positive implicit memory is going to make life incredibly easier.
However, you can’t change a procedure unless and until you pay attention to how and when it operates. Your mind allows you to observe, and it’s this observation that produces every thought you have.
So, by observing the components of the internal conversation that led to the organization of your unhealthy implicit belief, you can organize your thoughts in a way to see yourself accurately.
Your thoughts are so powerful and the neurochemicals released as a result of these thoughts influence your perception. The mind-body connection is so strong that the body and brain respond and react in a number of correlated ways.
The life-long negative thoughts that circulate in your mind are massive contributors to stress and disease within the body. Chronic stress can cause negative changes within the body resulting in adverse responses such as anger, depression, misery, or confusion.
Your genes also impact your opinion of yourself. So, your parental inheritance and environmental epigenetic signals (link to epigenetics article) can shape self-perception.
Creative Visualization Is a Powerful Tool
Visualization or observation is an extremely powerful tool that can stimulate the brain to generate strong mind-body connections. It works to harness the power of the organ to create new learnings, thought patterns, habits, or behaviors using mental imagery.
Let me be clear when I say the brain is not the mind.
The mind observes things and the brain wires in response to the mind. Neural pathways can be formed with incorrect or correct information depending on what the mind observes.
To change our reality and truly heal ongoing negative patterns, physically and mentally, the power is in the mind. We do have the ability to fully recover.
Think of those patients who were told they would never walk again or those who no longer struggle with anxiety, depression, and mood disorders.
Intention, Determination, and Will Power
The secret to change and recovery is having a powerful intention―the law of attraction. It is believing, without a shadow of a doubt, that you have the power to change your circumstances with bags of determination and the will to create the best life possible.
The implicit procedural memory can’t be accessed from knowledge alone. “Knowledge without experience is merely philosophy; experience without knowledge is ignorance,” says Dr. Joe Dispenza.
Experience and knowledge combine to produce wisdom, which stems from an individual’s intelligence to understand light and truth and to live in it. The right information brings about the feelings of happiness, assurance, hope, love, joy, and peace of mind.
Learn how to improve your attitude and your life in this video from Sunwarrior:
Anyone who experiences ongoing feelings of depression, fear, doubt, and sadness doesn’t understand who they truly are.
To change your current circumstances, you need to shift your limiting beliefs and align your thoughts to who you actually are. The correct emotions that emerge from the correct thoughts can increase your confidence, hope, give you a sense of direction, help in your healing, and improve relationships.
Many of you may be experiencing struggles which are a direct result of your genes. However, it’s completely possible to create a brand new you. By believing you can do it, make up your own mind about what you want, and it will come to light.
What idea comes to your mind when you hear the term “power of the mind”? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!
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