There is so much to know about that “space between your ears”…

People used to think that the brain you were born with was the same exact brain you would spend your whole life with.  That it would never change.

Now we know that’s not true.  Our brains are changing all the time.   Scientists say they have plasticity, that they’re malleable, hardly anything if not changeable.

Memories change them, and thoughts change them–especially the thoughts you have about your feelings, and your other responses–that is, the ways you respond to everything you perceive and experience throughout your life.  Your brain changes by growing new neurons–nerves–to support your new thoughts, new habits, and all the changes you make when you’re just living your life.  They also do a little housekeeping, sweep away old memories that you don’t use anymore.  To create space for the new memories you’re making all the time.

Your brain does most of this work automatically, without your having to think about it.  So you can be free to change yourself as much as you want to.

Tomorrow:  It’s all about survival.  All of it.

You can’t help yourself.   You’re only human. 

So what?  So you need to know a few things about your feelings.   They all have a purpose, in your biology.  They’re like messengers, telling you about yourself, what matters to you.   They help you decide who you want to be in your own life.   

Here’s more:  You know you’re having a feeling because you’re thinking about it–that’s automatic.   And when you think about your feelings, you get to decide how you will act on them.  You can decline fear’s invitation to run your life, and you can decide whether you want to love, how to deal with your anger, and what to say or do about your embarrassment.  

Why Do I Feel This Way?  is a new book, all about your relationship with your feelings.  Knowing changes everything, and now you can know what your feelings are trying to tell you.

Interested?  Check back tomorrow! 

It’s only human to think you’re afraid of some things–we humans do it all the time.  We think we’re not good enough, or smart enough, or successful enough to have what we want, and we’re afraid of feeling that way.

That’s only natural–and it’s only the beginning of a conversation.  If you can think yourself into fear, you can think yourself right out of it, too.  Your brain will actually change to accommodate your intention.  Find out how in chapter 4 of  WHY DO I FEEL THIS WAY?  What Your Feelings Are Trying To Tell You.

And keep this in mind:  To your brain, you are the most powerful person there is:  You’re the creator of your thoughts!

The point about fear is this:  Your brain came with a default setting for fear.  It’s automatic.  Fear forces you to act when you are threatened.  You don’t have to think about it.

But, then, there’s another kind of fear.  You CREATE this, other, fear by thinking about it.  It might be a fear that you’re not smart enough, or beautiful enough; or that no one will love you; that you’ll never be successful.

That’s a fear of another color.  That fear is in your brain because your thoughts put it there, and the more you think about it, the more your brain will reinforce your thoughts.  It’s like a vicious circle that is powered by your thoughts.

In chapter 4 of Why Do I Feel This Way?  fear is laid out so you can see it for what it is.  The whole conversation is right there, in the book, along with a choice you can make.

Check here tomorrow for more information.

My mind was racing, whirling around nothing in particular.  What am I doing?  What have I done?

Nothing, really.  I just had a dream for my life.  A plan to make it come true.  I stepped outside my comfort zone by imagining me, happy and fulfilled.  How could that hurt?

Our brains are all about keeping us safe.  Maybe that’s why they do so much automatically, without our having to think about it.  In our brains, we don’t like challenges; we like survival.  We create fear, perhaps to stop ourselves from chasing after every dream that we dream up.   We have no choice but to feel fear–it’s one of the ways we respond to life, automatically.

On the morning I woke up fearful, the sun also came up automatically.   I took my fear to my journal, where I wrote it down to size, and then I started to take action in the face of it.  One small step to keep my fear at arm’s length, for this one day.  One day at a time.

In chapter 4 of Why Do I Feel This Way? What Your Feelings Are Trying to Tell You, we’ll learn about our fear, where it comes from and why we can’t prevent it.  We’ll also speculate about how we can meet fear head on and put it out of business.   Let’s talk about this! 

But George Zimmerman is the tip of the iceberg, and even if we break him off and throw him into the water, there’s still the iceberg to deal with.  It’s the town, the lawmakers, the NRA–everyone who put that gun in Zimmerman’s hands, along with the message that he had the power to shoot to kill as long as he remembered to say he felt threatened.   It is the rest of them who need to be brought to justice, if there is to be any justice.

I see a courtroom filled with victims–you and me, the parents who lost their child, Trayvon Martin, and everyone who might be walking into the wrong end of another gunslinger who got a pat on the back as (s)he was sent out to do something lawfully heinous.  I see We, The People and I just have to ask, where are we in all of this?  It’s not easy:  we all want to feel safe in our communities, protected against people who would harm us.  And we all want to be safe, to keep our children safe, protected against people who would harm us.

We don’t have much control over the individual acts of individual people, but We, The People have control over the laws that we agree to live by.  Right now, we can and must say it’s enough–too much, really–and it has to stop.  Every human is valuable, none can be spared for such cruel brutality, and government must not be used to rob us of one another.  If the world is spinning out of control, we must be the brakes of last resort.

Fear started out as a mechanism to keep you safe. And then your thinking brain came along.

The fear that actually keeps you safe works automatically. You don’t have to think about it. This other fear isn’t the same thing, because you create it with your thoughts.

And that’s good news, because it means you can also think it to death.  Ask it a few questions: Why do I feel this way? What’s it about? Is it keeping me safe? By doing that, you can dissolve your fear.

In Chapter 4 of “Why Do I Feel This Way?  What Your Feelings Are Trying to Tell You,” I’ll tell you about my Fear Weekend, an unscientific experiment about learning the truth about my fear.

It’s so gone….

Turner’s bill is designed to help men make informed decisions about using erectile dysfunction drugs like Viagra and Cialis.  It would require that doctors get a second opinion from a  psychologist or psychiatrist to verify that their patient has a true medical malady before the medication can be prescribed.

Turner explained, “When a man makes a crucial decision about his health and his body, he should be fully aware of the alternative options and the lifetime repercussions of that decision.”  She noted the serious potential side-effects of these drugs and urged her colleagues in the Ohio legislature to “advocate for the traditional family, protect the sanctity of procreation, and ensure that all men using these drugs are healthy, stable, and educated about their options–including celibacy as a viable life choice.”

Over the last few weeks, as more state legislators have sought evermore creative ways to seize control of women’s reproductive freedom and privacy, many women have asked me about whether insurance covers these male impotence remedies and how come there’s no equal protection under the law.  Now, thanks to Senator Nina Turner, I have a reply:  Go to ninaturner.org and share her great idea with your state legislator, too!

Last night, I saw Anita Hill at the Barnard Center for Research on Women.  She has a new book, about re-imagining equality.  Someone asked her how she can re-imagine equality in a world so filled with bias and fear.

She said it was because we—the 200 or so people who had come to hear her lecture—believed her, all those years ago when she testified that Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas had sexually harassed her.  And, she said, because we believed her, we took action.  We wrote letters.  We worked to elect women to Congress.  We registered women to vote.  And we talked about her courage in truth-telling.  We did not look away because we understood that, when one woman is in trouble by the words—or the hands—of one man, all women are at risk.  All women are harmed.

Where are the people around Rihanna?  What action will they take to keep her out of harm’s way?  Toure wrote that two women inhabit Rihanna’s body:  one who is just another abused woman going back to her abuser, and the other a shrewd business woman who knows that collaborating with her enemy will enhance her own brand.  Am I crazy to think that someone will look past the dollars and make some sense of it all?