a point when happiness (or whatever attitude, behavior, skill, or trait you’ve
been focusing on and rehearsing mentally or physically) will become an
innately memorized program of the new self.
Let’s use a true-to-life example to take a practical look at how these three
brains take us from thinking to doing to being. First, we’ll see how through
conscious mental rehearsal, the thinking brain (neocortex) uses knowledge
to activate new circuits in new ways to make a new mind. Then, our
thought creates an experience, and via the emotional (limbic) brain, that
produces a new emotion. Our thinking and feeling brains condition the
body to a new mind. Finally, if we reach the point where mind and body are
working as one, the cerebellum enables us to memorize a new
neurochemical self, and our new state of being is now an innate program in
our subconscious.
A Real-Life Example of the Three Brains in Action
As a practical look into these ideas, suppose that you recently read a few
thought-provoking books about compassion, including one written by the
Dalai Lama, a biography of Mother Teresa, and an account of the work of
Saint Francis of Assisi.
This knowledge allowed you to think outside the box. Reading this
material would have forged new synaptic connections in your thinking
brain. Essentially, you learned about the philosophy of compassion (through
other people’s experiences, not yours). Moreover, you’ve sustained those
neural connections by reviewing what you learned on a daily basis: You’re
so enthusiastic that you are solving all of your friends’ problems by offering
advice and holding court. You have become the great philosopher.
Intellectually, you know your stuff.
As you’re driving home from work, your spouse calls to say that you’ve
been invited to dinner with your mother-in-law in three days. You pull off
the road, and already you’re thinking about how you have disliked your
MIL intensely ever since she hurt your feelings ten years ago. Soon you’ve
got a mental laundry list: you never liked her opinionated way of talking;
how she interrupts others; how she smells; even how she cooks. Whenever