Remember, after these subjects repeatedly mentally practiced, their
brains showed the same neurological changes as the participants who
actually played the piano. New networks of neurons (neural networks) were
forged, demonstrating that in effect, they had already engaged in practicing
piano scales and chords without actually having that physical experience.
We could say that their brains “existed in the future” ahead of the physical
event of playing the piano.
Because of our enlarged human frontal lobe and our unique ability to
make thought more real than anything else, the forebrain can naturally
“lower the volume” from the external environment so that nothing else is
being processed but a single-minded thought. This type of internal
processing allows us to become so involved in our mental imaging that the
brain will modify its wiring without having experienced the actual event.
When we can change our minds independent of the environment and then
steadfastly embrace an ideal with sustained concentration, the brain will be
ahead of the environment.
That is mental rehearsal, an important tool in breaking the habit of being
ourselves. If we repeatedly think about something to the exclusion of
everything else, we encounter a moment when the thought becomes the
experience. When this occurs, the neural hardware is rewired to reflect the
thought as the experience. This is the moment that our thinking changes our
brains and thus, our minds.
To understand that neurological change can take place in the absence of
physical interactions in the environment is crucial to our success in
breaking the habit of being ourselves. Consider the larger implications of
the finger-exercise experiment. If we apply the same process—mental
rehearsal—to anything that we want to do, we can change our brains ahead
of any concrete experience.
If you can influence your brain to change before you experience a desired
future event, you will create the appropriate neural circuits that will enable
you to behave in alignment with your intention before it becomes a reality
in your life. Through your own repeated mental rehearsal of a better way to
think, act, or be, you will “install” the neural hardware needed to
physiologically prepare you for the new event.
In fact, you’ll do more than that. The brain’s hardware, as I use the
analogy in this book, refers to its physical structures, its anatomy, right
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