Neuroscience - SWEET INSTITUTE - Continuing Education for Mental Health Professionals

The Role of Conscious-based Interventions

Mardoche Sidor, MD and Karen Dubin, PhD, LCSW — Tue, 28 Jun 2022 13:54:31 +0000

The most powerful knowledge anyone of us will ever learn is knowing who we truly are. Not on an intellectual level, not on an academic level, and not at the level of psychology. We are talking about our True Nature. The True Nature of who we really are. This True Nature of ours is our Natural Blueprint. However, when our Natural Blueprint is hidden, our psychology is formed and yields an Ordinary Blueprint. Our Ordinary Blueprint consists of psychology and biology, while our Natural Blueprint is beyond psychology, and biology and is the only place where we will ever discover who we truly are. While the most valuable piece of knowledge is to learn about our Natural Blueprint, it is always worth starting the process at the level of our Ordinary Blueprint, which, with proper unlearning and relearning will allow our Natural Blueprint to surface. Therefore, we can discover, learn and understand how to un-train and re-train our brain, using Unconscious-based Interventions. We will then be able to make use of these Interventions to eradicate the interfering patterns of our unconscious mind, once and for all. Let us then talk a bit more about our Ordinary Blueprint: Our brain is this bio-electrochemical box that functions as the center of our organism, through a series of mental activities, or activities of the mind. The mind, which uses the brain as its vehicle, receives several divisions, but the most scientifically rigorous division is that of the conscious and the unconscious. Between 95% and 99% of what we do emanates from our unconscious mind[1], the content of which, is made up of a combination of our genetic make-up and our experiences. These two factors, are mediated through a third factor, known as epigenetics[2]. They then give rise to our Ordinary Blueprint. Our unconscious mind uses our Ordinary Blueprint as the basis for our core beliefs. Our Ordinary Blueprint shapes our beliefs, our attitude, our perception, the meaning we give to things, what we focus on, and therefore our predominant and associated thoughts. Our Ordinary Blueprint, therefore, shapes our states, our emotions, and feelings, and ultimately our behaviors. In this vein, our Ordinary Blueprint also shapes our habits, which lead to the results we have in life, and those results reinforce our belief system, and our identity; and the cycle repeats again. This means that for us to adjust our results, habits, and behaviors, we are to adjust our Blueprint. This means that in order for us to be free, or to be ourselves, or in order for us to adjust our feelings and thoughts appropriately, we are to adjust our Blueprint. Now, it takes years of experience for our Blueprint to have become as firmly formed as it is, today, and likewise, adjusting it would also take some time. But there is a shortcut for those who are serious about expressing happiness, fulfillment, and knowing success as it has been designed to be. This shortcut consists of having direct access to our unconscious mind. Having a handle on a number of Conscious-based Interventions will help make this task a very easy and rewarding one. Now, the principle of Occam’s Razor[3] requires that a scientific theory be as simple as possible, and that the solution to a problem could often be simpler than we make it. However, what is worth noting is that what is simple is not always easy, and there are two reasons for this. The first reason is that, as simple as it is or seems to be, that which is simple still needs to be practiced, on a regular basis, for enough time, and with enough intensity, for it to work. The second reason is that when things are, or seem to be simple, most of us disregard them, perhaps believing they are “too good to be true,” or not worth trying, let alone giving them time to work.[4] Yet we must remind ourselves that trying something new, whether simple or not, may work, and if it fails to work, we still will not be any worse off than where we were before. If we are following this logic, we now have no excuse for not trying something just because it may appear too simple, or just because we think it may not work. Therefore, we have no excuses for not expressing happiness, fulfillment, or success. For, this is all a result of what we obtain from doing those simple things on a daily basis, for enough time, with the proper frequency, and with enough intensity. Whether conscious-based or unconscious-based, the interventions that work best are often the simplest, but they are to be practiced. Conscious-based Interventions can be simple but powerful, and we will continue to make use of them as we go about having direct access to the unconscious mind, through the Unconscious-based Interventions. Together, we are eradicating suffering, one person at a time. [1] Goleman, D. (1984, February 7). New view of mind gives unconscious an expanded role. The New York Times. Retrieved May 25, 2022, from https://www.nytimes.com/1984/02/07/science/new-view-of-mind-gives-unconscious-an-expanded-role.html [2] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2022, May 18). What is epigenetics? Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Retrieved May 25, 2022, from https://www.cdc.gov/genomics/disease/epigenetics.htm#:~:text=Epigenetics%20is%20the%20study%20of,body%20reads%20a%20DNA%20sequence. [3] Duignan, Brian. “Occam’s razor”. Encyclopedia Britannica, 28 May. 2021, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Occams-razor. Accessed 25 May 2022. [4] Norman, D. A. (2016). Living with complexity. The MIT Press.

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The Monster in Our Head

Mardoche Sidor, MD and Karen Dubin, PhD, LCSW — Sun, 26 Jun 2022 14:00:25 +0000

Doing the same thing over and over while expecting a different result is the definition of insanity[1]. We all know that, yet we do exactly that. Why? Because that’s what insanity is. We know we’re doing it but we “just cannot stop it.” Our prefrontal cortex, particularly, our ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, our inferior frontal gyrus, and the insula seem to betray us. It is as if an enemy (our limbic system[2]) comes to our house, starts to attack, and we run to find our parents (our prefrontal cortex) in a deep sleep, and no matter what we do, we cannot wake them up. This is insane, scary in itself; and we are afraid it’s going to keep happening, and the more we dread it the more it happens, and we are now helpless. This level of helplessness then sets the stage for how we relate to all future attacks – attacks that we see come from the outside at the exact moment when our parents (our prefrontal cortex) go to sleep, and this only reinforces, time and time again, our sense of helplessness. This sense of helplessness is correlated with a decrease in BDNF (our brain-derived neurotrophic factor) in the hippocampus, the area of the brain, which is supposed to help us remember that the last time, there was no monster really attacking us, but it was all our own thoughts, our own unconscious patterns, our own reactions. Once again, we are being betrayed by these parents, who are supposed to protect us. This, until one day, we finally get it. We realize that the way to go about doing it is not by trying to fight the monsters back. Our parents, who are supposed to be stronger, and who could protect us happen to be always sleeping each time the monsters come. We then realize that we are to be more strategic. And the best strategy starts with understanding our monster – its tendency, when it is more likely to come to attack us; when it’s more likely to be stronger; and how it knows when exactly our parents are sleeping! We try this out and make some progress. However, we soon realize that the monster just outsmarted us. How frustrating! What a hopeless situation. Until…we realize we have only been strategizing based on one piece of the puzzle. And, where strategizing can be helpful, the monster is still able to outsmart our strategy. This is when we realize that strategizing is making use of our conscious efforts, our willpower alone. We then realize that strategizing will really help only when we are willing to mimic our monster – behave exactly as it does, resist it not [3], make peace with it, befriend it, and discover that all along, we had created it. Then and only then can it stop attacking us and can it start serving us. This is then when we realize that communicating as often as possible with that part of ourselves, which we thought was our monster is the single best step in eradicating this monster, once and for all. These monsters are patterns in our unconscious mind that we have been reinforcing over and over through our continuous reactions to them. Instead of reacting, we now know to simply observe, be aware, remain equanimous, calm, peaceful, and let the paradox unfold – the monster dies out, piece by piece, with no resistance, no fiction, with no more fear, and helplessness now, becomes courage. You probably have not heard of Harry Grundfest[4], but he used to be the one person in New York doing work on the brain at Columbia. As a neurologist, Grundfest was to become the mentor of the 2000 Nobel Prize Laureate in Physiology or Medicine, Eric Kandel, who had joined Columbia to work with Grundfest. A psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, and neuroscientist, Kandel always wanted to find where exactly the id, the ego, and the super-ego are located in the brain. Gundfrest, looking at Kandel, explained to him that the best way to approach the brain to make such a discovery is to study one cell at a time[5]. One cell at a time, did he study the brain, indeed, and his work, which led him to win the Nobel Prize, has convinced him of how, like Freud, famously said, “The mind is like an iceberg, it floats with one-seventh of its bulk above water.” The six-sevenths of the mind is that unconscious mind where the monster lies, but a monster we need not be afraid of when we learn to observe it, let it emerge to our conscious mind, and remain equanimous in its presence. This will allow its eradication, and this is all possible through our unconscious-based interventions, and this is an experience worth having and worth sharing. [1] Wilczek, F. (2015, September 23). Einstein’s parable of quantum insanity. Scientific American. Retrieved June 23, 2022, from https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/einstein-s-parable-of-quantum-insanity/ [2] Catani, M; Dell’Acqua, F; Thiebaut De Schotten, M (2013). “A revised limbic system model for memory, emotion and behaviour”. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews. 37 (8): 1724–37. doi:10.1016/j.neubiorev.2013.07.001. PMID 23850593. S2CID 28044712. [3] Wild. (2019, September 6). What you resist persists: 10 ways to overcome resistance. Wellbeing Wild. Retrieved June 23, 2022, from https://www.wellbeing.com.au/wild/what-you-resist-persists-10-ways-overcome-resistance [4] New York Times:Dr. Harry Grundfest; Professor of Neurology, Published: October 12, 1983 [5] Dudai, Y. A journey to remember. Nature 441, 157–159 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/441157a

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The Why of Unconscious-based Interventions

Mardoche Sidor, MD and Karen Dubin, PhD, LCSW — Sun, 22 May 2022 14:00:10 +0000

Our strongest desire may be to be free[1]. We want freedom much more than we may realize. We fight for freedom. We pay for freedom. We do anything for freedom. Yet, the more we do, the less freedom we find ourselves to have. What a frustrating paradox. Our strongest desire may be to be ourselves. We all want to be ourselves and wish to be ourselves. Yet, we often find ourselves with different “selves,” depending on where we are at the moment. We have a “self” at home when our family members are around. We have a different “self” at home when we have guests at the house. And we have a totally different “self” at home when we are all alone. Our separate “selves” appear so natural that they have become the “new normal” and despite our strong instinctual desire to be ourselves, our different separate “selves” have helped us survive the consequences of socialization. As a result, somehow, on some level, we prefer to hold on to them – those separate “selves,” – instead of finding out how we can become who we truly are. Our strongest desire may be to follow our dreams[2]. But what dreams? Whose dreams? What types of dreams? At times we have no idea what we want. Other times we want so many things, we want “it all at once and now!” And yet at other times, we are totally confused. Still, at other times, we believe that we want nothing at all, that we have reached our maximum level of comfort, and that our life is good enough. Yet, part of us knows, that such a mindset is the result of resigning ourselves and as such, lowering our expectations. Sometimes we try to lower our expectations because we just don’t want to “be disappointed.” Nonetheless, we sometimes fail to realize that we do not really have a clue of what “being disappointed,” really means. Sometimes we are not realizing that what is really happening with our wants, with our wishes, or with our desires, is that we are simply trying to protect ourselves from the disappointment that comes with an apparent “failure.” However, the pain we are trying to avoid is nothing in comparison with the type of pain that results, eventually, from living a less fulfilling life. Our strongest desire may be to follow our passion[3], to stand for what we believe, to go after what we want, and to come alive. However, we often also have this little voice in our heads saying, “Who do you think you are; What makes you think you can ever do this; Do you not remember where you came from?” We have an idea, and we know it can make a significant difference in our relationships, in our personal lives, in the community, in society, or in the world. However, we panic, we dismiss it, or, we let it slip away. Our thought, our inner monologue, our inner voice, starts talking, reminding us, telling us, “Wait, do you really think you would ever be able to do this; Don’t you think this is over your head?” We then start paying closer attention to our incessant thoughts and we start hearing: “You don’t have enough connections. You don’t know enough people, and you don’t have the money.” We continue to focus on these thoughts and we hear: “You aren’t white enough; You aren’t black enough; You aren’t tall enough; You are too short; You aren’t thin enough.” Of course, these thoughts never stop. They go on and on: “You aren’t the right gender; You aren’t the right sexual orientation? You aren’t the right….” And so on…. We are paralyzed and petrified by the thought that this is what others are saying to themselves when they see us. We are afraid that they are talking about us; judging us, and we make ourselves believe they are right. So, we stop ourselves from acting on our ideas. We stop ourselves from following that freedom, that desire, that passion, or that dream. We settle for less because we know we can’t do it anyway, so why even try? Why bother? We ask. Here’s the thing. We often forget that living a life like this is living the life of someone else. We also tend to forget that the same people whose opinions we are petrified by are also trying to live their life wondering how they may be viewed in our eyes, or in the eyes of others. In other words, all of us worry about, “what will they say about me?” This alone may be the single most significant reason why we are to start by questioning the question: “What will they say?” We, and only we, can and must do something if we are to free ourselves. This, in a nutshell, is the power of working at the level of our unconscious mind. Now, this concept of, “everyone is concerned about what everyone is or will be saying about them,” becomes evident over and over in family therapy, and couples’ therapy, where the children are worried about how they are viewed by their parents, while their parents, in their own way, are equally worried about how they are viewed by their children. This situation also occurs in the workplace, at school, at the store, at the beach, on the train, etc. It is just a mess. A world of insanity, which none of us seem to see a way out of. We are so used to it being the way things are, that we resign to it. Yet, there is a way… There is something we can do to help ourselves and start being happy, free, and alive. As you read this line, you, perhaps, are already telling yourself that it won’t work for you anyway. This is because you have likely been making use of a number of interventions, most of them being helpful, but none of them have truly eradicated the unconscious patterns […]

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The 2 Types of Interventions

Mardoche Sidor, MD and Karen Dubin, PhD, LCSW — Sun, 15 May 2022 17:00:05 +0000

“Why have I spent so much time doing all this and for such a long time, and it doesn’t even address my blocks? What is this all about?” Frustrated, Marlene asked this question of Rajvee, her therapist, after she had explained to her why she has not been getting the expected results from treatment. “You’ve been at this a long time, and you’ve done so much, and yes, it has not been addressing the blocks, and you are not getting the results that you have wanted from treatment.” Validated Rajvee. “In fact,” continued Rajvee, “it’s not even what you know as much as it is how you know it; and it is not even what you do as much as it is how you do it. In other words, it is more about knowing things and doing things a certain way.” What is that certain way of knowing and doing things, that Rajvee is alluding to? Below is a summary of what Rajvee is referring to: Science has gone a long way in understanding the brain, the mind, how it works, its mechanism, and how it contributes to who we are today. There is a lot of things that several scholars had suspected, but we had to wait for more scientific discovery, and technology to be able to truly understand them, learn how they work, and know how to apply them to as many people as possible. Science is not a crystal ball. It operates on a trial-and-error[1] basis. A scientist has a hypothesis and expects it to either be true or false. If it is found to be true, she expects it to be either confirmed with further data or contradicted and even rejected. This is why the saying in Science is, “The biggest truths of today are the biggest lies of tomorrow.” What are we to do? What’s the solution? Are we to be at the mercy of Science, continuing on a trial-and-error basis, when there is so much suffering, so much misery, and so much wasted potential? Fortunately, the answer is No. This is because there are two types of interventions for the mind; and regardless of what the modalities may be, they lie under these two broad categories. They are either Conscious-based or Unconscious-based interventions. Our Conscious-based interventions provide us with an indirect access to the unconscious mind[2], where 97% of all our mental processes take place; whereas, our Unconscious-based interventions provide us a direct access to our unconscious mind[3]. This means with our Conscious-based interventions, just like with our Scientific Method[4], a lot or trial and error is required; whereas, our Unconscious-based interventions, being direct, necessitate less of a trial-and-error process; promise a more straightforward and sure result, provide more stability, less relapse, and ensure a faster result with much less effort. SWEET’s New Psychotherapy Certificate Course emphasizes the Unconscious-based interventions. As a clinician, you’ll have the opportunity to: Become familiar with them Learn them Master them Help your clients implement them Help your clients master them Can you imagine unlocking the key to help your clients know and do a certain way that provides them with the results they want? Can you imagine giving your clients the opportunity to get direct access to their unconscious mind, bypassing their conscious mind? Stop imagining, make it real now. Join us today for our New Psychotherapy Certificate Course. Click HERE to enroll. [1] Redish, A. David. “Vicarious trial and error.” Nature Reviews Neuroscience 17.3 (2016): 147-159. [2] Searle, John R. “Consciousness, unconsciousness, and intentionality.” Philosophical topics 17.1 (1989): 193-209. [3] Robbins, Philip. “Consciousness and the social mind.” Cognitive Systems Research 9.1-2 (2008): 15-23. [4] Gauch Jr, Hugh G., Hugh G. Gauch Jr, and Hugh G. Gauch. Scientific method in practice. Cambridge University Press, 2003.

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I Want Something Different

Mardoche Sidor, MD and Karen Dubin, PhD, LCSW — Mon, 02 May 2022 02:00:39 +0000

“I want something different. I am tired of this. I am tired of knowing so much while continuing to get these types of results in my life. This “unconscious,” this “priming,” these “blocks,” this “unconscious-conscious alignment,” whatever it is, I want to do something, and I think I’m ready for it.” This is a series of articles where Marlene has been meeting with her therapist, Rajvee. Marlene knows a lot, as she is a therapist and has been in and out of therapy for a long time. She’s well-read and has participated in many courses, but no matter what she does, her results continue to be inadequate. Rajvee, her therapist, has started to help her understand the reason for all that. Rajvee calls it, “blocks,” which Marlene needs to remove if she is to attain the kinds of results she has been working for. “This is when you’ll be able to see an alignment between what you know and the results you have in your life,” said Rajvee. As humans, we have a number of aspects of our lives that are very important to us. While we do not assign the same value to each of these aspects of life, there is a number of aspects of our lives, to which we, universally, ascribe very high value [1]. These aspects of life are referred to as the 7 Area Life Model, and they include: Our health Our relationship with others, particularly, with our loved ones Our job or career Our finances Our relationship with ourselves Our ability and willingness to contribute to others Our ability to express ourselves, our strengths, and our passion, in the freest and highest way possible. Regardless of our values, norms, philosophy, ethnicity, religion, nationality, race, or culture, these 7 areas of life are very high on our list. This also means that these 7 areas of life can be used to speak to our level of satisfaction, and fulfillment; or can be used to measure the level of expression of our happiness, joy, or success. Now, if you were to look at each one of these 7 areas of life: How would you rate each one of them? How satisfied are you with your rating? Which areas are not rated as high as you would desire them to be? What’s the explanation behind these inadequate ratings? What can you do to increase these ratings? If we are like most people, we’ll likely answer question # 5 as “I need more information.” This is a normal response. It’s logical, rational, and we’ve been trained that way. “More information is key.” Information is power.” “We need to learn how things work.” Yet, what these three phrases have in common is that they are incomplete. “More information is key.” More information is key only when it is adequate information. It is adequate information only when it works. And it works only when it addresses things at their root. Unfortunately, the type of information we are given serves to simply look at things at their superficial level. We’ve been trained to simply look at the tip of the iceberg[2], ignoring, unknowingly, what’s under the water. “Information is power.” Information is power only when used or implemented. To use or implement information requires an adequate understanding of that information. An adequate understanding of information requires more than just an intellectual understanding. Rather, an experiential understanding is key. And it is then, when, we can truly equate information to power.[3] “We need to learn how things work.” Nothing is closest to the truth. We do need to learn how things work. However, how do things work? How do things really work? And what things, exactly? To answer these questions, it is worth highlighting the fact that one of the challenges we face is the lack of discernment. The word discernment[4] can be defined as: The ability to judge well The quality of being able to grasp and comprehend what is obscure The ability to recognize small details, accurately tell the difference between similar things and make intelligent judgments by using such observations The act or process of exhibiting keen insight and good judgment Further, looking at the etymology[5] of the word, it derives from the Latin term, “discemere,” which means, “to separate” or “to divide.” What is it that we are to separate? We are to separate the “Constant” from the “Variable.” How things work can be viewed through the lens of the Constant or the Variable. How things work is often learned through the lens of the Variable, which explains why it remains at an intellectual level instead of deepening at an experiential level. We do need to learn how things work. But we need to be able to discern the truth from what is false. And we will know what the truth is based on what is Constant. Truth has no exception; it does not change; it remains the same, no matter what, no matter when, no matter where, and no matter with whom. This, in fact, has been Rajvee’s response when Marlene told her clearly how tired she was of getting the same results despite all the information she had. “Marlene, our first step is to learn the Constant. The Constant is your unconscious mind. It does nothing yet leaves nothing undone. In other words, it is passive, in the sense that it simply receives and it responds accordingly, with no variation, no default, and no exception. And this is the Constant,” explained, Rajvee. What Rajvee meant by that is that to learn how things work is to fully understand the following: Our unconscious mind is consistently being bombarded with a series of messages Our unconscious mind receives these messages as if they were a type of command Our unconscious mind can deliver only the same type of message received and nothing more or less Our conscious mind is the guard to the unconscious mind Our conscious mind is to be vigilant as to what it allows […]

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The 2 Systems in Our Brain

Mardoche Sidor, MD and Karen Dubin, PhD, LCSW — Sun, 24 Apr 2022 14:00:01 +0000

In a previous article, entitled, “I Know A Lot, Yet…” we talked about Marlene, who explained to her therapist, Rajvee, how despite all she knows, it doesn’t seem to be making much of a difference. Marlene explained that despite having tried a number of treatment modalities, and knowing what to do, she either does not do them, does not stick with them long enough, or they, “just don’t work.” Rajvee, patiently explained to Marlene how what’s going on with her has to do with blocks. The article then started to look at what Rajvee meant by that, which we are going to elaborate on here. As previously explained we often like to think that we are rational, logical, conscious, and aware when it comes to decision making. Yet, we are not. Rather, our unconscious mind primes, influences, and determines what we end up doing as cited in the study led by the neuroscientist John-Dylan Haynes [1]. Similarly, the 2002 Nobel Prize Laureate, Daniel Kahneman pioneered the current state of a deeper understanding of how we work. Kahneman says that our brain makes use of two systems. One system is automatic, reflexive, on autopilot, and receives the name System 1; while the other system is voluntary, effortful, rational, and logical, and receives the name System 2.[2] Being automatic, reflexive, and on autopilot, System 1 works quickly, requiring very little effort, if any at all, and operating regardless of any type of voluntary control. On the other hand, System 2 requires voluntary control, logic, reasoning, focus, and attention. A concrete way to fully grasp this is to regard System 2 as our intellectual understanding; and System 1 as our experiential understanding. As such, what we need to get is that our decisions are almost always made by System 1 and then passed to System 2, at which point it comes to our awareness. The experience we have is that we have made the decision consciously, when in fact, we have not. However, since we experienced that we have consciously made the decision, we are left with the unconscious tendency to justify it, rationalize it, or explain it. This, in fact, explains why: We know what to do, yet we decide to not do it We want to do something, yet we decide to not do it We start doing something that we want to do, yet we decide to stop doing it We do what we think will work; yet, we are still not getting the type of result we desire What is the solution to all this? Rajvee told Marlene that the solution is Conscious-unconscious alignment. But what is this? The word, “alignment” is defined as “a position of agreement or alliance.[3]” Conscious-unconscious alignment is simply that, having the conscious mind and the unconscious mind in a position of agreement or alliance. As you may be thinking, having such an alignment is obviously essential if we are to stop striving and start thriving – and by this, we mean, in every single aspect of our lives. Would you like to master this area of competence and help yourself, your loved ones, and your clients shift their lives despite having tried so many interventions to no avail? If so, check out our next article in this series: I Want Something Different [1] Smith, K. Brain makes decisions before you even know it. Nature (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/news.2008.751 [2] Kahneman, Daniel, 1934- author. Thinking, Fast and Slow. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011. [3] “Alliance Definition and Meaning: Collins English Dictionary.” Alliance Definition and Meaning | Collins English Dictionary, HarperCollins Publishers Ltd, https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/alliance.

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I Know A Lot, Yet…

Mardoche Sidor, MD and Karen Dubin, PhD, LCSW — Sun, 17 Apr 2022 14:46:54 +0000

“I know a lot of this stuff, at least I think I do. But, it just doesn’t seem to be making much of a difference.” Marlene articulated these words to her clinician, Rajvee, who, using the 10-Second Rule and the Triangle Technique, sends an unmistakable signal for her to go on and elaborate on her words. “I’ve tried so many things. I’ve done CBT, DBT, IPT, Narrative Therapy, and even EMDR. I’ve also gone through couple’s therapy, and family therapy, and while I know what to do, I just either cannot get myself to do any of it or when I do, I stop because I find that it doesn’t seem to be working.” After proper validation followed by a series of inquiries, Rajvee, leaned over and stated to Marlene, looking at her, “Marlene, you are not alone. This is very common. And the explanation for all this is simply “blocks.” Yes, there are blocks preventing you from moving forward, and the next step for us is to remove those blocks.” A block is defined as “a large solid piece of hard material.” And etymologically it means “tree stump,” which is the remaining lower part of a tree or plant left after the main part falls or is cut off. In other words, a block is a standing tree trunk from which the upper part and branches have been removed. Marlene has blocks, says Rajvee. By that, she means Marlene has habitual thoughts that are so deeply rooted that what she knows intellectually has not been enough for her to unroot them. Intellectual understanding uses the cognitive function of reasoning. Reasoning is “the action of thinking about something in a logical and sensible way.[1]” It’s “the use of reason;” or “the drawing of inferences or conclusions through the use of reason.” From an etymological standpoint, “to reason[2]” comes from the Latin verb, “reri,” which means “to consider,” the latter meaning, “to reflect on,” or “to think carefully about something before making a decision.” Yet, are our decisions really conscious? The 2008 Nature article[3] has revealed what many scientists had suspected. “Our brain makes decisions before we even know it.” In other words, “Brain activity predicts decisions before they are consciously made.” In fact, anyone with access to look at our brain activity, while we’re working on making a decision, would be able to predict what we would decide before we were even aware of having made a decision. As the renowned neuroscientist, John-Dylan Haynes said, “We think our decisions are conscious, but these data show that consciousness (referring to conscious thinking, rational thinking, or reasoning) is just the tip of the iceberg.[4]” In 1980, the neuroscientist, Benjamin Libet[5] demonstrated that finding. However, it took 38 years to confirm these findings, thanks to the use of sophisticated computer programing that we did not have back in 1980. One of the most conservative ways to interpret this finding is, as Chris Frith, the award-winning neuropsychologist said, “We already know our decisions can be unconsciously primed. The brain activity could be part of this priming.”[3] In other words, however logical, rational, intellectual, or meticulous we may be, our decision-making process is primed, biased, and influenced by our unconscious processes. What that means is that we may want something, we may be deciding to act accordingly, we may say we’re going to do it, but our results speak for themselves. In other words, somehow, our reasoning, logic, conscious decision-making process, or willingness are being betrayed by our unconscious processes. To put this in even more concrete terms, we have been led to believe that we make our decisions consciously. Yet, what really takes place is that our brain prepares our decisions for us, at an unconscious level. This all happens through a number of processes in our brain that occur automatically, and without the involvement of our conscious thinking, our reasoning, our logic, or our intellect. Bottom line, our decisions are determined by the unconscious, and not by the conscious mind, as we’ve always been made to believe. And this discrepancy, this seemingly antagonism or opposition, is what Rajvee referred to as “blocks” in her conversation with Marlene. “What does all that mean to me, then? What am I to do? What is my next step?” asked Marlene, to which Rajvee responded, “A conscious-unconscious alignment is the answer, and we’ll be talking about this on our next visit.” Fellow clinician, learn about how: Our unconscious mind betrays our conscious decision-making process To achieve Conscious-unconscious alignment To use this new level of competence to help end suffering, help bring fulfillment, and help yourself, your loved ones, and your patients and clients start living a life of freedom, peace of mind, and satisfaction Start by clicking here for the next article in this series: The Two Systems of Our Brain [1] “Reasoning.” https://Www.oed.com/. [2] “Reason (n.).” Etymology, https://www.etymonline.com/word/reason. [3] Smith, K. Brain makes decisions before you even know it. Nature (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/news.2008.751 [4] Hotz, R. L. (2008, June 27). Get out of your own way. The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved April 10, 2022, from https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB121450609076407973 [5] Schlosser, Markus E. “The Neuroscientific Study of Free Will: A Diagnosis of the Controversy.” Synthese, vol. 191, no. 2, 2014, pp. 245–62, http://www.jstor.org/stable/24019927. Accessed 11 Apr. 2022.

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