It occurred to me that many people are living under stress these days, including myself. For me this is a reason to dig deeper in myself and in particular in the domain of the human consciousness. On my journey, I came across this inspiring interview of Dr. Joe Dispenza. As a result, I bought and read his book 'Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself'.

After reading the book, I have a better understanding how the brain works. The way we usually learn is by consuming new information, associating it with other information and final applying what we've learned repeatedly. The more we repeat, the better the connection becomes and the more likely it becomes that we start to understand this new information. The new path in the neural network of our brain gradually becomes a highway, which is something that is called conditioning. At this stage, the behaviour becomes more automatic.

It turns out that 95% of all decisions are made by the conditioned, unconscious mind. While the potential of the conditioning process described before lead to forming new habits, it can also lead us to react automatically in an unwanted based on the way we think, feel or experience. For example, a new situation could trigger an association with memory in the past. Before we know it, we react the same way we've done in the past, without taking the time to observe the situation properly. This reaction might become visible to others for example because we lash out at others and it could have dramatic effects on our lives.

A large part of humanity needs to deal with stress on a daily basis. If our body and mind are conditioned to deal with stress by avoidance, procrastination and consumption of luxury goods or drugs, then by behaving the same way to thoughts and feelings, our patterns reinforcing themselves. Also, we will forget to look closely to our thoughts and feelings and take them for granted, making it really hard to step out of this pattern. There is a way out, but it takes conscious effort and a change in our state of mind. In the same way we all learn things by repeating, we could replace our negative pattern by a new one that serves us better.

In this book, Dr. Joe Dispenza outlines a layered story, where he first outlines what Quantum Physics have to do with our view on life and possibilities. The structure of the brain is explained next, before decomposing thoughts, feelings and behaviour. One of the fundamental insights for me was that the signals from the brain determine the long term effect of all cells in the entire body, since the cells adapt over time to the signals they receive.

One key principle I took from this book is that the ability something new, even later in our lives, is mostly defined by our ability to pause the fast-paced outside world every day. You can do so by making a habit of sitting still and reflecting on your inner world, your thoughts and feelings. These thoughts and feelings help us learn a lot about our past and seeing those patterns will help us create the future that we want. For me, this is something that will take continuous practice.

I can recommend this book to anyone interested in learning more about themselves and unlocking their full potential by hacking into their brains. The book is quite lengthy and theoretical at first, but I can assure you that it'll be worth every minute.