Monthly Archives: March 2019

Change, Neural Pathway Restructuring

Are you stuck?

Do you ever feel like no matter what you do, you can’t seem to make desired changes in your life? Maybe you want to start exercising or reduce your calories to lose weight. Or you want to stop feeling anxious all the time. And then there’s the one where you really want to change your life completely but have no idea how….you’re stuck in a rut?

We all go through these periods in our lives.

And we’re stuck because all the “stuff “surrounding that “stuckness” is retained all the way down into the cellular level.

Did you know our cells are constantly talking with one another…and our brains are in on it? Our cells are directing our actions, thoughts, feelings, and even our beliefs. The implication of this is we have the potential for change.

That “stuckness” you feel is based on repetitive neural pathways you run which are triggered by anchors. Anchors are responses linked to a stimulus (a trigger) which causes a knee jerk reaction or behavior. Most of these anchors and behaviors are out of our awareness. They become second nature to us.

For instance:
• Some food smells can make you think of your mother because she used to make that particular food.
• A specific song can bring back memories of good or bad events.
• The sound of someone’s voice can make you think of someone else.

Again, this is usually out of our awareness. We just react to all of it.
And, when we get in a rut, we’re running specific neural pathways of behavior which keep us there by constantly repeating the same unwanted behaviors. Many people try and muscle through it…..berating themselves to do the desired behaviors. Sometimes this work but usually it only works for awhile and we’re right back where we started, except by then we’re really disappointed in ourselves.

With all the advances in neuroplasticity and neuroscience, it’s allowed us to understand how the body does this.

One thing you can do to start making the changes is to “catch” yourself when you start to do an unwanted behavior. Stop for a moment and think about what was happening or what were you feeling right before you started the action. Look at the sequence of behaviors and see if you can discover what “triggered” your response (the behavior).

For instance, you’re trying to lose weight….you tell yourself you are not going to eat anymore ice cream until the weight is off. Then you find yourself in the checkout line at the supermarket buying a pint of your favorite flavor! What happened?

Many people will realize they’re feeling kind of blue or they’ve had a bad day. Maybe you got in an argument with your partner or co-worker. Or maybe you’re feeling like it doesn’t make any difference anyway—no one cares.
……………And then you’re in the checkout line.

All these things point to what we call “eating your feelings”! We eat the ice cream, the chocolate or the pizza to make ourselves feel again. Our brains crave the “feel good” neuro peptides so we eat sugar, fat and/or salt.

If you can pinpoint what is “triggering” your cravings you can start making better choices or at least stop yourself from reaching for the ice cream. You can create other, healthier, ways to create a better mood.

With the Neural Pathway Restructuring™ Method you can alter those pathways in a relatively short time without all the agony of “white knuckling it”.

Change, Neural Pathway Restructuring

How Neural Pathway Restructuring™ Came To Be

To be completely open with you, it came out of frustration.

Growing up in a household with an emotionally abusive mother and then repeatedly getting into abusive relationships, I was searching for answers. Why did I get out of one abusive relationships only to get into another one? Even though I was sure this time it would be different.

When I married, and had a child, I was certain that this relationship would work. And of course, I was wrong. Once again, I had picked someone who would repeat the behaviors I had come to believe were behaviors of someone who loved you. Only this time, I had a child. And I was determined I would not teach her that this was “love”.

During the last year of that marriage I attended a Neuro Linguistic Programming (N.L.P.) training and my eyes were opened to how I had continually recreated patterns from my childhood. How without consciously realizing it, I searched for someone to treat me similar to my mother. Because after all, that had to be love!

I was so amazed by this training that I took the Master level and went on to become a Trainer in N.L.P. Not only did I get a divorce, I opened an Institute and began coaching others in how they could completely change their lives for the better. They could get out of all the old destructive patterns of behavior and be the person they wanted to be.

After working with abused women, children and men as well as drug and alcohol addicts I realized that many people would deal with a presenting problem and heal it but then later, it might show up in a different way. Something was going on that hadn’t been addressed.

That lead me to learning all I could about how the brain works, how we encode information and behavior and what can we do to change it. So much new research was appearing on neuroscience and the plasticity of the brain and I had access to working neuroscientists.

After years of trial and error, utilizing various techniques from N.L.P., Ericksonian Hypnosis, guided imagery, the work of Dr. Candace Pert and Dr. Bruce Lipton we well as the work in neuroplasticity, I began to experiment and test a new process I call Neural Pathway Restructuring™.

As I worked with these presenting problems it became obvious to me that we were working with more than just negative emotions, limiting beliefs and memories. In fact, we were working with the very strategies that define ourselves and our approach to life. These strategies were reinforced in our brains and went as deeply as the cellular level.

It was almost as if we were addicts for our own behaviors. And in essence we are.

Not only do we generate neurological pathways of behavior in our brain, we become addicted to our own brain chemicals. Just as an addict must get high off an external chemical, we too can be addicted to a behavioral strategy which releases the sought after chemicals. If our behavior is of a positive nature then we never worry about it. But, if the behavior is undesirable, we may try all manner of interventions to change it only to find we’re replacing it with something else.

Neural Pathway Restructuring™ is a painless, relatively quick method to restructure the neurological pathways of the brain to create the results we want.

Find out more about Neural Pathway Restructuring™ here and about Debra Fentress here!

Change, Neural Pathway Restructuring

Change is hard

I’m going out on a limb by saying this but change is hard. We are all creatures of habit. To get ourselves to do something different can be equivalent to running a marathon without first training for it. Think how many times you’ve ever tried the “white knuckle” approach to something. How successful were you?

The problem with changing our behaviors is not in our desire to do so. The problem is that we’re dealing with our two minds. The conscious mind, often called the rational mind and the unconscious mind or our emotional nature.

To change anything in our lives, these two minds have to be in agreement.

The conscious or rational mind is that part of us that is analytical and can delay gratification for long term goals or payoffs. The unconscious or emotional mind deals with pain and pleasure and is a pleasure seeking being.

The unconscious mind is interested in instant gratification. It wants things to be easy and quick. And it is the part of us that gets things done. The unconscious mind easily over rides the conscious mind when it comes to getting us to do things. The reason is that most of our behaviors are done unconsciously or without our awareness. We just do them without thinking about it.

We’ve actually created neural pathways in the brain which run automatically whenever it’s time to do a specific behavior. You don’t have to think about how to overeat or brush your teeth….you just do it or you could say your unconscious mind does it.

So every time you try and get your conscious mind to change a behavior through will power, you are attempting to override a neural pathway that is practically set in stone. After a while, we actually get worn down by our own self supervision. How many times have you attempted to do something and just got fed up with the constant monitoring of your behavior? We can only do this so long before we are exhausted.

If you’ve ever tried to lose weight through dieting you know what I mean. Every morsel you put in your mouth you have to think about and weigh the pros and cons.

Another reason change is hard is because we keep changing our minds! One minute our rational mind thinks we want to lose the weight or stop drinking or get that report done and then we’re thinking about that piece of cake left in the kitchen or just one little drink won’t hurt.

So the problem isn’t that you are lazy or lack motivation. The problem is the battle between the conscious and unconscious mind. And to get these two in alignment, you have to restructure those neural pathways.  

Recently, scientists have discovered what they call Brain Plasticity where our brain cells or neurons are constantly making new pathways. This means that your brain can change! You can create the neural pathways of your choice.

Change can then become quite easy because you’re creating on the unconscious level. So the next time you go to repeat an unwanted behavior, you find yourself doing the desired behavior. This is part of the research that went into my development of the Neural Pathway Restructuring™. I’ve used it with several different habitual behaviors such as smoking, alcoholism, drug addiction, bulimia, picking, OCD, PTSD, anxiety disorders and Tourette’s Syndrome.  I also use a form of it in many of my workshops to assist groups to let go of limiting beliefs they may have about themselves and their ability to be, do or have what they want.

If you’re interested in learning more about Neural Pathway Restructuring™, please go to: NeuralPathwayRestructuring.com