Tag Archives: NeuralPathwayRestructuring

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!