Understand Your Brain.

Hi Everyone! I hope you are doing well! I am on vacation in beautiful Saratoga Springs having a great time with my aunt and uncle! But even during my time off I still want to work on my blog. I publish my articles every Sunday and this weekend should not be an exception :-)

And today I want to talk a little bit about my blog and a little bit about brain. I want to explain why did I start to write and make videos, and share some useful knowledge that I collected from the books and classes.

Here is the video for this article: Understand Your Brain. So why do I have my blog? It all started with suffering. I used to experience a lot of emotional pain because I could not get what I wanted. Desire itself is not bad, but cravings can make out life miserable. And I was craving for something too badly. I couldn’t focus on anything except my unfulfilled desire. But at some point I felt so bad that I realized that I needed to do something about myself, my thoughts, my behavior. I wanted to find something that could help me to get rid of my suffering. And in this research I found out that I am the only person who could have helped me. I read a lot of books, took some classes, watched lectures. I am learning something new related to the subject of happiness almost every day. But I feel that I shouldn’t keep it to myself only. I want to share what I learned and maybe my blog will help someone who is suffering. The idea that I am doing something for others keeps me motivated. To be honest, I am not the nicest person in the world. I don’t go out there trying to help everyone. But every person has his role, and mine is more educational rather than comforting. I am not the type of person who will sit with you trying to calm you down, I am just not good at it. I can just collect useful information, share it, and remind you about it. I want you to do the work, because I believe that you are the only person who can really change your life for the best! Now I want to share something about brain. It will be high level information, very simple, not too scientific. Just for overall understanding of what can go on in our heads. Brain has different parts and they have different functions. Some of the parts of our brain are pretty old. They are mostly focused on keeping you alive and motivated. These parts (they are called limbic system) don’t change, you cannot really train them. And they don’t think too much about long term goals and consequences. They want to protect you right here, right now, they require immediate action. And we do need this type of brain activity, but not as much as we have it. We are full of fake fears and unnecessary cravings, because 40,000 years ago these things were crucial for survival. Nowadays we still have all these worries in limbic system and get into troubles because of that. But we also have Cortex, more evolved part of the brain. This part has plasticity and can be trained. And cortex can decide if you need to react to limbic system’s worries, or you can just ignore them. And trust me, most of the times we just need to ignore our thoughts driven by fears and cravings. Meditation is very important because it helps you to train your brain to observe your thoughts. With your mindful part of the brain you can see what is going on with you, how your limbic system reacts to the world around you. Mindfulness helps to ignore this reaction and stay equanimous. If you unconsciously follow your limbic system, you will not be able to focus on long-term plans. Sometimes you will be able solve the problem, but only for a very short period of time and eventually the problem will become even worse than if you didn’t touch it at all. There are a lot of things we have nothing to do about, including our own thoughts. And if you understand it, you will be able to avoid a lot of troubles and suffering. I will keep talking about it in my blog and on my YouTube and IGTV channels. But for now, please try to practice observing your thoughts generated by limbic system, and try to learn how to stay non-reactive. As I said, meditations can help you with that. Just sit and observe what is going on in your brain for a minute once a day. I hope you love yourself strong enough to find time to this self-care ritual. Be Strong And Love Yourself! From Dasha With Love! Love Wins!