You’ve Been Brainwashed! Discover How You Can Train Your Brain to Change Your Perception

Just get your RAS into gear!

And your RAS is not the thing you sit on…

… it’s a small incredibly powerful filter in your brain that controls where you place your attention. (RAS is short for Reticular Activating System).

And the good news is that you can train it. It’s so powerful that you can programme it and change your life.

“Whuuuut?” (stay with me)

Some call this brainwashing.

And so do I!

But it’s brainwashing in a good way. If you want to know how to brainwash yourself carry on reading, but if you are happy as a puppet to your old programming then throw whatever device you’re reading this on into the trash.

Still here? Excellent.

Let’s take a peek inside your brain…

Here’s a quick question before we get into the science

Have you ever had that situation where someone is talking to you about something specific (like a particular make of dog or breed of car), and shortly afterwards you start seeing it everywhere?

It’s neither coincidence nor weird and it’s not serendipity or magic. Yes, you guessed it — it’s your RAS!

It’s all down to a small “thing” that sits pretty much in the middle of your brain at the end of the “reticular formation”, which is another “thing” about 2 inches long and kinda starts at the base of your skull at the top of your spine and leads upwards.

(don’t quote me, I’m not a doctor, and congratulations on getting through that sentence without falling asleep)

Now here’s the science bit!

Get comfy kids, because this is fascinating.

Did you know we get bombarded (allegedly) around 2–8 million bits of sensory information every second? All of which is being recorded by our subconscious minds.

And the reason our heads don’t explode and our eyes don’t pop out is because of our RAS. It decides for us which 5% (mas o menos) is allowed to pass into our conscious minds.

Think of it as a tiny gate-keeping superhero relentlessly battling with the crazy volume of sights, sounds, smells, tastes and sensations that we are relentlessly subjected to.

So, by now you must be wondering how the RAS decides what it allows to pass through to our conscious minds. Well, it does it based on our deep beliefs, expectations, and biases, as well as our current mood and focus.

This is known as “cognitive bias”.

Each time a bias is confirmed a neural pathway is strengthened. Now without getting into Neuroscience (I’m also not a neuroscientist), this means that as the neural pathway strengthens so does the bias we hold.

This is how limiting beliefs become part of our behaviour patterns and form the lens through which we perceive the world. So you may be thinking dayum what the ****?! I AM a puppet!!!

BUT, and it’s a big but.

(*insert your own jokes)

Your RAS doesn’t have to be the boss of you. You don’t have to be a puppet.

All it’s doing is being a self-fulfilling prophecy-making machine.

You can take advantage of this function — You can re-programme it with new prophecies to fulfil. And new beliefs to believe! (I sh*t you not) Your RAS will seek out anything you command it to seek out.

Our reality is created by what we pay attention to.

Are you the person who walks through a city and notices the details in the architecture, the sound of birdsong, and the smell of freshly brewed coffee? Or are you the person who sees the litter, hears the traffic, and smells the exhaust fumes? Our attention creates our reality.

So, to change your reality you change your attention and you can do this by giving your RAS tasks or by feeding it positive things such as funny movies, affirmations, and cat GIFS.

All this good stuff means positive neural pathways get stronger and you start to have more positive thoughts and positive experiences. And you develop a bias for positive things therefore you seek more of them out and reinforce them as part of your reality.

This is one reason to stop watching the news BTW ;)

You can tell your RAS to “go fetch” and it will do just that — you want to buy a new hat and you’re out shopping you’ll see hat shops, you’ll notice people who are wearing hats, you’ll spot hats on mannequins in shop windows. Or better still: “Yo RAS, find me the inspiration I need to write this article / to create this offer / to build this product”.

Set intentions, slow down, breathe, and trust your RAS to do the heavy lifting and you will start seeing opportunities pop-up or meet people who lead to opportunities, and the things you “wish” for start appearing!

The Law of Attraction is not magic. Nothing materialises out of thin air. Your attention creates your reality. This is not Witchcraft, this is neuroscience.

And you are NOT a puppet. Your attention creates your reality.

You train your brain to turn your attention to positive things, you reframe your limiting beliefs and look for evidence of them, you start to feel worthy of your biggest dreams, you begin to see opportunities (you’re looking at the architectural details of the buildings not the litter on the street), and life starts to look different.

Life starts to reshape itself to your new “cognitive biases”. You can rewire your brain.

Remember your attention creates your reality (see how I’m brainwashing you here?)

E X P E R I M E N T

Start journalling if you haven’t already. You can get into your inner workings, develop your self-awareness and get an idea of what’s happening behind the curtain of your subconscious mind. Pay attention to what you’ve been paying attention to that day.

What caught your eye? What song resonated? What conversation stayed with you? There are lots of clues all around…

Repeat after me…

“My attention creates my reality. I choose what I pay attention to. I choose my reality. I choose a life of… {fill in the blank}”