The Mindful Family: The Mindful Body and the Wise Mind
By Charlton Hall, MMFT, LMFT-I
One of the goals of Mindfulness is to achieve a state known as ‘Wise Mind.’ If we let our emotions rule us, it can sometimes be hard to think rationally. When this happens, we’re in Emotional Mind. On the other hand, if we allow our logical selves to take over, and we become devoid of all passion for life, becoming emotionally detached, we’re said to be too far over into Rational Mind. Wise Mind consists of Emotional Mind and Rational Mind in balance and harmony.
The way that Wise Mind manifests itself in the body is by dissolving the barrier between mind and body. We tend to think of mind and body as separate things, but this distinction does not exist in reality. Just as the body can influence what the mind thinks and does, so can the mind influence what the body does. This concept is often talked about as ‘mind over matter.’
Picture a little dirt road in the country. It’s a small, one-lane road, without much traffic. As more people move to the country, the road gets used more often. Eventually, it has to be widened into a two-lane road to accommodate all the extra traffic. As the area gets more and more traffic, the road gets wider and wider. Eventually the road may become a six-lane or eight-lane highway.
Your brain works in a similar fashion. Hebb’s Postulate states that, “What fires together, wires together.” What this means is that when you have new thoughts, the neurons in your brain reconnect in new pathways. The more those pathways get used, the more neurons on those pathways connect to each other. If you practice thinking in new and different ways, then eventually the little dirt road in the country of your brain can become a superhighway.
Studies using fMRI and CAT scans of the brain have demonstrated that using the techniques of Mindfulness for as little as twenty minutes a day for six weeks causes increases in cortical thickness in the areas of the brain responsible for good judgment, emotional regulation, and impulse control. Another way to put it is that the more positive thoughts you have, the easier it becomes to have positive thoughts in the future. Of course, the opposite is also true…the more negative thoughts you have, the easier it becomes to have negative thoughts in the future. The choice is up to you whether to have positive or negative thoughts. The Wise Mind of the Mindful Body recognizes that mind and body are one and the same, and that the way you think and feel becomes the way you are, in both mind and body.
Charlton Hall is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapy Intern and the Director of the Mindful Ecotherapy Organization (www.mindfulecotherapy.org). You may contact him at: chuck@mindfulecotherapy.org.