I was recently noting the restriction many self-help and spiritual groups put on their members to avoid "the unwashed". Many groups emphasize the importance of avoiding those who do not think like the group. And this is not just the obvious "cults". Is this just "clique-ism" or is it something else?
Most growth groups provide and encourage opportunities for their members to socialize, eat together, and in other ways to interact as much as possible with other people of "like mind".
On the other hand, people striving for change may be encouraged to avoid others who are of the old mind set. Someone trying to change a drug habit, for instance, is counselled to avoid other drug users, drug haunts, even habits that accompanied drug use; teens trying to stay out of "trouble" may avoid certain peer groups and even change their preferences for leisure time activities, music, etc.
In the past, I have always thought about this from a behavioural learning perspective - a breaking down or weakening of old habits to allow the formation of new habits. While this is true, I recently realized that it also reflects the "attractor" energy fields of those activities and the risk of entrainment to an attractor we don't want.
What the heck does that mean?, I hear you asking...
Let's do a couple of definitions and this will make more sense.
An "attractor" is an energy pattern within time and space. And I don't mean some kind of airy-fairy energy here -- I'm talking about the electromagnetic energy coming from your brain all the time. That's what gets picked up and becomes visible in an EEG.
We can identify attractors that range from very simple, low-level attractors such as the swinging of a pendulum to very complex, non-repeating, high-level attractors that don't look predictable at all because the pattern is so complex.
Think of a behaviour or way of being that we don't want as being like a low-level attractor - we repeat it over and over and over....and it's way hard to break out of it.
There's another phenomenon that makes it hard to break out of an attractor we are stuck in. This is the principle of "entrainment". You can experience entrainment when you have two similar tuning forks. If you start one vibrating, the other soon starts as well - it kind of follows along in the vibrations of the first. It's also thought to be the reason why women who live or work in close proximity start to menstruate on a similar cycle. It's not just imitation or social pressure (how would tuning forks feel social pressure??) -- it's an actual energy phenomenon.
So if we put this together with trying to create personal change, maybe you can see how what you are actually trying to do is:
(1) escape the attractor pattern you are "stuck"in and jump to another more complex/higher-level pattern that is more flexible and resilient
(2) stay in that new pattern and not find yourself pulled back into the old "vibration" (i.e., not find yourself being "entrained" to the old pattern by spending time in those energy patterns).
You might be able to see all sorts of applications beyond breaking old habits.
The notion of spiritual "attraction" would fit in with this explanation as well. When you spend time thinking about what you don't want, you are actually spending time with that vibratory attractor pattern. When you spend time in the new pattern by thinking about it, spelling out details, choosing who and what you spend time with, you are practicing living in the new attractor pattern. Cool, eh?
How does this fit in with neurofeedback? (I have to draw the connection, of course 
Well, neurofeedback seems to facilitate especially step 1: breaking out of old low-level attractors. It gives the brain the information it needs to break loose and gives it the opportunity to move onward and upward more easily by "jumping" to another level.
Many people also report that it assists with step 2 as well: staying away, or not being entrained back into, the old pattern. People report that they find themselves less drawn to things that aren't "good" for them and more attracted to healthier changes. Is this because of the "jump" they get at step 1? We don't know, but it might be related.
Finally, this might help you understand why neurofeedback seems to help with so many concerns people have. It's not really targeting a specific "disease" or "dysfunction" -- it's helping to break up low-level, overly predictable attractor patterns that keep you stuck - no matter what they are.
Maybe we should think of neurofeedback as a means of "escaping the gravity" that holds us bound to an old way of being.
Where are you feeling "stuck"?
I was recently noting the restriction many self-help and spiritual groups put on their members to avoid "the unwashed". Many groups emphasize the importance of avoiding those who do not think like the group. And this is not just the obvious "cults". Is this just "clique-ism" or is it something else?
Most growth groups provide and encourage opportunities for their members to socialize, eat together, and in other ways to interact as much as possible with other people of "like mind".
On the other hand, people striving for change may be encouraged to avoid others who are of the old mind set. Someone trying to change a drug habit, for instance, is counselled to avoid other drug users, drug haunts, even habits that accompanied drug use; teens trying to stay out of "trouble" may avoid certain peer groups and even change their preferences for leisure time activities, music, etc.
In the past, I have always thought about this from a behavioural learning perspective - a breaking down or weakening of old habits to allow the formation of new habits. While this is true, I recently realized that it also reflects the "attractor" energy fields of those activities and the risk of entrainment to an attractor we don't want.
What the heck does that mean?, I hear you asking...
Let's do a couple of definitions and this will make more sense.
An "attractor" is an energy pattern within time and space. And I don't mean some kind of airy-fairy energy here -- I'm talking about the electromagnetic energy coming from your brain all the time. That's what gets picked up and becomes visible in an EEG.
We can identify attractors that range from very simple, low-level attractors such as the swinging of a pendulum to very complex, non-repeating, high-level attractors that don't look predictable at all because the pattern is so complex.
Think of a behaviour or way of being that we don't want as being like a low-level attractor - we repeat it over and over and over....and it's way hard to break out of it.
There's another phenomenon that makes it hard to break out of an attractor we are stuck in. This is the principle of "entrainment". You can experience entrainment when you have two similar tuning forks. If you start one vibrating, the other soon starts as well - it kind of follows along in the vibrations of the first. It's also thought to be the reason why women who live or work in close proximity start to menstruate on a similar cycle. It's not just imitation or social pressure (how would tuning forks feel social pressure??) -- it's an actual energy phenomenon.
So if we put this together with trying to create personal change, maybe you can see how what you are actually trying to do is:
(1) escape the attractor pattern you are "stuck"in and jump to another more complex/higher-level pattern that is more flexible and resilient
(2) stay in that new pattern and not find yourself pulled back into the old "vibration" (i.e., not find yourself being "entrained" to the old pattern by spending time in those energy patterns).
You might be able to see all sorts of applications beyond breaking old habits.
The notion of spiritual "attraction" would fit in with this explanation as well. When you spend time thinking about what you don't want, you are actually spending time with that vibratory attractor pattern. When you spend time in the new pattern by thinking about it, spelling out details, choosing who and what you spend time with, you are practicing living in the new attractor pattern. Cool, eh?
How does this fit in with neurofeedback? (I have to draw the connection, of course
Well, neurofeedback seems to facilitate especially step 1: breaking out of old low-level attractors. It gives the brain the information it needs to break loose and gives it the opportunity to move onward and upward more easily by "jumping" to another level.
Many people also report that it assists with step 2 as well: staying away, or not being entrained back into, the old pattern. People report that they find themselves less drawn to things that aren't "good" for them and more attracted to healthier changes. Is this because of the "jump" they get at step 1? We don't know, but it might be related.
Finally, this might help you understand why neurofeedback seems to help with so many concerns people have. It's not really targeting a specific "disease" or "dysfunction" -- it's helping to break up low-level, overly predictable attractor patterns that keep you stuck - no matter what they are.
Maybe we should think of neurofeedback as a means of "escaping the gravity" that holds us bound to an old way of being.
Where are you feeling "stuck"?