Think happy thoughts!
Stanford neurosurgeon and neuroscientist Dr. James Doty is sharing his foolproof process for bringing ideas and intentions into actuality.
Appearing on Mel Robbins’ podcast, Doty explained that taking specific steps toward manifestation can hardwire the brain into believing that good things are not only possible but probable — making them more likely to actually happen.
Something of a new age buzzword of late, “manifestation” is the translation of an idea into something tangible by utilizing the law of attraction, the belief that positive thoughts give way to positive outcomes and negative thoughts pave the way to a dreary life condition.
Acolytes include celebrities like Oprah Winfrey, who claims that being cast in Steven Spielberg’s film “The Color Purple” was a direct result of constantly visualizing herself in the role, and Drake, who credits the power of “repetitive thought” and “extreme manifesting” for his success, including the specific house he lives in and the Rolls-Royce he drives.
Psychologically speaking, manifestation is the practice of concentrating thoughts, energy and emotion to bring something into being, from belief to reality and desire to definition.
For some, the concept seems too “woo-woo” — rooted in superstition rather than fact or science. But Doty, an actual brain scientist, insists there is something scientific to back it up.
To actually make manifesting work, though, you can’t just be satisfying with thinking your hopes and dreams into reality — you have to take specific actions to link your brain up with real-world results.
The first step is to write down the thing you want to happen in your life.
“If you have an intention, you take a pencil, you write it down. You’re actually doing something physical, tactile,” said Doty.
“Then you read it silently, then you read it aloud. Then you visualize that, and you do that over and over and over again.”
According to the doc, taking a thought from mind to page to mantra leads to activation and embedding.
“You want to use all of your sensory organs as much as possible to embed that intention. So by writing it down, reading it aloud, by reading it silently, by visualizing it, that creates the process where this gets embedded into your subconscious.
“And what happens is, once you get this embedded, it activates different parts of your brain.”
In terms of the specific parts of the brain that are activated by manifestation, Doty cites the default mode network. Responsible for daydreaming, this network is internally focused and self-referential.
“It’s where you create the narrative of who you are or what you want,” he said.
Robbins noted that habitual negative self-talk, limiting narratives and a lack of belief in the possibility of success can lead to rumination and create a defeatist streak in the default mode network. However, both maintained that we can reprogram that network through the power of the mind.
“It’s available 24/7, and it doesn’t matter what’s happened to you before. So many people get fixated on ‘well, I don’t deserve this because of.’ We all deserve it,” said Doty.
“Once this gets embedded, and you create the narrative of who you want to be or how you see yourself, what you’re doing is you’re creating salience. And once something is salient, what you’re basically saying is, this deserves my attention.”
He likens the relationship between the brain and salience to a filing cabinet and a file marked “important stuff.”
“Once that is defined as something important to you, that activates your attention network so that you cognitively focus your attention on whatever that intention is,” he said.
Doty uses the analogy of a bloodhound to paint the picture of the role of the attention network.
“Once that attention is focused, it starts looking around through all the possibilities in your environment. And as soon as it identifies one, then your executive control network is activated, which, in some ways, is the thing that chases down what is in your subconscious.”
Doty insists that despite the woo-woo reputation of manifestation, its efficacy is based on the very real science of brain power.
“There is no magic here. This is fundamentally basic neuroscience, and it’s something that we all have the ability to master.”
