Every day, we're bombarded with information and emotions that shape our minds, hearts, bodies, and spirits. What if we could program one powerful habit to become a stronger filter, protecting our inner world? The basal ganglia, a deep-rooted part of our brain responsible for habit formation, has guided us for thousands of years. It helps us discern what truly matters, especially in our relationships. Imagine starting with just one daily habit to pave the way for clarity and strength. Let's commit to scheduling that one thing each day, building a path toward a more intentional life. 🌟 #Mindfulness #DailyHabits #IntentionalLiving #BrainHealth
Change Agents Community with Dr. James Rouse
Fortify Your Mind- The Power of a Single Habit
(upbeat music) - Hey, it's Dr. James Rouse. Welcome to the Change Agents Podcast. This is the place where personal growth meets human performance. Join me and the Change Agents community where inspired individuals unite to ignite their full potential and create extraordinary mastery. - Good morning, it's James. It is so good to see you today. Thank you for your time. Thank you for energy. I'm really grateful to have the honor and the blessing of laying eyes on you, and I do hope and pray that this message finds you and all the people that you love. Peaceful, thriving, and very, very well. I hope you're off to a great start today, and I also hope that you were ready, open and available to this message today. I have been thinking a lot and feeling a lot about how much is coming out of these days. I read an interesting study a few months ago about how many inputs that are actually coming into our mind and into our lives every single day. And according to the research, and one day today of all the information that we have access to, things that's coming in, inputs on our phone, technology, and all the ways that it comes into us, some voluntarily, some involuntarily, but it's coming, isn't it? It's compared to what several lifetimes would have actually experienced nearly, or just merely 100 years ago. Over 100 years ago, this was an entire lifetime, but we have this happening in a day. That's my first minute. Oh my gosh, there's so much. And I've been thinking a lot about how do we navigate this, right? The only constant is change. That was something that was said 2,500 years ago. So let's think about one of the things that will help us to be resilient, help us to have cognitive flexibility, help us to have happiness, help us be more successful, help us be spiritually awake, and not feel like we're just constantly trying to integrate and overcome and deflect and defend all of this energy. Here's a beautiful thing. We guard our time every single day. Trust me in this, there's a lot of research that suggests that the way we build our day is a way that we really build almost a, I'll call it a moat around us, that really is discerning about what's gonna come in, what we allow to come in, being discerning about whether or not we really want certain people, or certain media messages, certain things to find their way in. We can certainly program our phones to do that, but what if we were to program our brains, our minds, our hearts, our soul, our body, our spirit, in such a way that we dedicated ourselves to having the habit that has been proven clinically, physiologically, in research to say this one habit will help you to be a stronger filter to what actually gets into your life and at the same time, it builds your confidence and resilience because you know you're making a step on behalf of your self-care and your self-love. There's something called the basal ganglia. The basal ganglia is something that literally, part of it's in our brain, it's very deeply associated and connected to habit-making, but its origin goes back literally millions of years to the most prime of primates, if you will, before we were Homo erectus and Homo sapiens. I'm just, that's not an expertise for me. I know enough to share that, but if you ask me about what time that was, I don't know what time that was, it's a long time ago. But the basal ganglia is very old, but its job is literally to help us make good habits. And the more and more research I'm looking at about beginning the day with a good habit, something that becomes a non-negotiable, something that you literally say at 5 a.m. or 6 a.m., whatever you're gonna do it, you write down the time you're gonna do it, and you think about why, and then you're a witness, you're literally present for the witnessing of doing that thing. And when you do this, your basal ganglia gains traction, it literally strengthens, it finds itself fortified. And if we don't do those kinds of things, the basal ganglia just kind of goes on automatic pilot, but we can reinforce strong habits that really become a way in which we lead our entire life, so we become much better at not looking at our phone during a conversation, not checking social media, more than we really, really want to or really need to. At the same time, it gives us permission to build on positive habits such as discerning the right communities to be in the right ones, I mean the ones that support you and serve your heart, and you feel like you belong versus you're trying to fit in. Helps you discern the kind of relationships you have intimately, positive, healthy, strong relationships that fortify who you're as a person. All of that begins with a single habit. That single habit becomes like a radar or a filter or a way in which we see what it is that we want, feeling deserving of it, having the worthiness to continually bring it into our life, and it all starts there. So what will you do today? What will you do tomorrow morning? How will you schedule that one thing, be a witness to it, celebrate the fact that you did it and realize that what's happening in your brain is fortifying a way in which you are building this moat or protection or a love veil that really, really says this is what you want to come in, this is what you deserve to have come in, this is the worthiness of how you'd love to be leading your life and I'm gonna help you do this neurochemically, physiologically, emotionally and spiritually. Let's hear it for the basal ganglion. It's been with us forever since before we were here and it's a friend, feed it with good habits. Feed it with discernment. Feed it with a way that you know you love to lead your life and give it permission to help you lead that life. Thank you, have an awesome day, I'll see you soon, much love, all blessings, bye for now. Thanks for listening. Together, I believe we can make a difference in our own lives and the lives of those around us. Don't forget to subscribe, share and leave a review to help us spread positive energy across the planet. Until next time, keep shining your life and being the change you wanna see and be in the world. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) [BLANK_AUDIO]