Ilchi Lee

Unlike other parts of our bodies, our brains are encased in the hard shell of our skulls – so we can neither touch them nor see them directly. However, our brains are made up of many areas that control different parts of our bodies, and different areas of our brains interact very closely with each other. Consequently, by moving our bodies and stimulating our senses, we can activate and integrate wide areas of our brains.

We can stimulate our brains through our bodies. All information we receive through our five senses, all actions accompanied by movement of bones and muscles, and all the foods we consume daily affect our brains. Appropriate exercise increases the flow of oxygen and production of growth factors, contributing to the growth of new brain cells. It also increases the production of neurotransmitters, such as dopamine and serotonin, which play an important role in effective cognitive functioning.

Most of us have fixed patterns of behavior and exercise. That is why we end up habitually using certain parts of our bodies, without even realizing it. Typically, our brains access only those parts associated with our customary behaviors. If we use muscles we rarely use, and move our bodies in directions in we seldom move them, idle brain areas awaken and are activated. Yoga, Asian martial arts, dancing, etc. all include many novel bodily movements that are very good for stimulating the brain.

We cannot produce good results, no matter how excellent our designs and plans, if our bodies fail to support us with sufficient strength and energy to carry them out. Fortune and opportunity are available to everyone. Some people are able to seize those opportunities; some are not.

Work to develop a body full of vitality. Make it so that your body can support the goals you set for yourself. Keeping in good shape cannot be done by thought alone. It requires constant training of muscles, bones, and heart. Staying in shape not only promotes good health, but it is also an effective way to develop self-control, responsibility, willpower, and integrity.

In the process of improving your physical condition, you can develop the power to look at yourself more closely and deeply, and at the same time to observe yourself objectively. This can lead to new discoveries of your true nature. It can also develop in you a new perspective that broadens your field of vision with respect to life’s possibilities and what you really want to choose.

Your brain can do things you have never done before, even things of which you are unaware. Your brain has incredible power to find paths you cannot now see and to create paths you cannot find. But your brain will not put forth its full creative power if you keep only to those aspects of yourself that you have experienced and understood so far. Most people live within the limits of the self they have experienced and known. So they do not realize what they have not learned, they remain uninterested in things that they believe to be none of their business, and they fear to attempt things outside the scope of their own knowledge and experience.

Within your brains sleep amazing powers. Your brain contains infinite creativity. To release this creativity requires a strong faith in yourself. So believe fully in yourself. For many people, this is more easily said than done. At such times, one can shift perspective, even slightly, and try trusting your brain.

Having sufficient confidence – trusting your brain – is the first step to activating your brain. We can maintain a positive attitude when our confidence is alive and vital, and a positive attitude responds flexibly to information, increasing the speed at which we change and grow. If you are in low spirits because of past mistakes or poor behavior, or if you desire to change a habit, tell yourself this, “That was my brain as it was in the past, but not now. My brain can change.”

The moment you acknowledge your past experience – without being ashamed of it, denying it, or making excuses for it – the brain opens up circuits previously blocked by stress and starts creating new thoughts. Your brain is ready to ceaselessly change and grow. You provide your brain with a direction for that change by continually making choices and by putting your choices into practice.

It is you yourself, and no one else, who can erase the limitations, or “set points” in our brains. If you think, “these are my limits,” your brain will not try to work beyond those limits. If you keep the limits, it is like driving a car with the parking brake engaged and then complaining that you can not go as fast as you would like.

The brain’s default mechanism is to act on previously input information or patterns. To make use of your brain’s infinite creativity, you must ceaselessly pose new questions to it. When questioned, the brain moves actively to find an answer. When you ask your brain new questions, it searches for new information to answer them, and it wondrously comes up with integrated ideas that connect separate informational elements.

Great human inventions have begun with questions. “I want to fly. I really want to fly! Is there a way to do it?” This led to many generations of people who experimented with aircraft. Today we can travel the world because these questions were asked by people and answered by their brains.

And the more honest and earnest a question, the more passionately a brain moves in its quest for answers. If you want an answer, be sincere and keep asking your brain. In some way, perhaps unexpected, the brain will provide the answers you will need.

While you need to trust your brain, you have to allow your brain to trust you. To secure the confidence of your brain, you must check yourself regularly, again and again, because we are all subject to all types of doubts and fears. It is not through your thoughts or words, but rather through your actions that you can really check yourself. Through your actions, you must show yourself what kind of person you are, persuade your brain of this, and win your brain’s total trust. If you think a lot, but do not act, it shows that your brain power is not yet adequate. Your brain is failing to send a signal powerful enough to move your body. No creation is possible without action. Nothing meaningful at all happens without action.

The trust of your brain cannot be earned in a day. Your brain’s trust is a form of energy, an asset that must be accumulated and managed carefully by investing a great deal of time and effort. You build faith in yourself when you continue to show devotion to what you do, beginning with small things and moving one step at a time to larger things. This growing faith, ultimately, quiets the brain’s doubts and fears, and enables the brain to reveal and utilize its powers to the greatest extent possible.

To win the trust of your brain, you must develop and exercise willpower. Willpower is the ability, once we establish a goal, to see it through to the end. It is persevering despite obstacles and pain encountered along the way. When you make up your mind and say, “I’ll do it,” our fear of the task will vanish, and your heart will feel lighter. We will use 100% of our energy because we will be free of conflict over whether to do the work. Once you truly make up your mind to do something, your brain, on its own, will make all the preparations necessary to accomplish the task. Then, quite mysteriously, conditions surrounding you will develop in a way that will make it easier for you to accomplish what you set out to do.

Aid will come to you unlooked for. Things that seemed to have only a small chance of working out will end up going your way. If something we intend to do is not working out the way we would like, we should check ourselves to see whether we truly have the willpower to reach that goal and remind ourselves what it was we made our minds up to do in the first place.

When, with willpower, honesty, integrity, and responsibility, you put your choices into practice, you earn the trust of your brain. Your brain will begin to listen precisely to what you say and serve you loyally. You will grow into a mature human being who continues to reduce the discrepancies and contradictions between thought and deed, between body and brain, and between the principles for life we establish and the lives we actually live.

Among all the animals living on the Earth, human beings have the largest brains relative to their bodies. Our brains are the organs that consume the most energy. The brain seems to have both regions specialized for specific functions, as well as broadly unspecialized regions. Compared with other animals’ brains, the human’s prefrontal lobes, which are involved in planning and evaluating, are particularly well developed.

Especially through the development of the pre-frontal cortex, human have the extraordinary power of choice. Not only can we choose how we will respond to given stimuli or situations, we can also produce our own novel stimuli and create our own circumstances. Through this ability to choose, we can experience and create ourselves and our world in the way that we desire.

All behaviors, memories, thoughts, and habits have corresponding neural circuits in the brain. These circuits come together to form who we are now. Theoretically, the number of neural circuits that the human brain can create by combining connections between nerve cells exceeds the number of atoms in the entire universe. This infinite combination of connections gives us, literally, infinite potential.

A network with more connections than the number of atoms in the whole universe; the infinite potential latent within that network of connections; the brain’s structural properties that make possible deep thinking and analysis, synthesis, and, more than anything else, choice–what do you think all these exist for? How will you use this potential during your lifetime? Our brains do not exist only to worry about what we will eat and what we will wear tomorrow. They are far too precious to be used only in these ways. Let’s allow our brains to pursue significant, far-reaching dreams and goals, that befit their greatness.

The most effective way to awaken the sleeping brain is to engage it in a workload that must require its full awareness and attention. Establish a big goal requiring absolutely all of your energy, abilities, and wisdom. Set up a goal that will enable you to take great leaps forward. If you create a goal that you can achieve easily, one within the scope of your limitations, then your brain will use less than 100% of its capacity. If, however, you pursue a grand, far-reaching vision, your brain will train itself accordingly and work hard to meet your expectations.