Subscriber numbers generate contributions that support scholarships for workshops.
“Dr. Mullen is doing impressive work helping the world. He is the pioneer of proactive neuroplasticity utilizing DRNI – deliberate, repetitive, neural information.” – WeVoice (Madrid)
I have outlined the structure and described the benefits of proactive neuroplasticity. Through the deliberate, repetitive, neural input of information (DRNI), we compel our neural networkto change its polarity and assist in the positive transformation of our thoughts and behaviors. Information alerts. Information sparks a receptor neuron, sending electrical information to a sensory neuron, stimulating presynaptic or sensory neurons that forward it to millions of participating neurons, causing a cellular chain reaction in multiple interconnected areas of our brain. Other benefits include long-term potentiation, abundant reciprocation, and increased BDNF and chemical hormones that consolidate cognitive functioning.
Proactive neuroplasticity is the most effective method of positive neural restructuring, but it has its limitations. It is a product of our brain’s left hemisphere – the analytical part responsible for rational thinking. Recovery and self-empowerment entail identifying the automatic negative thoughts and behaviors (ANTs) that negatively impact our emotional well-being. That is only half the battle. We are complementary beings; our minds, body, spirit, and emotions work in concert. Our brain’s right hemisphere is responsible for our emotions, creativity, intuition, feelings, and imagination. That is the role of active neuroplasticity. Proactive neuroplasticity attends to the mental and the rational, and active neuroplasticity the emotional, social, and spiritual. Recovery, self-empowerment, and neural restructuring are enabled by both as is our physiological structure. What proactive neuroplasticity lacks in productivity is fulfilled by reactive neuroplasticity. They complete each other.
Plasticity is the quality of being easily shaped or molded. Neuroplasticity is our brain’s continuous adaptation and restructuring to information.Science recognizes that our neural network is dynamic and malleable – realigning its pathways and rebuilding its circuits in response to all stimuli.
The principle goal of recovery and self-empowerment is replacing or overwhelming our accumulation of toxic neural information with healthy input. What is the role of neuroplasticity in positive behavioral change? The definition of recovery is regainingpossession or control of something stolen or lost. Self-empowerment is making a conscious decision to become stronger and more confident in controlling our lives. In neuroses such as anxiety, depression, and comorbidities, what has been stolen or lost is our emotional well-being and quality of life. In self-empowerment, it is the loss of self-esteem and motivation. So, both recovery and self-empowerment deal with regaining what has been lost. And both are accomplished through neuroplasticity.
We accelerate and consolidate learning and unlearning by compelling our brains to restructure their neural circuitry. This confirms that our emotional well-being is self-determined. While we are impacted by outside forces over which we have limited to no control – life’s vicissitudes, physical deterioration, human hostilities – our psychological health is determined by how we react to things. How we respond to adversity as well as fortune and opportunity. The onus of recovery and self-empowerment rests with us. We control our emotional well-being.
If there is an underlying theme in recovery and self-empowerment, it is that we are not defined by our faults and defects, but by our character strengths, virtues, and attributes, rediscovered and affirmed utilizing a synthesis of targeted scientific and psychological approaches. Mindfulness of this strengthens our self-reliance, reboots our self-esteem, and promotes positive neural repatterning.
Human neuroplasticity happens in three forms. Reactive neuroplasticity is our brain’s natural response to things over which we have limited to no control – stimuli we absorb but do not initiate or focus on. A car alarm, lightning, the smell of baked goods. Our neural network automatically restructures itself to what happens around us.
Active neuroplasticity happens through intentional pursuits like creating, yoga, and journaling. We control active neuroplasticity because we consciously choose the activity. A significant component of active neuroplasticity is our altruistic and compassionate social behavior, e.g., teaching, compassion, and random acts of kindness.
Proactive neuroplasticity is rapid, concentrated, neurological stimulation to change the polarity of our neural network from toxic to positive. This is best consummated by DRNI – the deliberate, repetitive neural input of information.
What is significant is our ability to deliberately accelerate and consolidate learning and unlearning. Over the years our brain structures itself around negative neural input forming in childhood and increasing exponentially due to our inherent negative bias and the vicissitudes of life. The primary objective in recovery and self-empowerment is replacing or overwhelming that negative information with positive neural input.
Through neuroplasticity, we consciously and deliberately transform our thoughts and behaviors, creating healthy new mindsets, skills, and abilities. Our informed and deliberate engagement provokes change rather than reacting and responding to it.
Both proactive and active neuroplasticity assist in the positive transformation of our thoughts and behaviors. Their collaboration reinforces and strengthens neural restructuring. Proactive neuroplasticity is self-oriented; active neuroplasticity is other-oriented. Their activities collaborate as do our two hemispheres and the left and right sides of our physical structure. Gestalt psychology considers the human mind and behavior as a whole. Radical behaviorism not only considers observable behaviors but also the diversity of human thought and experience. That calls for a collaboration of science, philosophy, and psychology. Philosophy, existentially defined, welcomes religious and spiritual insight. Hard science is supported by proactive neuroplasticity and psychology by active neuroplasticity. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
Self-esteem is mindfulness of our qualities and character as well as our defects. It is how we think about ourselves, how we think others think about us, and how we process that information. Healthy self-esteem tells us we are of value, consequential, and desirable. The inherent byproduct of healthy self-esteem is self-appreciation. It is self-esteem paid forward. The consolidation of our self-regard and the recognition of what we have to offer drives us to share it with others. Self-appreciation is the natural evolution of self-esteem.
Beyond the synthetic and creative products of active neuroplasticity is our ethical and compassionate social behavior. Contributions to others and society are extraordinary assets to neural restructuring. The value of volunteering – providing support, empathy, and concern for those in need – is extraordinary, not only in promoting positive behavioral change but in our neural restructuring. The social interconnectedness established by caring interconnectivity augments the regeneration of our self-esteem and self-appreciation.
Proactive and active neuroplasticity are necessary formidable tools for neural restructuring, the regeneration of our self-esteem and appreciation, and the corresponding positive transformation of our thoughts and behaviors.
WHY IS YOUR SUPPORT SO IMPORTANT? ReChanneling develops and implements programs to (1) moderate symptoms of emotional malfunction and (2) pursue personal goals and objectives – harnessing our intrinsic aptitude for extraordinary living. Our paradigmatic approach targets the personality through empathy, collaboration, and program integration utilizing scientific and clinically practical methods including proactive neuroplasticity, cognitive-behavioral modification, positive psychology, and techniques designed to regenerate self-esteem. All donations support scholarships for groups, workshops, and practicums.
Subscriber numbers generate contributions that support scholarships for workshops.
“Dr. Mullen is doing impressive work helping the world. He is the pioneer of proactive neuroplasticity utilizing DRNI – deliberate, repetitive, neural information.” – WeVoice (Madrid, Málaga)
Reasonable expectations for those experiencing emotional malfunction including social anxiety.
Living with persistent negative self-beliefs and image for years on end is emotionally destabilizing. We crave interconnectedness, but our fears of ridicule and rejection interfere with any semblance of a social life. We are overwhelmed by loneliness and isolation. We avoid opportunities that may provoke our anxiety. So, we turn to defense mechanisms to relieve ourselves of our SAD-provoked fears and anxieties.
Defense mechanisms are psychological responses that protect us from our unrelenting anxieties. They temporarily appease our sense of helplessness, hopelessness, undesirability, and worthlessness. They also reinforce and justify our toxic behaviors and validate our irrational attitudes, rules, and assumptions. They twist reality to conform to our irrational behaviors. Defense mechanisms are short-term safeguards against the thoughts and emotions that are difficult for our conscious minds to manage. Mechanisms like compensation, substance abuse, projection, and cognitive distortions are methods of avoidance – unhealthy responses to our problems – that offer temporary respite but do little to moderate our anxieties in the long term.
Some defense mechanisms, when used appropriately, can be beneficial. Without coping mechanisms, healthy or otherwise, we can experience decompensation – the inability or unwillingness to generate effective psychological alternatives to stress – resulting in personality disturbance or disintegration.
Compensation
None of us is perfect. We all conceal things to avoid revealing things about ourselves that make us uncomfortable. Often, we hide them from ourselves. One way to accomplish this is to direct attention away from the problematic area to something else.
Compensation is when we excel in one area of our life to counteract real or perceived deficits in another. The socially inadequate may become an actor or musician. A toddler reprimanded for bad behavior might clean her room. A teenager compensates for learning difficulties by excelling in sports. (While they may accrue social and physical benefits, long-term problems may accrue unless educational issues are addressed.)
Compensation is a natural response to errant behaviors. It is a defense mechanism that has healthy applications. We compensate for our adverse thoughts and behaviors by replacing them with positive, productive ones. We compensate for our low self-esteem by recognizing and emphasizing our character strengths, virtues, and achievements.
Our social anxiety has negatively impacted our emotional well-being and quality of life since childhood. Our fear of rejection has subverted our social life. Our obsession with our performance and shortcomings is a constant reminder of our imperfections. Like the tendency to thrust a burnt hand into cold water, years of living with feelings of inferiority and self-loathing compels us to overcompensate.
Perfectionism
An unhealthy byproduct of compensation is falling into the trap of perfectionism. This is especially frequent in SAD persons. Perfectionism causes us to set unreasonable expectations. Let’s discuss some of the glaring similarities between social anxiety disorder and perfectionism.
Perfectionists tend to beat themselves when expectations are unmet. They struggle to move on when things don’t work out the way they anticipate. SAD persons worry about their performance before and during a situation and obsess about their failures long after.
Perfectionists tend to have higher levels of anxiety and lower levels of psychological well-being. SAD persons have lower implicit and explicit self-esteem relative to healthy controls.
To a perfectionist, anything less than perfection is perceived as failure. Polarized Thinking is common among SAD persons. We see things as absolute – black or white. There is no middle ground. We are either brilliant or abject failures. Our friends are for us or against us. If we are not faultless, we must be broken and inept.
Perfectionists and SAD persons avoid situations that project potential failure. We worry so much about doing or saying something inappropriate, we procrastinate or avoid the situation entirely. This exacerbates our self-criticism and defensiveness.
Perfectionists do not take criticism well. A prevailing symptom of social anxiety disorder is the fear of situations in which we may be criticized and or ridiculed.
Because of our critical nature and tendency to reject out of fear of rejection, perfectionists and SAD persons are, ostensibly, lonely or isolated, which seriously impacts our ability to interconnect and sustain satisfying relationships.
Perfectionists obsess over their imperfections. Rather than taking pride in their abilities, they prioritize their faults. Filteringis a cognitive distortion common to SAD persons. We selectively choose our perspective. We focus on the negative aspects of a situation and exclude the positive. Negative filtering sustains our toxic core and intermediate beliefs. A dozen people in our office celebrate our promotion; one ignores us. We obsess over the lone individual and disregard the goodwill of the rest. That is in an imperfect scenario, and anything less than perfection is a failure.
Expectations that follow the same criteria that we establish for our neural information will likely be met. Rational, reasonable, possible, positive, unconditional, goal-focused, concise, and first-person present or future time expectations will likely be met.
An expectation, by definition, is astrong emotional belief that something will take place in the future.When we set expectations, we have a vested interest in their outcome. An unreasonable expectation is irrational – one that has no basis in reason or fact. So, what happens in the likelihood our expectations are unmet? Because we have a vested interest, we are psychologically attached to the outcome. Fixed In our minds, we see it as a reality. When it does not go our way, the general response is one of disappointment.
Disappointment is a formidable emotion; experts describe the reaction to disappointment as a form of sadness – an expression of desperation or grief due to loss. While it is true that we cannot lose what we do not acquire, by fixing the expectation in our mind, we made it real, and we feel the loss viscerally. This leads to depression, self-loathing, and the other symptoms associated with perfectionism and social anxiety. We have failed; we are hopeless and worthless.
History shows us that setting unreasonable ambitions in war can have disastrous consequences when expectations are unmet. Since we are at war with SAD, it is crucial to avoid making the same mistake. Recovery is challenging enough without adding additional stress to the equation.
It is human nature to want to aspire to excellence. How do we set reasonable expectations when every fiber of our being wants to grab the brass ring? Setting a clear and concise singular purpose and reasonable expectations. First, we identify the particulars of the anxiety-provoking situation; they vary depending on our associated fears, and corresponding ANTs (automatic negative thoughts). We then devise a structured plan to address the feared situation – the coping skills best suited to achieve our purpose.
Purpose
What is our singular goal or reason for exposing ourselves to the Situation? Is it to network, make friends, challenge our malfunction, or work on a personal concern? Our Purpose is our primary motivation. The overarching goal in recovery is to moderate our fears and anxieties. We rarely expose ourselves to situations, however, for the sole purpose of challenging our social anxiety. We have alternative or secondary motivations. Why are we participating in this situation? What do we seek or hope to accomplish?
A world of caution. While we may have multiple reasons for exposing ourselves to the situation, it is advisable to limit ourselves to a single clear and concise purpose because it strengthens our focus and resolve. Conversely, focusing on multiple purposes such as networking, seeking a sexual liaison, and making friends significantly reduces the probability of a successful venture, leading to disappointment and self-recrimination. There is an old Russian proverb. If you chase two rabbits, you will probably not catch either one.
Subjective Units of Distress Scale (SUDS)
SUDS is a numbered, self-evaluation scale (1-100) that measures the intensity of distress we feel about a situation. SUDS has two purposes in recovery. The first is to help us identify and evaluate our fears and ANTs. It also helps us set expectations; we project how well we moderate that distress utilizing our recovery tools and techniques. It is a subjective exercise designed to generate a positive response to a potentially negative situation. Here is how it works.
Projected SUDS Rating
Let’s say we gauge the intensity of our distress about a situation at a SUDS level of 75. Projecting we can decrease the intensity of that distress to 25 is an unreasonable expectation. That is not going to happen immediately but through repetition and practice. We can reasonably expect, however, that our distress will modify to some extent. So, we project our SUDS Rating of 75 will decrease to 70 or 65. We can achieve that just by showing up. That is a reasonable expectation. We keep the training wheels on our bike until we have achieved the level of competence where we remove them and ride safely.
Projected Positive Outcome
Our projected positive outcome is the sequence of events we determine will satisfy our participation. What reasonable result will provide a sense of pride and accomplishment? Like our Projected SUDs Rating, anticipating a reasonable outcome will ensure the probability of success. For example, if our purpose is to network, what would support that goal to our satisfaction? This is purely subjective, so it is easy to be reasonable. If our fear of rejection disrupts our ability to network, for example, a projected positive outcome might be as simple as handing a business card to one potential employer. Someone more socially comfortable would, likely, ask more of themselves. Our reasonable expectation is a subjective determination of what we would consider progress. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. If we foolishly decide to fly, our wings may burn and hurdle us to the ground. A situation is defined as the facts, conditions, and incidents affecting us at a particular time in a particular place. A reasonable expectation is one that is reasonable to us when exposing ourselves to a feared situation.We determine the conditions for success. Progress, not perfection.
WHY IS YOUR SUPPORT SO IMPORTANT? ReChanneling develops and implements programs to (1) moderate symptoms of emotional malfunction and (2) pursue personal goals and objectives – harnessing our intrinsic aptitude for extraordinary living. Our paradigmatic approach targets the personality through empathy, collaboration, and program integration utilizing scientific and clinically practical methods including proactive neuroplasticity, cognitive-behavioral modification, positive psychology, and techniques designed to regenerate self-esteem. All donations support scholarships for groups, workshops, and practicums.
Subscriber numbers generate contributions that support scholarships for workshops.
Lecture: Neuroplasticity and Positive Behavioral Change Lake Shore Unitarian Society, Winnetka, Illinois Sunday, Feb. 25, 2023
Moderator introduction
Dr. Robert F. Mullen is the director of ReChanneling Inc, a national organization dedicated to the research and development of programs to (1) moderate symptoms of emotional dysfunction and (2) pursue personal goals and objectives – harnessing our aptitude for extraordinary living. His paradigmatic approach targets the personality through empathy, collaboration, and program integration utilizing neuroscience and psychology to capture the diversity of human thought and experience. A leading expert on social anxiety disorder and its comorbidities, Dr. Mullen is the pioneer of proactive neuroplasticity, enabled by the deliberate, repetitive, neural input of information (DRNI). A radical behaviorist and internationally published author, he facilitates workshops and seminars on emotional recovery and self–empowerment.
Space is limited Register Early
Lecture
Italicized portions were omitted from the lecture due to time constraints.
I am a radical behaviorist. What does that mean? A radical behaviorist not only considers observable behaviors but also the diversity of human thought and experience. That calls for a collaboration of science, philosophy, and psychology. And philosophy, existentially defined, welcomes religious and spiritual insight.
The role of neuroplasticity in positive behavioral change. The definition of recovery is regainingpossession or control of something stolen or lost. Self-empowerment is making a conscious decision to become stronger and more confident in controlling our lives. In neuroses such as anxiety, depression, and comorbidities, what has been stolen or lost is our emotional well-being and quality of life. In self-empowerment, it is the loss of self-esteem and motivation. So both recovery and self-empowerment deal with regaining what has been lost. And both are supported by neuroplasticity.
If there is an underlying theme in my work, it is that we are not defined by our insufficiencies, but by our character strengths, virtues, and attributes – and our achievements.
[Neuroplasticity]
Plasticity is simply the quality of being easily shaped or molded. Neuroplasticity is our brain’s constant adaptation and restructuring to information.
Before 1960, researchers thought that neurogenesis, the creation of new neurons, stopped after birth. Today, science recognizes that our neural network is dynamic and malleable – realigning its pathways and rebuilding its circuits in response to information.
What is information? Thought, experience, phenomena, sensation, sights, sounds, smells, tactile impressions – anything and everything that impacts our neural network. Our wonderful brain never stops learning and unlearning. Absent that, we would be incapable of replacing unhealthy behaviors with productive ones.
What is significant is our ability to dramatically accelerate and consolidate learning by compelling our brain to repattern its neural circuitry. Our neural network is structured around negative information. The primary objective in recovery and self-empowerment is replacing or overwhelming that negative information with positive neural input.
Human neuroplasticity comes in three forms. The two that concern us are active and proactive. Reactive neuroplasticity is our brain’s natural response to things over which we have limited to no control – stimuli we absorb but do not initiate or focus on. Our neural network automatically restructures itself to what happens around us.
Active neuroplasticity is cognitive pursuits like teaching, aerobics, journaling, and creating. We control this aspect of neuroplasticity because we consciously choose the activity. An important component of active neuroplasticity is ethical and compassionate social behavior. We’ll expand on that shortly.
The third form is proactive neuroplasticity – the deliberate, repetitive, neural input of information called DRNI. It is the most effective means of accelerating and consolidating learning and unlearning.
Both active and proactive neuroplasticity empower us to transform our thoughts and behaviors, creating healthy NEW mindsets, skills, and abilities. Through informed and deliberate engagement, we compel change rather than reacting to it.
What does all this mean? It confirms that our psychological health is self–determined. We control our emotional well–being. Now bad things happen, much of which we have limited to no control over. We are impacted by outside forces: life experiences, physical deterioration, hostilities, the quirks of nature. Psychological well–being means how we react to things is self–determined. How we respond to adversity as well as fortune and prosperity.
[Origins and Trajectory of Negativity]
So, where does all this negative information come from? Why are our neural networks so clogged with harmful, growth-impeding information?
It starts with our core beliefs. Core beliefs are the deeply held convictions that determine how we see ourselves in the world. We form them during childhood in response to information and experiences, and by accepting what we are told as true. Core beliefs can remain our belief system throughout life unless challenged.
[Childhood Disturbance]
Cumulative evidence that a toxic childhood is a primary causal factor in emotional instability or insecurity has been well established. During the development of our core beliefs, we are subject to a childhood disturbance – a broad and generic term for anything that interferes with our optimal physical, cognitive, emotional, or social development. Disturbances are ubiquitous – they happen to all of us. What differentiates us is how we react or respond to the disturbance – our susceptibility and vulnerability. Any number of things can precipitate childhood disturbance. Our parents are controlling or don’t provide emotional validation. Perhaps we are subject to sibling rivalry or a broken home. It is important to recognize, the disturbance may be real or imagined, intentional or accidental. I give the example of the toddler, whose parental quality time is interrupted by a phone call. That seemingly insignificant event can foster in the child a sense of abandonment, which can then generate feelings of unworthiness and insignificance. We are not accountable for childhood disturbance or subsequent behaviors. As we mature, we are responsible for moderating our destructive behaviors, but we are not accountable for their origins. It’s important to remain mindful of that.
[Negative Core Beliefs]
Feelings of detachment, neglect, exploitation are common consequences of childhood disturbance, and they generate negative core beliefs so rigid, we refuse to question them, and ignore evidence that contradicts them. This establishes what is called a cognitive bias – a subconscious error in our thinking that leads us to misinterpret information, questioning the accuracy of our perspectives and decisions. This is why we have such societal divisiveness. We don’t challenge our hard-core beliefs.
[Intermediate Beliefs]
The confluence of childhood disturbance and negative core beliefs impacts our intermediate beliefs,the next phase of our psychological development. Intermediate beliefsestablish our attitudes, rules, and assumptions. Attitudes refer to our emotions, convictions, and behaviors. Rules are the principles or regulations or moral interpretations that influence our behaviors. Our assumptions are what we believe to be true or real. These intermediate beliefs, of course, are influenced by our social, cultural, and environmental experiences.
Let me emphasize, that none of this negative trajectory is extraordinary. It is a natural progression common to all of us. Our unique personalities and experiences determine our susceptibility to it and the severity of its impact.
[Self-Esteem]
This accumulation of negative core and intermediate self-beliefs impacts the development of our self-esteem. Self-esteem, loosely defined, is a complex interrelationship between how we think about ourselves, how we think others think about us, and how we process and present that information.
We are social beings, driven by a fundamental human need for intimacy and interpersonal exchange. Human interconnectedness is necessary for our mental and physical health. Low levels of self-esteem jeopardize our social competency and impact our motivation to recover and pursue certain goals and objectives, to self-empower.
We also have an inherent negative bias, similar to our cognitive bias, which compels us to focus more on negative experiences than positive ones. When we lie in bed reminiscing about experiences, it’s usually about bad ones. Add to our accumulation of negativity are the experiences of life – outside forces over which we have little to no control. Hostility, divisiveness, illness, social media. The long and short of it, our brains are structured around an overabundance of negative information. Proactive and active neuroplasticity counter that negativity with positive neural input. That is their role.
Let’s briefly talk about what goes on [in our brain] with active and proactive neuroplasticity. Neurons are the core components of our brain and central nervous system. They convey information through electrical impulses or energy. Whether that energy is positive or negative depends upon the integrity of our information. Our brain receives around two million bits of data per second but is capable of processing roughly 126 bits, so it is important to provide substantial and incorrupt information.
[Neural Trajectory of Information]
Information alerts or sparks a receptor neuron that algorithmically converts it into electrical impulse energy which forwards that energy to a sensory neuron that stimulates presynaptic or transmitter neurons that pass that energy to postsynaptic or receiving neurons that then forward that energy to millions of participating neurons, causing a cellular chain reaction in multiple interconnected areas of our brain. Confusing? Absolutely.
Here’s an easy way to visualize it.
Neurons don’t act by themselves but through circuits that strengthen or weaken their connections based on our information. Like muscles, the more repetitions, the more robust the energy of the information, and the stronger the circuits.
In addition to positively restructuring our neural network, proactive and active neuroplasticity trigger what is called long-term potentiation. Neurons repeatedly stimulate succeeding neurons sometimes for weeks on end. This strengthens the nerve impulses along the connecting pathways, generating more energy and more neural chain reactions.
They produce higher levels of BDNF(brain-derived neurotrophic factors) – proteins associated with improved cognitive functioning, mental health, memory, and concentration.
The positive energy of our information is picked up by millions of neurons that amplify the impulse (or energy or activity) on a massive scale. Positive information in, positive energy reciprocated in abundance. Conversely, negative information in, negative energy reciprocated in abundance. Thus the significance of positive reinforcement.
When the activity of the connecting pathways is heightened, the natural neurotransmission of chemical hormones accelerates, releasing cognitive and physiological support. GABA for relaxation, dopamine for pleasure and motivation, endorphins to boost our self–esteem, and serotonin for a sense of well-being.
Those are the highlights. Scientists have identified over fifty chemical hormones in the human body. Every input or bit of information or data accelerates and consolidates the neurotransmission of these hormones.
Unfortunately, as physics would have it, we receive these same neural benefits whether our information is positive or negative. All information is rewarded by restructuring, long–term potentiation, BDNF, reciprocation, and supportive hormones. The same neural responses are activated. That’s one of the reasons breaking a habit, keeping to a resolution, or moderating our behaviors is challenging. Our brain acclimates to whatever we input and every time we repeat a destructive behavior or a bad habit, our neural circuits adapt and reward us. Thus the importance of the integrity of our information.
We are already physiologically adverse to change. Our bodies and brains are structured to attack anything that disrupts their equilibrium. A new diet or exercise regimen produces uncomfortable, physiological changes in our heart rate, metabolism, and respiration. Inertia senses and resists these changes, and our basal ganglia – the group of nuclei responsible for our emotional behaviors and habit formation – resist any modification in our patterns of behavior. Thus, habits like smoking, gambling, or gossiping are hard to break, and new undertakings like recovery, improvement, and self-empowerment, are challenging to maintain.
We inherently desire to be better persons and to contribute to others and society, but we are entrenched with negative self-beliefs. We have tried everything to overcome our condition and achieved less than desired results, which makes us feel incompetent and worthless, generating an overriding sense of futility.
We beat ourselves up daily for our perceptual inadequacies. Our inherent negative bias causes us to store information consistent with our negative beliefs and image. Psychology still focuses on what’s wrong with us. We consume ourselves with our problems instead of celebrating our achievements, and we constantly look for ways to justify or support our thoughts and behaviors. We blame ourselves for our defects as if they are the pervading forces of our true being, rather than celebrate our character strengths, virtues, attributes, and achievements.
We are consumed and conditioned by negative words. By the age of sixteen, we have heard the word no from our parents, roughly, 135,000 times. That’s a statistic and we take statistics with a large grain of salt but, you get the drift. Some of us use the same unfortunate words over and over again. The more we hear, read, or speak a word or phrase, the more power it has over us. Our brain learns through repetition.
It is not just the words we say aloud in criticism and conversations. The self-annihilating words we silently call ourselves convince us we are helpless, hopeless, undesirable, and worthless – the four horsemen of emotional dysfunction. They cause our neural network to transmit chemical hormones that impair our logic, reasoning, and communication, impacting the parts of our brain that regulate our memory, concentration, and emotions.
Our neural network is replete with toxic information.
Proactive neuroplasticity is initiated by DRNI – the deliberate, repetitive, neural input of information. What is this information? It is self-motivating and empowering statements that help us focus on our goals, challenge negative, self-defeating beliefs, and reprogram our subconscious minds. Individually focused statements that we repeat to ourselves to describe what and who we want to be. Think of them as aspirations or self-fulfilling prophecies. We incorporate them into positive personal affirmations and rational responses to our negative self-beliefs.
I belong here.
I am valuable and significant.
I am confident and self–assured.
I am strong and resilient.
I am worthy of success and abundance.
We drastically underestimate the significance and effectiveness of these self-affirming statements when we do not understand the science behind them. Practicing positive personal affirmations and rational responses dramatically accelerate and consolidate the positive restructuring of our neural network and weexperience a perceptible change in our thoughts, behaviors, and outlook on life.
It is the integrity of the information that compels the algorithmic conversion into positive electrical impulse or energy. Information of integrity is honest, unconditional, sound, and of strong moral principles. We have established certain criteria so that our neural network will recognize the integrity of our information and restructure accordingly. Our information is rational, reasonable, possible, positive, goal–focused, unconditional, and first–person present or future time. Again, we recognize that actual wording is not as important as its integrity, but it is better emotionally if we are secure in our intent.
Rational. The only logical recourse to irrational thought.
Reasonable. Unreasonable aspirations get us nowhere. It’s unreasonable to expect a grammy for song of the year if we’re tone-deaf.
Possible. If we are incapable of achieving our goal, it is ridiculous to pursue it.
Positive. Negative information is counterproductive to positive neural restructuring.
Goal-focused. If we do not know our destination, we will not recognize it when we arrive.
Unconditional. Our commitment must be certain. The affirmation, I will give up drinking – when my wife is in the room, defeats the purpose.
First-person present or future. The past is irrevocable so let’s concentrate on what we have control over.
Brief. Succinct and easily memorized. Our personal affirmations are mantras; they evolve. We change them according to need and circumstance.
Let’s talk about how proactive and active neuroplasticity support each other and how their collaboration advances our goal. While proactive neuroplasticity accelerates neural restructuring because of our deliberate, repetitive, neural input, incorporating both active and proactive neuroplasticity consolidates the process. It reinforces and strengthens our efforts. DRNI is a mental process designed to initiatetherapid, concentrated, neurological stimulation that transmits the electrical energy. It is proactive because we construct the information prior to utilizing it.
However, we are more than mere mental organisms. We are also emotional, social, and spiritual beings. Neglecting these human components is limiting and irrational. Mind, body, spirit, social, and emotions are the gestalt of our humanness. Proactive neuroplasticity is a mental exercise.
Active neuroplasticity taps into the emotional, the social, and the spiritual. Beyond healthy activities like yoga, journaling, creating, and listening to music, is our ethical and compassionate social behavior. Altruistic contributions to society are extraordinary assets to neural restructuring. The value of volunteering – providing support, empathy, and concern for those in need, random acts of kindness – is extraordinary, not only in promoting positive behavioral change but in enhancing the integrity of our information. The social interconnectedness established by caring and compassion supports the regeneration of our self-esteem and self-appreciation.
One more rather mundane reason we turn to active neuroplasticity. DRNI requires a calculated regimen of deliberate, repetitive, neural information that is not only tedious but also fails to deliver immediate tangible results, causing us to readily concede defeat and abandon hope in this era of instant gratification. I can tell you from experience, it is challenging to maintain the rigorous process demanded of DRNI – the tedious repetition. Tedium generates avoidance, and we know how difficult it is to establish and maintain new habits. Active neuroplasticity fills any gaps and brings our entire being into play.
In closing. Proactive and active neuroplasticity are formidable tools in neural restructuring and the corresponding positive transformation of our thoughts, behaviors, and perspectives. Recovery and self-empowerment are achieved through a collaboration of targeted approaches that compel the rediscovery and self-appreciation of our character strengths, virtues, and attributes. While the realignment of our neural network is the framework for recovery and self–empowerment, a coalescence of science and east-west psychologies is essential to capture the diversity of human thought and experience.
Subscriber numbers generate contributions that support scholarships for workshops.
“Dr. Mullen is doing impressive work helping the world. He is the pioneer of proactive neuroplasticity utilizing DRNI – deliberate, repetitive, neural information.” – WeVoice (Madrid)
This is a draft of Chapter Sixteen – “Recovery Mechanisms” in ReChanneling’s upcoming book on moderating social anxiety disorder and its comorbidities. We present this as an opportunity for readers to share their ideas and constructive criticism – suggestions gratefully considered and evaluated as we work to ensure the most beneficial product to those with emotional malfunction (which is all of us to some degree). Please forward your comments in the form provided below.
<16> Recovery Mechanisms
“Success depends upon previous preparation, and without such preparation, there is sure to be failure.” – Confucius
We are at war and social anxiety disorder is the enemy. Successfully challenging our fears and anxieties requires a strategy. A military strategist is someone skilled in planning the best way to gain an advantage against the enemy to achieve success. As strategists, we identify the vulnerabilities of the enemy and our wherewithal to exploit them. We build the case and create the blueprint for successful engagement. We develop the weapons, propagandize our neural network, and define the territory. Our strategy, techniques, and abilities are our weapons. We lead the forces of recovery; no one else can do that for us. Strategist Sun Tzu wrote extensively about enemy terrain and accessibility – entangling ground. narrow passes, and precipitous heights. The hostile terrain is our life-consistent negative thoughts and behaviors. To successfully negotiate it we utilize our character strengths, attributes, and achievements.
Before executing our Structured Plan for Feared-Situations, we have additional key definitions to assimilate.
Once again, a Situation is a set of circumstances – the facts, conditions, and incidents affecting us at a particular time in a particular place. A Feared-Situation is one that provokes fears and anxieties that negatively impact our emotional well-being and quality of life. Examples range from restaurants and the classroom to job interviews and social events.
There are two types of situations. Anticipated and recurring situations are those that we know, in advance, provoke our fears and anxieties. Unexpected situations are those we do not anticipate that catch us by surprise.
Automatic negative thoughts (ANTs) are anxiety-provoking thoughts, emotions, and images that occur in anticipation of or reaction to a situation. We touched upon them in Chapter Five. They are the unpleasant expressions of our negative self-beliefs that define who we think we are and who we think others think we are. (“No one will talk to me.” “I’ll do something stupid.” “I’m a loser.”)
Identifying situations and unpacking associated fears and ANTs are crucial to recovery.
As individuals living with social anxiety disorder and its comorbidities, we are challenged by a series of symptoms. Individually, we are not impacted by all of them or by the same ones as other SAD persons. Our issues are as distinctive as our experiences and personalities. The approaches to recovery are targeted to meet individual needs. Moderating our associated fears and corresponding ANTs demands an integrated and targeted approach. Through the following steps, we learn to:
Identify our Feared Situation(s). Where are we when we feel anxious or fearful and what activities are involved (what are we thinking, what might we be doing)? Who and what do we avoid because of these insecure feelings?
Identify our Associated Fear(s). One way to identify our anxiety is to ask ourselves the following: What is problematic for me in the situation? How do I feel (physically, intellectually, emotionally, spiritually)? What is my specific concern or worry? What is the worst thing that could happen to me? What do I imagine might happen to me?
Unmask our Corresponding ANT(s). We determine howwe express our anxiety. What are our involuntary emotional expressions or images? How do we negatively self-label? What do we tell ourselves? “I am incompetent.” “I am stupid.”
Examine and Analyze Our Fear(s) and ANTs. What are the origins of our fears and anxieties? Discovery approaches include cognitive comprehension, introspection, psychoeducation, and the vertical arrow technique.
Generate Rational Responses. We become mindful of the irrationality and self-destructive nature of our fears and ANTs. We discover and analyze the cognitive distortions that we use to validate or reinforce our fears. Then we devise rational responses to counter our false assumptions. The character motivations of psychobiography and positive psychology are useful here.
Reconstruct Our Thought Patterns. Through proactive neuroplasticity and cognitive approaches, we convert our thought patterns by replacing or overwhelming our toxic thoughts and behaviors with healthy productive ones. The process is facilitated by the rapid, concentrated, neurological stimulation of DRNI (the deliberate, repetitive neural input of information).
Devise a Structured Plan for Our Feared Situations(s). Utilizing our learned tools and techniques, we develop a plan to challenge our situational fears and anxieties by devising a strategy and incorporating targeted coping mechanisms.
Practice the Plan in Non-Threatening Simulated Situations. We strengthen our rational responses by repeatedly implementing the Plan in practiced exercises including role play and other workshop interactivities. Affirmative Visualization is a valuable scientific tool.
Expose Ourselves to the Feared Situation. We challenge our anxieties and corresponding ANTs on-site in real life. Thistranspires after a suitable period of graded exposure to facilitate the reconstruction of our neural network and a familiarity with the prescribed tools and techniques.
Workshop participants are asked to list their top five anxiety-provoking situations. First on George’s list was speaking in front of a group or audience. His corresponding fears were that he would not be taken seriously and be overwhelmed as the center of attention. His automatic negative thoughts were “I will be criticized” and “They will ridicule my anxiety.” Rational responses to these fears and ANTs are multiple. Among others, George chose “I deserve to be here” and “I am as worthy as everyone else.” Using this information, he created his Structured Plan for Feared-Situations.
Coping Strategies and Mechanisms
A coping strategy is our plan of action, and coping mechanisms are the tools or weapons we utilize to implement our strategy. To paraphrase the strategic offensive principle of war, “The best defense against social anxiety is a good offense” There are many moving parts to a counteroffensive requiring different levels of responsibility and expertise. At the top, we have our military strategists like Napoleon, Hannibal, and Eisenhower whose roles were to develop structured plans of action to outmaneuver the opponent.In recovery, this is ourcoping strategy designed to outmaneuver our social anxiety disorder – to moderate our fears and anxieties.
We then identify the actions or measurable steps needed to execute our strategy. In military jargon, those are the tactics implemented by field officers on the ground. In recovery, these are our coping mechanisms. A definitive strategy also identifies what resources are needed to implement the tactics. On the battlefield, the resources are the infantry, the training, and the equipment. In recovery, we are all these.
This process of strategizing is not linear or trickle-down, but complementary to its accessible assets. A smart military strategist plots the counteroffensive around the available weaponry, the expertise of the field officers, and the numbers and capabilities of the ground troops. In recovery, our coping strategy is fashioned around our ability to execute it. In Chapters Nineteen and Twenty-One, we explore some of the coping mechanisms that support our efforts.
In recovery, we do not have strategists to plan our counteroffensive nor officers on the ground to tactically implement it. We are the generals, the field officers, and the foot soldiers. The onus of recovery is on us. We are in an enviable position; recovery through proactive neuroplasticity empowers us to take control of our emotional well-being and quality of life. Master orator, William Jennings Bryan never became president but was the youngest person in U.S. History to be nominated – three times. He wrote, “Destiny is no matter of chance. It is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.”
Coping Strategies
There are maladaptive and adaptive coping strategies. Since maladaptive is particular to social anxiety disorder, we focus on adaptive coping strategies to counter our negative thoughts and behaviors. Experts tout problem-focused strategies, emotional-focused strategies, and a plethora of others. Multiple strategies are used in recovery including response-focused and cognitive-focused.
We use our coping mechanisms and skills in anticipated and recurring situations as well as unexpected ones. For the latter, we cultivate generic skills useful in any stressful occasion. For predetermined situations, we devise a structured plan incorporating predetermined coping mechanisms.
Strategizing how to combat our feared-situations is a crucial element of recovery. When we are facing anticipated and recurring situations, we know what to expect. We have advanced knowledge of the logistics of the event or occasion and have identified our associated fears and corresponding automatic negative thoughts.
Knowing how to effectively respond to anticipated situations is challenging enough. Devising fluid strategies to help us moderate unexpected situations is comparable to planning for the tactics used in guerilla warfare. Our social anxiety will use any means to control our emotional well-being including ambushes, sabotage, raids, petty warfare, and hit-and-run tactics. These are the elements of unexpected situations. Guerilla warfare is conducted by a lesser force to subdue a stronger, more formidable force. Your social anxiety disorder is small and inferior to our inherent and developed character strengths, virtues, and attributes. That is why SAD has to resort to devious, underhanded, and manipulative tactics. Chapter Eighteen will examine the most effective coping strategies and mechanisms for unexpected situations, and those that support anticipated and recurring situations will be outlined in Chapter Twenty.
Coping Mechanisms
Coping mechanisms are tools and techniques that we consciously or unconsciously use to moderate stress and reduce the neurotransmissions of our fear and anxiety-provoking hormones, cortisol and adrenaline. They range from practiced skills we learn in recovery (e.g., slow talk and progressive muscle relaxation), to instinctual reactions to stress like going for a walk or listening to music. Healthy coping mechanisms are adaptive – positive contributions to our emotional well-being. Cognitive coping mechanisms include introspection and affirmative visualization – ways to mentally improve our response to situations. Behavioral coping mechanisms are interactive distractions – activities to moderate our fears and anxieties.
Defense Mechanisms
Unhealthy or negative coping mechanisms are called defense mechanisms – unhealthy safeguards against the thoughts and emotions that are difficult for our conscious minds to manage. Defense mechanisms are mostly unconscious psychological responses that protect us from our fears and anxieties. They are methods of avoidance – unhealthy responses to SAD-induced conflicts – that offer temporary respite but do little to moderate our anxieties in the long term. Substance abuse, denial, projection, regression, sublimation, and cognitive distortions are common defense mechanisms.
Without coping mechanisms, healthy or otherwise, we can experience decompensation – the inability or unwillingness to generate effective psychological coping mechanisms in response to stress – resulting in personality disturbance or disintegration.
Those of us living with SAD are preoccupied with the future, predicting how things will go wrong. We avoid situations because we anticipate making a fool of ourselves. We dread exposing ourselves to criticism and ridicule. Not only are we consumed with anxiety during situations, but we confront it days in advance. We create self-fulfilling prophecies of miserable and lonely solutions. It is not uncommon, as clients share, to repeatedly circle the block before entering a social situation to build up courage, only to end up at the tavern on the corner. Not only do we anticipate a disastrous evening, but we guarantee it by avoiding it. Having a strategy gives us surprising self-confidence.
There are literally hundreds of coping mechanisms that can make those stressful moments easier to manage, including yoga, dancing, meditation, painting, writing, and streaming a movie. Anything that takes us out of the stress of the moment and reduces the flow of our fear and anxiety-provoking hormones is a healthy coping mechanism and they are as varied as individual experience and imagination.
Not all coping mechanisms will work for you; so also what helps you at one time may not help you at another. There is no one right way to cope with stressful situations. Many new age coping mechanisms are not conclusively beneficial and are only psychosomatically effective, but if they are not harmful (e.g. substance abuse) and make you feel better, then utilize them.
It is important to remain mindful that coping mechanisms do not address the unresolvedissues of your fears and anxieties. They are merely temporary ways to moderate stressand the influx of cortisol and adrenaline. Like an analgesic to relieve the pain of a physical condition, they do not address the cause and remedy of the ailment.
Going into a problematic situation without a strategy and functional coping mechanisms is jumping out of an airplane without a parachute. In the words of a master of moderation, Benjamin Franklin: “Failing to plan is planning to fail.”
* * *
Comments. Suggestions. Constructive Criticism
* * *
WHY IS YOUR SUPPORT SO IMPORTANT? ReChanneling develops and implements programs to (1) moderate symptoms of emotional malfunction and (2) pursue personal goals and objectives – harnessing our intrinsic aptitude for extraordinary living. Our paradigmatic approach targets the personality through empathy, collaboration, and program integration utilizing scientific and clinically practical methods including proactive neuroplasticity, cognitive-behavioral modification, positive psychology, and techniques designed to reinvigorate self-esteem. All donations support scholarships for groups, workshops, and practicums.
Subscriber numbers generate contributions that support scholarships for workshops.
“Dr. Mullen is doing impressive work helping the world. He is the pioneer of proactive neuroplasticity utilizing DRNI – deliberate, repetitive, neural information.” – WeVoice (Madrid)
<29> Words that Impede Recovery
“I believe that a negative statement is poison. I’m convinced that the negative has power. It lives. And if you allow it to perch in your house, in your mind, in your life, it can take you over.” — Maya Angelou
Words have enormous power; they influence, encourage, and destroy. They are a source of compassion, creativity, and courage. They evoke desire, emotion, fear, and despair. They lift our spirits, inspire our imagination, and plunge us into the depths of despair.
We have three primary recovery objectives: To (1) replace or overwhelm our life-consistent negative thoughts and behaviors with healthy ones, (2) produce rapid, concentrated, neurological stimulation to change the polarity of our neural network, and (3) regenerate our self-esteem by regaining mindfulness of our attributes.
Childhood disturbance prompts our negative core beliefs; our intermediate beliefs, influenced by SAD, establish the attitudes, rules, and assumptions that produce maladaptive understandings of the self and the world. Once again, attitudes refer to our emotions, convictions, and behaviors. Rules are the principles or regulations that influence our behaviors, and our assumptions are what we believe to be true or real. The common element is their toxic energy which we convey in the words we use.
These core and intermediate beliefs generate a cognitive bias that compels us to misinterpret information and make irrational decisions. Since humans are hard-wired with a negative bias, we respond more favorably to adversity. Add our SAD symptomatology to this mix and our neural network is replete with toxic information.
We are consumed and conditioned by negative words. By the age of sixteen, we have heard the word no from our parents, roughly, 135,000 times. Some of us use the same unfortunate words over and over again. The more we hear, read, or speak a word or phrase, the more power it has over us. Our brain learns through repetition.
It is not just the words we say out loud in criticism and conversations. The self-annihilating words we silently call ourselves convince us we are helpless, hopeless, undesirable, and worthless. They cause our neural network to transmit chemical hormones that impair our logic, reasoning, and communication, impacting the parts of our brain that regulate our memory, concentration, and emotions. The illusory truth effect defines how, when we hear the same false information repeated again and again, we come to believe in its veracity. Telling ourselves, repeatedly, we are incompetent and unlikeable, and other forms of negative self-labeling has the same effect – even when we intellectually know that the misinformation is false.
Before recovery, our neural circuits are structured around emotionally hostile information. While positive words boost our self-esteem and self-image, contradictory words support our irrational attitudes, rules, and assumptions. Negative absolutes like no one, nobody, nothing, and nowhere substantiate our isolation and avoidance of relationships. Qualifiers such as barely, maybe, and perhaps invalidate our commitment, while self-beliefs expressed by can’t, shouldn’t, and won’t support our sense of incompetence.
There are three categories of words to be mindful of and eliminate from our thoughts and vocabulary:
Pressure Words like should and would equivocate our commitment. “I should start my diet” essentially means, maybe I will and maybe I won’t. Pressure words give us permission to change our minds, procrastinate, and fail. (We are either on a diet or will be on a diet.) The pressure comes from the guilt of potentially doing nothing (I should’ve done that). Compare “I shouldn’t drink at the office party” to “I will not drink at the office party.”
Negative Absolute Words. The impact of won’t and can’t is obvious. Our objective in recovery is to replace or overwhelm toxic with healthy neural information – positive over negative. Consider the two statements: “I won’t learn much from that lecture” and “I will learn something from that lecture.” Which one offers the probability we will attend? Negative absolute words include never,impossible, and every time. “Every time I try…”
Conditional Words like possibly, maybe, might weaken our commitment. “Maybe I will start my diet” is not a firm commitment. Conditional words originate in doubt and manifest in avoidance and procrastination. Other examples include ought, must, and have to. Qualifying or conditional words or statements give us an excuse to opt out. “I will not drink at the office party” is a more robust commitment than “I will not drink at the party unless I get nervous.” Qualifying or conditional words or statements are also pre-justifications for our failures. (I might have won if only … )
A quick note about the word, hate.Hate is an extremely destructive sentiment to describe something we dislike. “I hate doing the dishes.” Do we really, or do we just dislike doing the dishes? Hate is an emotion; dislike is a feeling. Feelings quickly dissipate while emotions can metastasize. Psychologists argue hate has value in healing. I am less certain because it correlates to rage, resentment, and fear, feelings we seek to moderate. For those of us experiencing SAD, the word is detrimental to recovery.
It is important to recognize the harmful nature of these words and eliminate them from our self-referencing thoughts and vocabulary. They adversely impact the integrity and efficacy of our neural information which impedes recovery.
WHY IS YOUR SUPPORT SO IMPORTANT? ReChanneling develops and implements programs to (1) moderate symptoms of emotional malfunction and (2) pursue personal goals and objectives – harnessing our intrinsic aptitude for extraordinary living. Our paradigmatic approach targets the personality through empathy, collaboration, and program integration utilizing scientific and clinically practical methods including proactive neuroplasticity, cognitive-behavioral modification, positive psychology, and techniques designed to regenerate self-esteem. All donations support scholarships for groups, workshops, and practicums.
Subscriber numbers generate contributions that support scholarships for workshops.
“Dr. Mullen is doing impressive work helping the world. He is the pioneer of proactive neuroplasticity utilizing DRNI – deliberate, repetitive, neural information.” – WeVoice (Madrid)
This is a draft of Chapter Twenty-Five – “Affirmative Visualization” in ReChanneling’s upcoming book on moderating social anxiety disorder and its comorbidities. We present this as an opportunity for readers to share their ideas and constructive criticism – suggestions gratefully considered and evaluated as we work to ensure the most beneficial product to those with emotional malfunction (which is all of us to some degree). Please forward your comments in the form provided below.
<Twenty-Five> Affirmative Visualization
You are more productive by doing fifteen minutes of visualization than from sixteen hours of hard labor.” — Abraham Hicks
Affirmative Visualization is a form of graded exposure ― systematic desensitization that reduces our anxiety in structured, less threatening environments. We label the process Affirmative to counteract our natural negative bias and predisposition to set negative outcome scenarios due to our consistent negative self-beliefs and images.
Affirmative Visualization is scientifically supported through studies and the neuroscientific understanding of our neural network. Positive Personal Affirmations (PPAs) are concise, predetermined, positive statements. Affirmative Visualizations are positive outcome scenarios that we mentally recreate by imagining or visualizing them. Both are underscored by the Laws of Learning, which explain what conditions must be present for learning (or unlearning) to occur.
Through Affirmative Visualization, we envision behaving in a certain way and, through deliberate repetition, attain an authentic shift in our behavior and perspective. It is a form of proactive neuroplasticity, and all the neural benefits of that science are accrued by visualization.
Our brain is in a constant mode of learning; it never stops realigning to information. With each input, connections strengthen and weaken, neurons atrophy and others are born, energy dissipates and expands, and beneficial hormones are neurally transmitted.
Proactively stimulating our brain with deliberate, repetitive neural information utilizing Affirmative Visualization accelerates and consolidates learning (and unlearning), producing a correlated change in thought, behavior, and perspective. These changes become habitual and spontaneous over time.
Our brain provides the same neural restructuring when we visualize doing something or when we physically do it; the same regions of our brain are stimulated. Just as our neural network cannot distinguish between toxic and productive information, it also does not distinguish whether we are experiencing something or imagining it. Visualizing raising our left hand is, to our brain, the same thing as physically raising our left hand.
The thalamus is the small structure within our brain located just above the stem between the cerebral cortex and the midbrain. It has extensive nerve connections to both. All information passes through the thalamus. By visualizing something, we increase activity in the thalamus and our brain responds as though the activity is really happening.
Our thalamus makes no distinction between inner and outer realities. It does not distinguish whether we are imagining something or experiencing it.Thus, any idea, if contemplated long enough, will take on a semblance of reality. If we visualize a solution to a problem, the problem begins to resolve itself because visualizing activates the cognitive circuits involved with our working memory.
Research shows that visualizing an event in advance improves our mental and physical performance. When we visualize what we want to achieve, we consciously source information that will improve our performance outcomes, dramatically improving the likelihood of success in the real situation.
Like our positive personal affirmations, Affirmative Visualization is a mental exercise that consolidates with repetition. Example: Our feared situation is making a presentation to our classmates. We devise our Feared Situations Plan to make that happen. We then recreate the scenario in our mind, just as we have outlined it. We close our eyes and use our imagination to experience the entirety of the situation.
We visualize the event and its successful outcome, imagining each detail, our attitude, and the reactions of others. We imagine the influx of cortisol and adrenaline dissipating every time we take a deep breath, slow talk, or utilize another coping mechanism. We set reasonable expectations that can be achieved because we are well-rehearsed, and have a plan that covers most contingencies.
We visualize mitigating our anxiety and performing better, or we envision being a more empathetic or competent individual. Our neural repatterning will help us achieve those goals. The more we visualize with a clear intentthe more focused we become and the higher the probability of achieving our objectives. Affirmative Visualization activates our dopaminergic-reward system, decreasing the neurotransmissions of anxiety and fear-provoking hormones, and accelerating and consolidating the beneficial ones. When we visualize, our brain generates alpha waves which, neuroscientists have discovered, can dramatically reduce the symptoms of anxiety and depression.
WHY IS YOUR SUPPORT SO IMPORTANT? ReChanneling develops and implements programs to (1) moderate symptoms of emotional malfunction and (2) pursue personal goals and objectives – harnessing our intrinsic aptitude for extraordinary living. Our paradigmatic approach targets the personality through empathy, collaboration, and program integration utilizing scientific and clinically practical methods including proactive neuroplasticity, cognitive-behavioral modification, positive psychology, and techniques designed to regenerate self-esteem. All donations support scholarships for groups, workshops, and practicums.
Subscriber numbers generate contributions that support scholarships for workshops.
Video #7: Constructing Our Neural Information
ReChanneling uploaded the seventh videoinstallment on Proactive Neuroplasticity. Neural information is constructed by establishing our goal, identifying the objectives or steps we take to implement that goal, and determining the Information – the self-affirming or motivating statement we deliberately and repetitively input into our neural network. We want our information to be authentic and of sound construction to engage the full capacity of positive neural response. The integrity of our goal, objectives, and information correlates to the durability and efficacy of neural restructuring.
Multiple draft chapters from ReChanneling’s book on moderating social anxiety disorder and its comorbidities are posted on our website. We present them as an opportunity for readers to share their ideas and constructive criticism – suggestions gratefully considered and evaluated as we work to ensure the most beneficial product to those with emotional dysfunction (which is all of us to some degree).LINK.
* * *
Clio’s Psyche and Other Publications
Dr. Mullen’s article “Utilizing Psychobiography to Moderate Symptoms of Social Anxiety Disorder” is recently published in the Winter 2022 issue of Clio’s Psyche (Volume 18, Issue 2). The peer-reviewed, scholarly journal, founded in 1994, is published by the Psychohistory Forum, holding regular scholarly meetings in Manhattan and at international conventions.
Mullen’s “Broadening the Parameters of the Psychobiography” in Psychobiographical Illustrations on Meaning and Identity in Sociocultural Contexts has been uploaded to ResearchGate and Academia.edu. Edited by C.-E. Mayer, P. Fouche, R. van Niekerk, the book is published by Palgrave-Macmillan. Contact usto request a copy.
“Dr. Mullen is doing impressive work helping the world. He is the pioneer of proactive neuroplasticity utilizing DRNI—deliberate, repetitive, neural information.”— WeVoice (Spain)
“ReChanneling’s Social Anxiety Workshop produced results within a few sessions … I’m now much more at ease in situations that were major sources of anxiety and avoidance just a few months ago. The shared experience of working through social anxiety with other people who “get it” is powerful, and I’ve felt Dr. Mullen is truly committed to our growth and recovery.” — Liz D.
“I like Robert’s SAD recovery program, especially how it’s taking many of my negative thoughts away and replacing them with positive ones. I also appreciate the others that are in our recovery group, as we all mingle quite well. And, of course, Robert is always there as nurturing and positive friend.” — Michael Z.
January 26th –March 30th — Social Anxiety Disorder Workshop
January 28th — Empowerment with Proactive Neuroplasticity (Online)
February 24th — Proactive Neuroplasticity: Lake Shore Unitarian Society, Winnetka, IL
February 26th – April 10th — Proactive Neuroplasticity Empowerment Workshop
* * *
WHY IS YOUR SUPPORT SO IMPORTANT? ReChanneling develops and implements programs to (1) moderate symptoms of emotional dysfunction and (2) pursue personal goals and objectives – harnessing our intrinsic aptitude for extraordinary living. Our paradigmatic approach targets the personality through empathy, collaboration, and program integration utilizing scientific and clinically practical methods including proactive neuroplasticity, cognitive-behavioral modification, positive psychology, and techniques designed to regenerate self-esteem. All donations support scholarships for groups, workshops, and practicums.
Subscriber numbers generate contributions that support scholarships for workshops.
“Dr. Mullen is doing impressive work helping the world. He is the pioneer of proactive neuroplasticity utilizing DRNI – deliberate, repetitive, neural information.” – WeVoice (Madrid)
This is a draft of Chapter Twelve – ‘Positive Personal Affirmations” in ReChanneling’s upcoming book on moderating social anxiety disorder and its comorbidities. I present this as an opportunity for readers to share their ideas and constructive criticism – suggestions that I gratefully consider and evaluate as I work to ensure the most beneficial product to those with emotional malfunction (which is all of us to some degree). Please forward your comments in the form provided below.
<Twelve> Positive Personal Affirmations
The positive thinker sees the invisible, feels the intangible, and achieves the impossible.” – Winston Churchill
One of the most effective ways to input neural information is through positive personal affirmations (PPAs) – our self-empowering, motivating statements of purpose. Practicing positive personal affirmations is an extremely productive form of DRNI or the deliberate, repetitive, neural input of information.
On the surface, creating positive personal affirmations (PPAs) sounds easy, but it is deceptively complex for SAD persons. The theory is by deliberating repeating PPAs, the power of suggestion instigates positive changes in our thoughts and behaviors. We persuade ourselves to believe what we tell ourselves. Those of us living with social anxiety disorder, however, are not so easily fooled. Years of negative self-beliefs cannot simply be overwhelmed by a few choice words. It is difficult enough to say something self-supportive, much less believe it.
I know many of you are skeptical.SAD drives us to distrust unfamiliar ideas and concepts. How can anything this simple contribute so significantly to the restructuring of our neural network? Our resistance to recovery and positive reinforcement is robust. Since childhood, we have been badgered by parents and teachers to think positively, but they never understood the science. Cajoling someone to do something without explanation is like teaching a puppy to walk on its hind legs. It eventually learns, but only under duress, and probably resents us. It also does not perform without an audience.
Many of us disparage the new-age implications of PPAs. Even when we become mindful of the obvious benefits of positive reinforcement in neural realignment, we dismiss it as silly and boring. Nonetheless, if we do the work – if we construct three viable PPAs and repeat them at least five times a day for one week, we will experience a perceptible change in our attitude and outlook on life. Trust me on this; I have experienced and witnessed the change.
That’s why mindfulness of the science behind proactive neuroplasticity is so important. If our PPAs meet the criteria for good information, our neural network will recognize them and restructure accordingly, whether we believe our information or not. Remember, our brain doesn’t think; it is an organic reciprocator. It doesn’t distinguish healthy from toxic information. Positive information in, positive energy reciprocated in abundance. Conversely, negative information in, negative energy reciprocated in abundance. So, telling ourselves PPAs are a waste of time because we don’t believe in them is not only self-annihilating but also incorrect.
In defining his counteroffensive in war, Sun Tzu wrote, “Supreme excellence consists of breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.” That is what we are doing with the deliberate, repetitive neural input (DRNI) of our PPAs. We are breaking down our brain’s resistance to healthy thoughts and behaviors due to our life-consistent negative self-beliefs by barraging it with positive information. Executing PPAs properly initiatestherapid, concentrated, neurological stimulation that causes positive neural chain reactions. PPAs are the most effective form of DRNI. That they also help us focus on goals, challenge negative, self-defeating beliefs, and reprogram our subconscious minds should confirm their value.
Neurons don’t act by themselves but through neural circuits that strengthen or weaken their connections based on electrical activity. The deliberate, repetitive,neural input of information compels neurons to fire repeatedly, causing them to wire together. The more repetitions, the more robust the new connections.
Neuroscientist Donald Hebb was a pioneer in establishing the correlation between psychology and neuroscience as it relates to behavior. Hebbian Learning is a complex algorithm that is best summarized as “neurons that fire together wire together.” That means the simultaneous activation of nearby neurons leads to an increase in the strength of synaptic connections between them. While our input of information is not simultaneous no matter how quickly we repeat it, the corresponding reactivity of participating neurons produces the same response. Proactive neuroplasticity accelerates and consolidates learning by causing neural circuits to strengthen and power information.
In addition, as we now know, multiple repetitions of positive information activate millions of neurons that reciprocate that energy in abundance. PPAs decrease the flow of the fear and anxiety-provoking hormones, cortisol and adrenaline while simultaneously producing hormones for memory, learning, and concentration. PPAs amplify the activity of our axon pathways, creating higher levels of BDNF (brain-derived neural factor) proteins. We accelerate learning and unlearning through repetition.
Like any neural input of information, PPAs spark receptor neurons that forward positive energy to millions of participating neurons, causing a cellular chain reaction in multiple interconnected areas of our brain. A colleague visualizes her PPAs as holiday fireworks. The receptor neuron is the match, the sensory and postsynaptic neurons are the fuse, and the cacophony of colors and sounds simulate the neural chain reaction.
Three PPAs repeated five times, three times daily generates forty-five cellular chain reactions, dramatically accelerating and consolidating the restructuring of our neural network. The process takes approximately five minutes out of our day.
We outlined eight rules for productive neural information in Chapter 10. Mindful of the value of repetition for learning and unlearning, let’s review these criteria one more time.
Rational. The only logical recourse to irrational thoughts and behaviors.
Reasonable. Unreasonable aspirations get us nowhere.
Possible. If we are incapable of achieving our goal, there it is unreasonable to pursue it.
Positive. Negative information is counterproductive to positive neural restructuring.
Goal-focused. If we do not know our destination, we will not know it when we arrive.
Unconditional. Our commitment must be certain.
First-person present or future. The past is irrevocable.
Concise. Succinct and easily memorized.
The most effective PPAs are calculated and specific to our intention. Are we challenging the negative thoughts and behaviors of our social anxiety? Are we reaffirming the character strengths and virtues that support recovery and transformation? Are we focused on a specific challenge? What is our end goal – the personal milestone we want to achieve?
PPAs are only one example of the positive coping mechanisms we use in recovery. A structured plan to challenge our feared situations incorporates Rational Responses to our automatic negative thoughts (ANTs); Character Focus and Persona support our clearly defined Purpose and overall Strategy, while our Projected Positive Outcome predetermines the realization of our efforts. Affirmative Visualizations are positive outcome scenarios that we mentally recreate to counteract our natural negative bias and our predisposition to set negative outcomes compatible with our negative self-beliefs and images. These and other mechanisms are explained in detail when we begin to construct our Plan for Exposure Situations, and they are all supported by the positive construction of our information.
We are engaged in a war that is not easily won. It is a life-consuming series of battles. The process of proactive neuroplasticity is theoretically simple but challenging, due to the commitment and endurance required for the long-term, repetitive process. We do not don tennis shorts and advance to Wimbledon without decades of practice with rackets and balls; philharmonics cater to pianists who have spent years at the keyboard. Neural restructuring requires a calculated regimen of deliberate, repetitive, neural information that is not only tedious but also fails to deliver immediate tangible results, causing us to readily concede defeat and abandon hope in this era of instant gratification. Fortunately, the universal law of compensation anticipates this. The positive impact of proactive neuroplasticity is exponential due to the abundant reciprocation of positive energy and the neurotransmissions of hormones that generate the motivation to persevere.Proactive neuroplasticity utilizing positive personal affirmations dramatically accelerates and consolidates learning and unlearning.
WHY IS YOUR SUPPORT SO IMPORTANT? ReChanneling develops and implements programs to (1) moderate symptoms of emotional malfunction and (2) pursue personal goals and objectives – harnessing our intrinsic aptitude for extraordinary living. Our paradigmatic approach targets the personality through empathy, collaboration, and program integration utilizing scientific and clinically practical methods including proactive neuroplasticity, cognitive-behavioral modification, positive psychology, and techniques designed to regenerate self-esteem. All donations support scholarships for groups, workshops, and practicums.
Subscriber numbers generate contributions that support scholarships for workshops.
“Dr. Mullen is doing impressive work helping the world. He is the pioneer of proactive neuroplasticity utilizing DRNI – deliberate, repetitive, neural information.” – WeVoice (Madrid)
Cognitive Distortion #7: Overgeneralization
When we engage In this cognitive distortion, we draw broad conclusions or make statements about something or someone unsupported by the available evidence. We make blanket claims that can’t be proven or disproven. Everyone knows Suzie is a liar. To imply that everyone thinks Suzie is a liar is an exaggeration without consensus. A few colleagues may share our opinion, but not the whole world. We overgeneralize when we base our conclusions on one or two pieces of evidence while ignoring anything to the contrary.
Overgeneralization supports our negative self-beliefs and image. If someone rejects us, we assume everyone will find us undesirable. Because we persuade ourselves it is unlikely anyone is interested in getting to know us, we avoid situations where that might occur. That aggravates our SAD-induced fears of intimacy and avoidance of social situations.
Our automatic negative thoughts (ANTs) are usually overgeneralizations. “No one will like me.” “I’m a failure.” “She called me stupid.” “Everyone thinks I’m an idiot.” These self-defeating thoughts are based on our fears and anxieties rather than the available evidence. An example of overgeneralization would be the false assumption that, because you failed a test, you will never be able to pass the course.
We justify our prejudices by overgeneralizing. One bad apple in a group means everyone in the group is rotten. We make broad and inaccurate assumptions about that group based on this one person’s behavior. Overgeneralized thinking can cause us to wrongly judge entire groups of people, which is harmful to self and society.
This distortion inevitably leads to avoidance, limiting our willingness to experience things because we have self-prophesied what will happen based on it happening before. Similar to Filtering, where we ignore the positive and dwell on the negative, and Polarized Thinking, where we see things in black or white, overgeneralization is based on assuming the worst. Keywords that support overgeneralization include all, every, none, never, always, everybody, and nobody. See the section on The Destructive Nature of Negative Words inChapter Nine. Overgeneralization often tends to be self-fulfilling prophecy and is associated with generalized anxiety, social anxiety, depression, panic attacks, PTSD, and OCD.
The rational response to overgeneralization is to (1) consider the accuracy of the statement and consider the available evidence, and (2) identify the situation, fears, and ANTs that compel the need to cognitively distort in the first place.
WHY IS YOUR SUPPORT SO IMPORTANT? ReChanneling develops and implements programs to (1) moderate symptoms of emotional malfunction and (2) pursue personal goals and objectives – harnessing our intrinsic aptitude for extraordinary living. Our paradigmatic approach targets the personality through empathy, collaboration, and program integration utilizing scientific and clinically practical methods including proactive neuroplasticity, cognitive-behavioral modification, positive psychology, and techniques designed to regenerate self-esteem. All donations support scholarships for groups, workshops, and practicums.
Subscriber numbers generate contributions that support scholarships for workshops.
“Dr. Mullen is doing impressive work helping the world. He is the pioneer of proactive neuroplasticity utilizing DRNI – deliberate, repetitive, neural information.” – WeVoice (Madrid)
Cognitive Distortion #6: Personalization
If someone says to us, “don’t take it personally,“ we are likely engaging in Personalization. When we engage in this type of thinking, we assume we are the cause of things unrelated to us. We believe that what others do or say is a reaction to us – that random comments are personally relevant. For those of us living with social anxiety disorder, Personalization is symptomatic of our belief we are the center of attention and the subject of criticism or ridicule.
Personalization is the stepping-stone to internal blaming and internal control fallacies where we wrongly believe we are responsible for things we have little or nothing to do with. As I cautioned earlier, cognitive distortions are not cut-and-dried but ambiguous and overlapping
Did you ever walk into a room, and everyone suddenly stops talking? If you assume they were talking about you, you are exhibiting an acute case of Personalization.
Those of us living with SAD lack the ability to understand things accurately from the perspectives of others. Our self-centeredness drives us to assume irrelevant things involve us. We imagine the world revolves around us which only aggravates our fears of saying or doing the wrong thing and embarrassing ourselves.
Another aspect of Personalization is when we compare ourselves to the achievements of others. If a coworker receives a commendation, we feel inadequate because we were not honored. Our need to personalize is underscored by our concerns about how others think about us. If we do not receive the acclaim to which we think we are entitled, we believe we are being judged unfairly. The rational response to someone receiving a commendation is to recognize their achievements, but our low self-esteem makes us envious.
As children, we believe the world revolves around us, and we lack the ability to consider the perspectives of others. We are cognitively incapable of considering the other probabilities. We assume our parents fight because we did something wrong. Most reasonable people grow out of this self-obsession, but SAD subsists on irrationality which makes us feel underappreciated and misunderstood.
Much of recovery focuses on the regeneration of our self-esteem through the renewed mindfulness of our character strengths, virtues, and achievements.
WHY IS YOUR SUPPORT SO IMPORTANT? ReChanneling develops and implements programs to (1) moderate symptoms of emotional malfunction and (2) pursue personal goals and objectives – harnessing our intrinsic aptitude for extraordinary living. Our paradigmatic approach targets the personality through empathy, collaboration, and program integration utilizing scientific and clinically practical methods including proactive neuroplasticity, cognitive-behavioral modification, positive psychology, and techniques designed to regenerate self-esteem. All donations support scholarships for groups, workshops, and practicums.
