You DO have the power to change things. Just not the way you probably thought. The words you choose to speak can shape the world you experience tomorrow. It all starts with the tiny part of your brain called the hippocampus.
Your hippocampus records audible information. It doesn’t take the time to assess the truth or falsehood of the statements heard. But it takes the audible data and codes it into memory. It becomes a matter of historical fact even if the statements heard are not factual themselves.
Auditory information can be encoded into memory without first undergoing the sort of deliberate, reflective scrutiny we loosely call critical thinking, and those memories can later influence beliefs and behavior,
In fact, some psychologists have argued something even stronger. Daniel Gilbert, social psychologist and author of Stumbling On Happiness, proposed that comprehension itself involves a momentary state of belief, and that disbelief is a secondary process requiring additional cognitive work. His model, inspired partly by Baruch Spinoza, contrasts with the view of René Descartes, who thought understanding and believing were separate steps.
Gilbert’s model can be summarized as:
- Understand a proposition.
- Temporarily represent it as true.
- Engage additional processes to reject or modify it.
Importantly, he was not saying that the hippocampus performs these steps or that humans permanently accept everything they hear. Rather, he argued that disbelief requires more effort than simple comprehension.
You may have heard a motivational speaker say something like: “Your subconscious mind accepts what you repeatedly tell yourself.”
While that’s not technically accurate, it’s close enough to pause and reflect and consider more closely what you do say . . . especially the things you repeat most often.
So I practice the habit of speaking life. To myself. To my wife. To my children. I remind myself to think of something I’m grateful for and I speak it out loud. I read somewhere that the brain responds to audible language far differently than language processed through reading. We can tell ourselves what is true and actually believe it when we speak aloud.
Now it’s your turn
Think of something that happened today that you can be truly grateful for, and speak it out loud. The next person you see, think of something you admire or appreciate about them, and tell them.
One walk on the positive side won’t kill you. But if you try it again tomorrow, and again the day after that, eventually you might find yourself feeling just a little more hopeful and thankful about your life as it is.
It’s a simple thing. You can muster up the energy. Let me know how it goes.
