Having been practicing daily mindfulness meditation for about three months, I've become more mindful of more and more autopilot (i.e., mindless) behaviors of my own even when I don't meditate and realized many of these behaviors seem to cause a lot of trouble in my interpersonal relationships with others. Having read a couple of books on neuroplasticity, I've also understood that they originate from negative neural circuits I've wired unconsciously.
This week I read a book entitled Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself by Joe Dispenza. It's a practical guide for unwiring such neural circuits consciously from the brain through meditation. The major steps are as follows:
- Open the door to your creative state: induction
- Prune away the habit of being yourself: recognizing; admitting and declaring; surrendering
- Dismantle the memory of the old you: observing and reminding
- Create a new mind for your new future: creating and rehearsing
I've asked myself what are the most damaging of all the negative neural circuits I've wired unconsciously that I have/want to unwire consciously from my brain for my less troublesome interpersonal relationships with others. Here is a list of such negative neural circuits of mine:
- When someone who sent me questions or asked me to do something remains silent without acknowledging receipt of what they wanted to receive from me, I become enraged and sometimes complain to them emotionally.
- When someone who doesn't know me personally asks me what I consider too personal a question, I lose my temper and often protest them emotionally.
- When someone rehashes some old interpersonal issue we've already settled, I lose my temper and often threaten to sever (and sometimes do sever) my relationship with them.
- When students pampers themselves too much or behave unethically, I often criticize and preach them emotionally.
- When students in class whisper to each other, I automatically interpret they are speaking badly of me behind my back (because of one such traumatic experience I had).
By unwiring these (and other) negative neural circuits from my brain, I want to remain calm without being affected emotionally by such people and their behaviors as it's me and not they who has to pay the price after all by causing damage to myself through my own autopilot behaviors. I'm even happy for myself as I've never dreamed that I'll come to such realization some day though there still remains a long way to go. Becoming aware of a problem is the first step toward its solution.