Do you ever wonder why you just happen to be in a particularly bad mood sometimes?
It turns out that lots of unseen factors exert a major influence on our moods every day. Once you know how to notice the 3 invisible factors below you can develop habits to counteract some of the invisible mischief that finds its way into your life.
1. Your First Thought of the Day
Before you opened your eyes this morning you had your first thought of the day. So did I.
We shifted from being asleep to awake and that first little thought of our waking day set a whole process in motion.
Our thinking tends to be "associative." So, your second thought of the day was most likely very closely "associated" to your first thought.
Before you were aware of what you were thinking about, a string of rapid-fire thoughts led you to your first mood of the day.
Your day was off and running, whether you were there to notice the thought pattern that set your first mood, or not.
Our first mood of the day often occurs before we've even opened our eyes.
If you didn't notice your first thought of the day, it is very likely that some version of it will repeat tomorrow.
By consciously tracking your first thought each morning you can begin to influence the emotional trajectory of your day.
2. Your Last Thought of the Day
My grandmother told me that she ended each day lying in bed, asking herself what she did well that day and what she will do better tomorrow.
She consciously considered her actions at the end of one day, and, in sleep, she recalibrated the likelihood of performing more in line with her conscious wishes on the following day.
She woke each day from the dream world from which we each emerge to the shifting materiality of the day, and she confronted the challenges the day offered her.
Without knowing it, my grandmother taught me that as we dream, we imagine, practice, and prepare to project our dreams outward into our waking lives.
Just as you transition into your day with your first waking thoughts, you fade off to sleep after having had your final sequence of thoughts for the day.
By intentionally reviewing your day, setting your expectations for tomorrow, and finally, intentionally letting go of all your thoughts, you'll be preparing your mind for sound sleep and effective overnight processing, which leads us to"¦
3. Your Dreaming Life
Dreams are human life's ancient system for reinforcing the learning that must be mastered, both to anticipate the dangers of living, and when you know how, to enact the conscious changes you choose to make in your life.
By allowing your dreams to unleash your unconscious genius through a sleeping rehearsal of who you imagine yourself to be, your dreams can offer you the riches of intentionally harnessing "neuroplasticity's" change process.
In the absence of "neuroplasticity's" hidden laboratory"”the ongoing undercover emotional, spiritual, and skill visualization project that comes to life overnight and then recedes to the inner background each day"”humans would not have survived to tell of our dreams.
A breakthrough of the evolutionary masterpiece that life has unveiled for us: To dream is to nurture the seeds of what is later projected into flowering materiality, all while protected by the safe shell of an unconscious brain and body upon our grown-up cradles.
By becoming intentionally conscious of what you wish your life to become you inform the content of the unconscious life that is occurring inside you 24/7"” the life that produces your sleeping dreams.
Neuroscience is discovering more every day about how we can intentionally influence our unconscious inner lives to align our unconscious world with the conscious outer life we wake to and then produce each day.
The neuroscience breakthroughs we've been seeing, and that we'll continue to see, reveal powerful opportunities for creating the life you choose to live.