Creating Lasting Changes- Video #3 - Associations

Hey there, Dr. Woolner here. In this video, what I’m going to share with you is the third step to creating lasting changes.

So much of what we do on a regular basis is just based off of subconscious programming. We don’t even know it’s there. So much of what we do is so automatic and this is based off of a concept called our neuro-associations. These are patterns that we’ve ingrained over time and we’ve come to associate certain behaviors or certain things we do in our life with certain emotions.

One of the fundamental things, one of the fundamental neuro associations that people struggle with, say for instance who are looking to lose weight is they associate changes in our diet with pain; or they associate exercise with pain; or they associate junk food with comfort and pleasure and things like that. You can recognize that on some level.

The good news about changing our neuro associations is that to begin with, it was certain things that we consciously did at first that got us there in the first place. These are all things that we did at first like if you’ve heard of the experiment of Pavlov’s dog, the pairing of stimulus with a certain behavior or certain thing. He rang the bell and gave the dog food, rang the bell and gave the dog food until eventually the dog associated the bell with food even though the bell has nothing to do with food at all. But it’s this pairing of the stimulus.

So quite often, we classically condition ourselves in certain ways to associate like I said certain emotions or certain feelings with certain behaviors or certain actions. What we need to do if we’re going to truly create lasting changes is we have to unplug, so to speak and really created new associations and new connections.

So sometimes people can think of this as far as creating new habits and sometimes they talk about a certain threshold – three weeks or four weeks or twenty days or how many days to create a new habit. I’m really not that concerned about it. What we’re looking for is lasting change and that’s what we’re talking about.

So the first step in creating new associations in our life is first, recognizing what our current associations are. So again, we talked about in previous videos this concept of writing things down. Creating a really good association’s journal is a great way of doing this. You’ve already written down hopefully your compelling visions, some of your goals that we talked about in the first video.

What you can do now is create a list if you will – a two-column list. On one side, create certain behaviors that you do and what you associate those with. And really get honest and get real with yourself. As you start to step back and look at that, you can start to see certain behaviors and certain patterns of ways that you might be pre-programmed that you might not even realize. Things that you’re doing subconsciously, certain things that you’re doing automatically. So if you can see that - see the current associations, that’s the first step.

The second step is recognizing what you’re really after. If what you’re really after is comfort and if you’re looking for security and if you’re looking for certainty and things like that. And you’re seeking that through certain foods or certain relationships with things like that. You might want to ask yourself how you can achieve that same emotion or that same feeling in a much healthier way or much healthier outlet.

Begin looking at it from a new light of course, new ways that you can connect, new associations, having a paradigm shift, so to speak. That’s really what it boils down to here is writing them down, writing down your current associations and really figuring out what it is that’s driving you. What are the subconscious or those automatic behaviors that you’re going towards to meet your needs.

Then what you can do is you could step away and start questioning and start creating a better kind of design plan so that you’re not necessarily going through everything so automatically in your life. But instead, you’re consciously taking action to begin the process of making those changes.

Because just like with anything, creating any sort of a new habit, it’s going to probably be a little bit awkward at first. The cliché analogy of learning to ride a bike, at first it’s a little bit awkward learning to do that but once it clicks then it becomes automatic. That association has solidified.

That’s really what this boils down to as far as creating new associations is recognizing what our current associations are, and stepping out, and creating new ones. That’s really one of the most critical steps in this process of creating lasting changes.

So hopefully you got a lot out of this. We will see you on my next video. You are more than welcome to contact our Meridian chiropractor care in the Treasure Valley for more detailed info.