Does Every Personal Retreat Have the Power To Really Change Your Brain?
Of course not.
In fact, most traditional psychological and spiritual approaches to change and personal development are built on half-truths that are either merely relaxation-based, emotion-based, or information-based. These approaches are too rational and why research has discovered tons of cognitive biases related to illusory thinking around these types of self-change efforts.
Over 80 percent of retreat participants return to old behaviors that prompted the need to retreat in the first place.
Why is this?
- The brain is wired to be right, not be happy or effective
- It confuses regularly pleasure and happiness
- We have contradictory “selves” that say one thing and do another, and this is fundamentally “normal” Neuroscience has called this phenomenon “modularity of mind.” So no need feeling like you are crazy. You are not.
- We rarely need to go to the past to solve our problems. We need solutions in the present to drive a new future for us
- We typically speak rationally and say things we know we should believe is true when we are in those personal growth, counseling sessions. Most therapists validate that, leaving you think you are changing, and then when you are back home things go back to the way things always were
- 9 to 1 odds against you that you will actually change your behavior in situations where it is life and death (Deutschmann, 2005). If this is true, a more skillful approach in non-life and death situations is needed; one that takes the brain and its irrationality into consideration to truly get what you want
If all this is true, what is the best use of your time on your personal retreat?
Our recommendation would be to listen first to your brain before “talking at it” or devising non-brain-friendly ways of healing. Learn about a powerful new brain technology that is changing the way we influence and conquer decision making around the need for personal transformation and healing.
You see, the brain is wired to be right, not to be transformed necessarily. It is a pattern-making organ that can make you think you are changing and that you are improving, even when silently the same behaviors continue. This is the maddening cycle of addiction and why many say, “I know I shouldn’t do ___________, but I just couldn’t help it.”