Your energy flows where your attention goes - Anthony Robbins

Before explaining why coaching provides a proper brain massage, first a short primer on how the brain works. I am keeping this as simple as possible. Please bear with me.

Our brain developed from a reptilian brain. In humans, like in animals, at the end of the spinal cord is a small mass called the brain stem. The brain stem and a tiny layer of surrounding brain matter are responsible for primitive survival functions such as our heartbeat, respiration, hunger, pain, reproduction, and the most basic instinct, fear, and associated fight-or-flight response. During millions of years of evolution, new layers were added, resulting in the intricate brain structure that humans have today. These new layers are the sole reason we're not slithering through the grass together with snakes or behaving like Komodo dragons prowling among the sunbaked stones.

The limbic system overlaying the brainstem comprises of various parts. For this article, the most critical components are the hippocampus and the amygdala.

The hippocampus functions as a filing system for long-term memory storage. It is also one of the few areas where new neurons are produced, which is the basis of what we nowadays call neuroplasticity. With the correct stimulation, neuroplasticity allows our brains to grow, develop, and adapt.  

The amygdala plays a central role in processing emotions. An emotion is a basic process which one doesn't learn but has been genetically inherited. There are six basic emotions:  pleasure, surprise, fear, anger, sadness, disgust. The amygdala may attach any of these emotional content to the memory. Effectively, the amygdala adds an emotional 'label' to the file being stored by the hippocampus into the memory.  The file with stronger emotional content will be more present in our memory.  

On the outer side of the brain is the most recently evolved part, called the neocortex. It is involved in analytical functions such as planning, goal-setting, and conscious activity and serves functions such as sleep, short term memory, and learning. Here we find our reasoning and creative power. The generous layer of neocortex distinguishes us from our humanoid ancestors and animals, such as monkeys, dogs, and mice (depending on which book you like to read).

Simply said, the brain's outer level makes us smart, and the brain's inner center makes us survive.

The different parts of the brain are interconnected and communicate through a neural network. Neurons communicate with other neurons through a connection called synapsis. Modern science has proven that "rewiring" neural networks and enhancing neuroplasticity is possible. By helping clients reflect and become more self-aware, we can change internal brain processes and create different neural pathways.

Let's play around with an example:  You have an unpleasant first meeting with your new boss when he makes some critical observations about how the division is being run. Your neo-cortex analyzes this situation and sends a signal to your hippocampus to file away the boss's critics for deep brain storage. While your hippocampus is busy labeling the file to be retrieved easily in the future, your amygdala instructs the hippocampus to add a negative emotion to the label (remember? fear, anger, disgust). So, your brain creates a new memory file with a negative emotion attached to it.  Now that the negative memory file has been created, it's easy to continue reinforcing the memory file pathway with negative self-talk. Every time when your boss says something to you, you may perceive this as a criticism. Long term negative thinking may change your brain chemistry, and your interactions with your boss become a downward spiraling self-fulfilling prophecy.  If you believe strongly and frequently enough, "I can't do anything good in the eyes of my boss," you will start to underperform and end-up making mistakes at work.

What happens if you could change your perspective? If you could see the situation through another lens through which you realize your boss's observations are meant to be constructive? If you could change your mindset and realize that your boss wants the best for you and that his management style is there to help and support you?

This insight would change everything. It would allow you to open up and learn from your boss's observation. It would allow you to be mentored and to trust him. Your working environment would be more satisfactory and productive and even more pleasant at the same time. The new relationship with your boss would be a change for good. You could become trusted partners. Effectively, by changing your perspective, the same circumstance which set you up for failure now starts working to your benefit.

So, what happened in your brain?

The coaching techniques of thoughtful listening and asking powerful questions stimulate reflection. This enables you to process and come to new insights by seeing the same situation from different perspectives. Every 'aha' moment revitalizes your brain, and the resulting new self-discovery and self-awareness hardwire new neural pathways. Freshly created positive memories from your neo-cortex will be filed away by the hippocampus with the amygdala "label of approval" in your long-term memory storage. You would not have achieved the same physiological change if someone had told you what to do. Only by finding your own answers can the desired change be created.

When we change our attitude and behavior in line with the new perspective, the newly created pathway becomes more robust and better anchored in the brain and will be reinforced by repetitive creative and positive thinking. Eventually, the old negative pathway becomes obsolete and disappears.

As an analogy for this idea, imagine a tightly meandering river, like the Amazon. The river continually evolves by dint of water, always seeking a more direct course, so that in the end it cuts through the neck of a looping bend, leaving it behind, in what becomes an oxbow lake fated to vanish over time while the river flows on.

By changing the perspective of what you're seeing and storing in your brain, a good coach can help you change negative neurological pathways and build new ones that are beneficial for you.

While a body massage improves blood and lymphatic circulation, a brain massage improves neuroplasticity, rewires the brain, and reinforces neural pathways necessary to create lasting change.

Welcome to the brain spa.

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