Neuroscience – What's The Big Deal?

I am a pharmacist and science is the foundation of that particular modality of healing. Every drug dispensed was supported (or seemingly!) by a rigid form of scientific writing, controls and hypotheses. Any drug rep worth their salt would visit the pharmacy, bringing muffins and coffees and at least 3 scientific reports to prove their claims and sell the drugs. Papers from how the drug worked in the first place, to why their brand is more bioequivalent than the other brand, to short, but scientific messages on why buying their brand would put more dollars in my own coffers.

To be really honest here, I hated reading these scientific tomes! I would rather stick pins in my eyes. I have to admire those people able to write such wordy, dry missles and understand the mountain of work behind producing such a script. Many scientists spend their life on a project and the writing of that is the culmination of much work.

So leaving the pharmacy world, I was not going to miss the science. 

And now I am in the coaching world. In particular, I am in the field of mBraining. This is a particularly clever way of coaching that has been been the brainchild of Grant Soosalu and Marvin Oka. These guys were born to read scientific papers and now, being an active member of the mBraining community I am given more papers to peruse than ever. 

You see mBraining is fully supported by science. It is one of those key phrases we use:

At last modern science is able to catch up to and explain those knowings and teachings of the ancient and esoteric wisdoms.

And it sure does. As it turns out, the scientific world is a little egotistical. They have a project and want to write it up – to have their name published. So there are many times where a paper written is really similar to another one written from somewhere else. They follow the same theme.

Grant especially, 'absorbs' papers. He has been able to link papers together, and show that there are more than one, (sometimes 5 or 6 or more) that prove the same modern concept.  Up until now modern science has not had the languaging and proof, to support these esoteric wisdoms and teaching. And now, the towers of science have been linked together.

Underpinning all of the coaching that I do is the term 'neuroplasticity'. Defined as: The brain's ability to reorganise itself by forming new neural connections throughout life. Neuroplasticity allows the neurons (nerve cells) in the brain to compensate for injury and disease and to adjust their activities in response to new situations or to changes in their environment. Traditionally we have seen our brains in our heads as the 'brain', however the modern science is starting to come around to the idea that a cluster of neurons, that hold memory and are able to use neuroplasticity, forming new connections have the function of our 'brain'. This means that we hold a complex centre of nerves in our gut too. Our Enteric Nervous System. AND, our heart - our Cardiac Nervous System.

Through the research and linking of all those towers of scientific papers, a common theme has emerged. Our heads do some things really well - logic, perception, making meaning and creativity. Our hearts do some things really well too - love, relationships, emotions and values. And our guts have their own jobs to do - motivation, self-protection, intuition, identity and courage. It is when we get it a bit muddled that the problems start. Ignoring the heart and you go ahead (motivation) and act on crazy ideas - remind you of any President? Ignoring the gut and you go in where angels fear to tread! Or maybe cross your own personal boundaries (self-protection) time and time again.

Now the crazy thing is that we are in a logical ‘head brained’ world and we ask the head to do all of the work of the heart and gut. Our heads don't have the function of love, yet we often intellectualise why our hearts may be beating when we see somebody special.  Remember a time when you had a great idea that you KNEW was going to work – it was a 'no-brainer'. But your boss would have wanted to have logical reasons for this hunch. Or the group you were within needed the figures first.  I have had a couple of ‘financial moments’ where I couldn’t tell you why, but doing something was simply the right thing to do and an analysis of the situation to provide the logic would take weeks, with the opportunity missed. (Note: this isn’t gambling!)

So I love the fact that science supports this coaching that I do. I love the fact that there are enough people within the organisation that love to peruse the science and share the links and a summary of these. I love that I can cherry pick the science relevant to my work.

Neuroscience is going through an explosion of findings of the human body and supports so much of the coaching work I do. It appeals to those logical types to put their minds at ease, and the creative types who are able to apply those learnings to other areas, linking previous work. It absolutely supports the claim of transformative coaching, be it within behaviours, skill, beliefs and identity.

And I have to admit I like the solid evidence, and the exciting new findings - but please, just the summary is all I need.