photo by Jon Nicholls/Flickr Creative Commons http://www.flickr.com/people/fotologic/

One changes from day to day…
every few years one becomes a new being.
—George Sand

Everything is impermanent.

That’s one of those pieces of wisdom that contains the seeds of both sorrow and joy. We often get hung up on the sorrow and forget the joy part. For example: how great is it that our “selves” are impermanent, that we are not doomed to be the same person today that we were last month, or last year?

When I was younger, I felt like I was locked into my personality and faults. Ironically, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve discovered that there is much more room for changing myself than I would have ever imagined.

We get fed a lot of beliefs in our culture that getting older equals getting more stuck in our ways. Or that having certain disabilities limits our capacities. Don’t buy it.

Here’s proof: something called neuroplasticity. For a long time scientists (like the rest of us) assumed that our brains were pretty much finished developing by the time we hit early childhood. However, recent research points to neuroplasticity – that is, the ability of our adult brain to change in response to experience.

This theory posits that our brains are not immutably hard-wired, but rather can be shaped through experiences such as meditation, contemplative practice, and art. As psychiatrist Norman Doidge, author of The Brain That Changes Itself, puts it, neuroplasticity is “one of the most extraordinary discoveries of the twentieth century.”

Our brains actually possess a lifelong ability to reorganize neural pathways based on new experiences. How exciting is that?! This means you truly are free to be a different person than you were yesterday.

Here are just a few examples of what’s possible by virtue of neuroplasticity:

• Children with dyslexia who were given 100 hours of training in remedial reading were able to strengthen connections in parts of the brain that enhanced their ability to read.
• Helen Keller lost her sense of sight and hearing when she was just a year old. Yet she was able to learn how to read Braille, to write, to speak, and even to write entire books describing her childhood, her travels, and the wonderful experiences she had in her lifetime.
• Researchers have found that people who meditate regularly have an increased capacity for compassion and empathy.
• And finally, author and physician Oliver Sacks tells the story of Eliza Bussey, a journalist in her mid-50s who could not read a note of music a few years ago. Now Eliza studies harp at the Peabody Conservatory. She told Dr. Sacks, “I have felt, for example, my brain and fingers trying to connect, to form new synapses. … I know that my brain has dramatically changed.”

In every moment, you have the potential to change.

Maybe you’ve always wanted to learn how to play guitar, but you think you’re too old now. Wrong.

If you were ‘bad with money’ yesterday, you can learn something new about good money management skills today.

If your life feels out of control with addiction to sugar, tobacco, alcohol, or other substances, you have it within your power to shift those patterns.

If you were ‘bad at relationships’ last month, it’s quite possible that next month you could begin a relationship that lasts the rest of your life – and that you’ll do well at it.

If you never thought you could meditate, try it out for just five minutes tonight and see what happens.

Everything is possible. What are you ready to change into?

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