Train Your Brain

We all have so many blessings in our lives.

And yet most of the time, we fail to acknowledge them. Either we don’t recognize them, forget them, or simply take them for granted.

In The High 5 Habit (a book I highly recommend to anyone who will listen), Mel Robbins contends that we see what we are looking for. When we start actively looking for something, we will start noticing things that have always been there.

Your brain has a filter known as the Reticular Activating System, or RAS, for short. It’s a bundle of nerves that filters out unnecessary information so that important information can get through. Did you ever learn a new word, and then see and hear it everywhere? Have you noticed that even in a noisy crowd, you can hear someone call your name? That’s your RAS at work.

Your RAS takes what you focus on and creates a filter for it. It then sifts through the data and presents only the pieces that are important to you. All of this happens without you ever noticing.

To point out the power of your RAS, Mel Robbins recommends a simple game. Each day, as you go about your business, look for naturally occurring heart shapes in the world around you. It could be a heart-shaped leaf, cloud, or rock - even spilled coffee! I was intrigued - a bit dubious, but intrigued. I spent a week staying visually alert, scanning the ground on walks, studying leaves on trees and shrubs, and looking up at the sky more often. 

While indeed I did start to notice hearts (a lot of them!), I also discovered that my “heart hunts” kept me present and focused on the small, beautiful parts of my everyday life. The spiky grasses that I found on a walk and added to a flower arrangement at home. The lone blooming narcissi tucked behind a shrub, likely relocated from someone’s garden by a squirrel. The striking orange and black feather of a Northern Flicker stuck to a fence. If I hadn’t been looking for heart shapes so intently, and focusing my energies on absorbing as much as possible within my view, I might have missed these other treasures.

In the words of Mel Robbins, “Looking for hearts will turn your life into a scavenger hunt where you wake up every day knowing at some point today, you’ll stumble across that little secret heart you're meant to find.” And I’d add that looking for hearts will keep you present, and being in the moment means you won’t miss out on the things of beauty that are at every turn.