Your RAS: What is it & Why Do I Need to Know?
Your RAS:
What is it?
Your RAS is an essential system in your body you need to know about as it is responsible for behavioral motivation and more. The system that is either your best friend or worst enemy and you get to choose the outcome.
Have you ever noticed when you are interested in something like a certain car, a piece of clothing or a specific goal that you tune into it everywhere? This is because of your Reticular Activating System (RAS), the part of your brain located in the brainstem that controls many important functions, including breathing, heartbeats and tuning into what you really want in life. It pulls information from the background noise of life that is congruent with the messages it receives from your conscious mind.
For example, if you are in a packed restaurant waiting for your name to be called, your RAS will block out the background noise and help you to tune into your name. Whatever you focus on in life grows bigger, be it positive or negative. The RAS aligns itself with what you believe about yourself: your capabilities and feelings of inadequacy. It is the physiological element behind Henry Ford’s statement:“Whether you believe you can, or you can’t, you’re right.”
Once you choose your focus, be very specific and release the self doubt. Even if you shift your wording from: “I can’t do this,” to “I don’t know how yet, and I am willing to trust that I am capable of gathering the information I need to enable me to do this easily,” you are shifting enough to activate your RAS and get it working for you rather than against you.
Why do I need to know?
Be very specific with your focus. Choose to reframe or erase and replace any goal that is not worded in the positive. It is important to do this because the RAS will believe whatever you focus on: “I can do all things with God,” or “I can’t do anything right.” The evidence to back up what you focus on will start showing up in your life, thanks to your RAS; so choose your focus wisely.
Our choice of focus dictates what takes up rent in our mind. When we focus on what is not working out for us, we become a landlord of negativity. When we focus on the positive the opportunities that lie before us become accessible and achievable. Your RAS is driven to seek information that backs up your choice of focus in life. It is so powerful that you will actually distort; delete and or generalize information that does not fit in with your conclusions about life. This is very empowering to know as it offers you the opportunity to stay awake at the gate of your perceptions in life understanding that the outcomes you experience flow directly from YOUR labels, assumptions and conclusions. Stay in the space of curiosity and fascination, where creativity and productivity flourish.
