Change Your Behavior and Your Brain Will Follow

Here are some of The Captain’s thoughts on the latest propaganda from the Loose…uh, sorry, Family… Connection Seminar. My initial thought was: they couldn’t possibly be talking about my brain. My second thought was: it really isn’t fair to blame them for not talking about my brain. My third thought was: because of my inferiority complex, I’m still offended that they aren’t talking about my brain, so to get revenge for the perceived though highly fictional slight, I will satirize their latest treatise of armchair psychology. My final thought was: I don’t really need any motivation to satirize so thought three can be discarded. See my commentary in pink (a daring change from red, no?)

Changing your behavior – whether quitting smoking, starting an exercise program, or
giving up unhealthy eating habits – is hard work. But once you’re past the initial difficulty, your brain will create new neural pathways that can bypass old habits and self-sabotaging thoughts. Learn more at Change Your Behavior and Your Brain Will Follow, this month’s Family Connection seminar.

This seminar focuses on:

• Why change is so challenging – Because I just don’t want to change.

• The triggers that can lead to self-defeating behavior – That’s stupid. No one “defeats” themself; if you want to say that alcohol, or teenage children, or the evil little sprite that chants nasty things to me from inside my brain, sometimes get the best of me – I can agree with that statement. There is always someone to blame.

• Activities that promote meaningful change through the process of rewiring your brain – The wires in your brain are so freakin tiny that there are no tools small enough to do this, not even surgical tools. Your brain wires end up like my shoelaces – one big knot. Not even a Swiss Army knife (trust me on this one) can help. Plus, it hurts.

Creating Neural Pathways

There has been legitimate research conducted on how human habits are formed. All these studies are all merely addendums to Aristotle, who preached that practice makes permanent. Pretty simple really: repeat a behavior enough times and it becomes a habit. However, there are subtle nuances that should not be ignored.

I will share an experiment I recently conducted on myself to illustrate. Some authorities claim that to form a habit, you must repeat an action 20 times, give or take. Generally true, but not always. So for twenty consecutive evenings, right before bedtime, as a substitute for gargling, The Captain poured a shot of whiskey, dispatched it with enthusiasm, and went to bed. On the twentieth night, without thinking, I simply left the bottle of Jameson out on the counter, along with the shot glass, to make night 21 more convenient. Habit formed. On night 21, I resolved to start a new habit. Instead of Irish Whiskey, I would make a habit of Vodka. So right before bed, I downed 20 consecutive shots of Grey Goose and passed out on the kitchen floor. I woke up vomit-stained on the afternoon of day 22 and on the evening of the 22nd day, I did NOT take a shot of Vodka before retiring. Habit not formed.

Lesson Learned: the interval of time between repetitions matters.

Here’s an illustration from my childhood. Starting on my 3rd birthday, my mind would begin to wander somewhere it shouldn’t and I would be remonstrated by my parents for this. Invariably my response would be “What the F$*k?” Invariably, their response was corporal punishment. Yet, despite the repeated beatings that continued unabated for a good 20 years, my mind continues to wander to this very day, as you are all painfully aware. My brain often leads my body into the most unusual places and almost always into trouble. Train that Noontime Session!

Lesson Learned: Noontime Session gurus are lying bastards. Neural pathways are a dead end.

Change is Hard Work

Not always says The Captain. Was it hard work when I made the change from watered down American beer to the more robust European lagers? Was it hard work when I made the change from a Detroit Lions fan to a New England Patriots fan? Was it hard work when I changed from briefs to boxers? And then to boxer briefs???? I’ll tell you: NOT!

Lesson Learned: boxer briefs are the perfect compromise.



Activities that Promote Meaningful Change

· Torture: I don’t care what the experts say; if I had really believed that my mother was going to waterboard me, I would have been nice to my sisters.

· Sobriety: People are way different when they decide to sober up.

· Putting the Christmas tree in the stand: no better way to turn Dad into a homicidal maniac.

· Full-time employment at an Insurance Company: produces zombies at a faster clip than secretly implanted alien monster eggs.

· Attending Data Information meetings: if you consider passing from a waking state into a drooling stupor a “meaningful” change.

Lesson Learned: Never mix sobriety and Insurance work: you might not wake up. Better to become an alien controlled zombie – at least they have some fun with maiming and mayhem; Insurance zombies suffer a far worse fate – returning day after to day to drab, gray cubicles to work with Claims Adjusters, Underwriters, and (gulp) Actuaries.


Activities that do not Promote Meaningful Change

· Attending a Family Connection Seminar

· School Detention

· Adult Detention, also called Incarceration

Lesson Learned: Apparently, nobody learned a thing!

Believe The Captain when he says: Move Your Body and your Brain will follow, unless, of course, an alien embryo has already eaten your brain from within, in which case this maxim would not apply.

Yours with his brain addled but still in tact,

The Captain