How to Change the World by Rewiring Your Brain
- Brainz Magazine
- 3 hours ago
- 5 min read
Tyler Begg is attuned and insightful, offering guided parts-work and trauma-informed coaching techniques in addition to nervous system re-patterning for growth and recovery. With a background in counseling and Gabor Mate's Compassionate Inquiry method, he has a strong understanding and respect for the roots of trauma and behavior patterns.
Have you ever felt like you’re constantly searching for something, like you’re looking for a key, a community, or a place that doesn’t exist? Perhaps you’re drawn to certain people, places, or opportunities that then turn out to repeat old cycles. It's not simply about attraction; it’s about the way your brain is constantly filtering and prioritizing information, shaping your experience of reality.
At the heart of this process lie a few fascinating regions of the brain, which for simplicity’s sake we are going to abbreviate to just one of the big players: the Reticular Activating System, or RAS. This is the gatekeeper, silently deciding what information, what inputs get sent from your unconscious to your conscious awareness. It’s like a highly attuned filter, shaped by your past beliefs and experiences, essentially saying, “This is important, this belongs here. That is unknown or unimportant and should be avoided or ignored.” What you pay attention to, you give energy, and then that becomes your reality.
The RAS and the echo chamber of belief
The RAS isn’t a passive receiver; it’s actively constructing your perception of the world. If you’ve spent years believing that success requires constant hustle and competition, the RAS will be primed to notice and amplify those kinds of opportunities for achievement, which in turn reinforces those beliefs. It will fail to bring to your awareness those equally valid opportunities that don’t involve hustle because that is not what your nervous system has been programmed for. Conversely, if you’ve internalized limiting beliefs about yourself or your abilities, the RAS will tend to filter out experiences that contradict those beliefs, reinforcing a sense of self-doubt and inadequacy.
It’s like living in an echo chamber, where your existing beliefs amplify and solidify themselves, shaping your entire experience. You're not necessarily creating this reality; the RAS is subtly directing your attention to evidence that confirms your existing worldview. Not only that, but when the brain finds evidence to confirm its existing beliefs, it rewards itself with dopamine. In many ways, your brain is a monkey with the key to the banana plantation!
Neurosomatic intelligence: Disrupting the filter to see your authentic world
The good news is, this echo-chamber isn’t static and Neurosomatic Intelligence (NSI) offers a powerful way to rewrite it. It recognizes that our beliefs aren’t fixed and that by intentionally altering our sensory experiences, we can gently shift the patterns of the RAS.
Think of it like this: if you’ve been watching one particular social media, YouTube, or TV channel for years, the information from a new station can begin to change your perception of the world. The key is to introduce the new station gently so as not to overwhelm the system. By introducing new input experiences that challenge your unconscious brain’s assumptions and open you to possibilities, you can gradually reshape the way your brain prioritizes information.
NSI techniques are designed to provide these crucial new inputs in the correct “dosage” to create sustainable change. They often involve cultivating a greater sense of safety in the body, noticing and regulating sensations, emotions, and the physical states of the nervous system.
This isn’t about “fixing” something; it’s about retraining the skills your nervous system has developed over the years for navigating the world to better serve the version of you that exists in the present.
Other practical tools for re-calibrating
Sensory exploration: Gently and regularly gifting yourself new sensations, sounds, smells, and tastes to create fresh neural connections and thereby reshape old ones. This doesn’t have to be extravagant, it could be as simple as interrupting your routine for a few seconds two or three times a day to smell something you enjoy, let out an audible exhale, stretch between your fingers, or rub your feet. If it is available, getting out into nature is an excellent way to settle the nervous system and provide it with a safe new stimulus.
Daily gratitude: Two powerful daily gratitude practices for repatterning the RAS are, number one: to set a timer every day to be grateful for the best thing that happened in the last 24 hours. This trains your brain to search and prioritize positive experiences as well as uncomfortable ones. Number two, to imagine a reality where you have already overcome/achieved your current challenge and are completely at peace with it. Then concentrate on the body experience, the sensations, of this imagined reality (for example: abundant finances, confidence, loving companionship), and be grateful for the ability to feel such a possibility.
Movement as connection: Engaging in movement that feels expansive and expressive can help you connect with your body’s innate wisdom and sense of belonging, especially activities that require circular movements, such as dancing or joint rotation.
Journaling: There are many different techniques for exploring your thoughts and feelings in writing, which can help you identify existing beliefs and patterns that may be out of date.
Authentic belonging through changing perspectives
Ultimately, NSI isn’t about achieving a perfect, pristine reality. It’s about cultivating a relationship with your inner landscape where the felt experience of the world is different, allowing greater curiosity, openness, and self-acceptance. When you shift your unconscious perspective, your nervous system’s perspective, you begin to see places in the world where your authenticity is welcome. It gives the world permission to embrace you in a new way.
Part of this journey is also to retrain your nervous system to feel safe with the new experiences. If it has not been the norm, then being welcomed into safety, abundance, and joy can feel very unsafe in the body. It is important to take steps into these new experiences slowly and sustainably so that you don’t overwhelm your system. As you become more attuned to the subtle shifts within your body, you may find yourself drawn to experiences and connections that feel genuinely authentic experiences that align with your deepest values and desires. This sense of belonging, not as an external achievement, but as an inherent state of being, is the true reward of NSI.
How rewiring your RAS changes the world
Like Theseus’s ship, what if sustainable change in the collective, external world was about changing the individual worlds of people’s lived experience? If enough people’s unconscious minds were able to show them the abundance, beauty, and safety of the world instead of de-prioritizing it, how different would society be? As humans, our nervous systems are co-regulating one another constantly through interpersonal neurobiology, and so when one person can make a shift in themselves, it literally changes the way others around them feel and perceive their environment. When one person perceives a world of agency, confidence, and joy, it does not take access to those things away from others; it makes them more accessible.
I invite you to experience what happens to the world you live in when you begin to change the way your brain prioritizes information.
Visit my website for more info!
Read more from Tyler Begg
Tyler Begg, Neuro-Somatic Intelligence Practitioner
Tyler Begg is helping to lead the inclusion of applied neurology in the world of mental health and personal growth. He brings a more complete picture of how emotions and unconscious patterns are held in the body, bridging the gap between mindset and somatic release so that mind and body can work together. This approach allows Tyler’s clients to understand their own “operating system” and rewire it to get un-stuck and develop healthy tools for managing stress so that the whole mind-body system functions more smoothly and efficiently. Understanding the nervous system's role allows Tyler to dose neuro-somatic tools and other therapies appropriately so that changes are sustainable without risking overwhelm or a return to old coping mechanisms.
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