Lesley’s Perspective: I think, therefore I am

If the phrase ‘a change is as good as a holiday’ is true then that is probably why I feel so good this week. The Courier has a fresh new look and isn’t she beautiful?

The changes are subtle but I am sure you can appreciate the difference.

It is important for any publication to keep its look updated and in line with the times, but still remain recognisable, so you know her when you see her.

Change can also be frightening (a new head of a 100-year-old school for example) but it does not have to be bad.

Astra Russell is due to retire soon and while the school has flourished under her exceptional leadership there is no reason why the new head will not be a credit to her legacy, the school and this community. Yet at every gathering of past, current and prospective parents all I hear is murmurings of fear.

For sure nothing is guaranteed, but it is almost the default setting to be negative and fearful about change. That is not healthy. Not for the school and not for us as individuals.

Our thoughts, whether positive or negative, are more powerful then we imagine. “As he thinks in his heart, so is he” (Prov. 23:7).

Cognitive neuroscientist and best selling author Dr Caroline Leaf has rocked traditional thinking with her research on the brain and how what we think directly affects who we are, how we experience life and our health. She developed the Geodesic learning theory which has contributed to how we understand the science of thought.

The theory proposes that everything you say and do is first a physical thought in the physical brain, a thought which you built with your mind. You think, and then you do, which cycles back to the original thought, changing it, and the thoughts connected to it, in a dynamic inter-relationship. Hence if your thinking is toxic, then your communication and behaviour are toxic, and vice versa.

Frame your world with your words – Dr Caroline Leaf

“Thoughts are real, physical things that occupy mental real estate. Moment by moment, every day, you are changing the structure of your brain through your thinking. When we hope, it is an activity of the mind that changes the structure of our brain in a positive and normal direction,” she says in her book ‘Switch On Your Brain: The Key to Peak Happiness, Thinking, and Health.’

She maintains that 75% to 95% of the illnesses that plague us today are a direct result of our thought life. Fear, for example, triggers more than 1,400 known physical and chemical responses and activates more than 30 different hormones. Another example is worry.

Worrying about a past stressful event, known as rumination, is associated with persistently high levels of C-reactive protein in the blood, indicating chronic inflammation in the body. Chronic inflammation is associated with many mental and physical disorders.

“Our choices – the natural consequences of our thoughts and imagination – get ‘under the skin’ of our DNA and can turn certain genes on and off, changing the structure of the neurons in our brains. So our thoughts, imagination, and choices can change the structure and function of our brains on every level,” she says.

This is much more than simply the ‘power of positive thinking’. Her research is demonstrating that we have more control than we think we do because we can control what we think. We can choose to be fearful about change or we can choose to hope, and similarly to love or forgive. Our attitudes literally build the world in which we live. Will we build a prison or a garden.

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A big change in the life of my family this week is that my almost-three-year-old is due to start at So-High Pre School in Umhlali.

We are very excited to join this superb little school but also rather sad to be leaving Tannie Nettie at Busy Bees in Ballito.

Daniël had a wonderful year under her loving guidance. Her little school provided the perfect introduction to half-day care because it was like belonging to a family.

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