Brain, Ego & Happiness - User Manual For Humans S1 E14 - Dr Ekberg

thank you so much for coming and we have come all the way to number 14 in our

user manual for humans we've talked a lot about chiropractic and brain and

nutrition and so forth but as you know in this office we want to address health

at its core and what gets in the way of health is called stress and stress comes

in three ways primarily it comes as a structural chemical and emotional stress

and emotional is maybe the most important source of stress of all of

those and yet it's maybe the the hardest one to tackle because it requires so

much of the individual but today we will venture further into this into our

understanding of how all this works on how it happens whereas emotional stress

comes from and a major source of stress is the ego and we will try to explain a

little bit more put the ego in perspective today so first we'll talk

about how the brain develops we will talk about what neural networks are what

the ego is and even if this is not the classical's that called psychology

definition of ego we don't really care we just want i'll present one version

just so we can have something to talk about what are some of the advantages of

the ego why do we have 11 we need one and what are some of the shortcomings

why is it good to not identify completely with it and finally as this

title implies happiness that how do all of these concepts affect your happiness

and your quality of life so my favorite little poem here it will

mean a lot more after the lecture but we'll start with it and then you can go

go back to it and we've had this once before but it's so good we have to have

it again I have a little robot that goes around with me I tell him what I'm

thinking I tell him what I see I tell my little robot all my hopes and fears he

listens and remembers all my joys and tears at first my little robot followed

my command but after years of training he's gotten out of hand he doesn't care

what's right or wrong or what is false or true no matter what I try now he

tells me what to do so fine led away we'll come back to it for those who have

seen a lot of the seminars that probably starts to make a little more sense by

now so how does all this start how does the brain work how how does it develop

well a baby is born with about a hundred billion neurons and that baby brain

weighs about 12 ounces and then by the time that we get to be adults the brain

still only has a hundred billion neurons or maybe a few less if we've had a

couple of parties and we we hit our heads a few times but it weighs forty

eight pounds sorry 48 ounces we hope so it's increased four times in weight but

it has the same number of brain cells so what's the difference what happened well

the baby brain is born with all the cells but the cells are not very well

connected they have some connections for basic life support but they haven't

developed watch skills they haven't developed much habits they haven't

any beliefs so what happens is this baby it starts to interact with its

environment it starts to receive information it starts to move it starts

to do things and by a process of trial and error and reward the baby starts to

repeat certain patterns that are rewarding such as you dip your hand into

food and you aim for the face and if you hit the mouth it's rewarding because you

get a bite of what you wanted if you hit someplace else it's less rewarding so

over time you fine-tune the pathways that that fire the appropriate behavior

and what is then behavior it's a coordination in certain brain cells

connecting to other brain cells firing off a specific pattern called a neural

network and every time that pattern fires it produces the same type of

behavior which is a desired motion so over time we make so many of these

connections that the connections actually make the brain way four times

more so each of these hundred billion neurons can make as many on average

about 10,000 connections to imagine the complexity of these neural networks and

on the right on the next slide we see some neural networks and these are

actual individual brain cells these are called purkinje cells that live in the

cerebellum and they can have as many as 300 to 400 thousand connections and the

cerebellum is is one of those areas that are just interconnected with everything

that happens in the body whether it's movement or thought it's all regulated

and controlled by their from there so when the function or skill

is executed so we talked about the baby and the movement then a specific neural

network or several neural networks in combination or fired off so this holds

true if we're walking or playing piano or hammering or juggling those are

movements and skills but it also holds true for blinking or focusing your eye

or salivating or sneezing none of those things happen by themselves secreting

stomach acid after a meal sexual arousal for for procreation appreciating music

that's a learned skill and its cultural we don't appreciate the same music they

do in India or in South America so what we think is a pure musical scale sounds

awful to them and vice versa it is learned behavior we're firing off

certain patterns certain combinations of brain cells getting annoyed with traffic

is a learned skill it may come as a surprise to you but the traffic is

actually not annoying it is your interpretation of events in the wing

that makes it annoying to you route people in traffic judging someone's

behavior as stupid every time that you point something out in the world on your

environment that you say oh well it shouldn't be like that they're doing it

wrong they're stupid they're inadequate they're there whatever you're making a

judgment that's a learned response understanding getting the punchline of

the joke that's a learned behavior so all of these aspects that make us the

make up the very humanity that we are they are learned behaviors

they are neural networks that we fire them off and there's triggers in the

environment and there's things that we find funny and there's things that we

find annoying but it's all learned and it's all networks and where do most of

these networks come from where does it start well basically we want to liken

this to downloading programs and for different stages of development we have

different dominant brain frequencies so baby has mostly what's called Delta and

theta frequencies those are very low frequencies from 0 up to about eight

Hertz and those are the brain frequencies that we use when we sleep

and maybe sleep 23 hours a day and wake up to eat basically and then they sleep

the rest so those brainwaves are appropriate for that segment of life

then as they start waking up and interacting they shift and they use less

of the Delta and they use more of theta and alpha and there's still low

frequencies and these brainwave frequencies are basically pure download

frequencies those kids before age of six they're like a blank slate or they're

like a computer with a blank hard drive if you will and their keyboard is all

their senses and their exposure to the world and everybody gets to type on the

keyboard and type in whatever they want into that hard drive because at that age

with those brain frequencies that maybe the child has no judgment of what's

right or wrong or whether it's appropriate they're just download

just pure download so by the time we are were six we have virtually all of our

programs already established and that's a part of learning that's part of

becoming human and functioning in a society so kids have something called

mirror behavior there's even mirror neurons and what they do is they look at

their parents to download the interpretation of what happens so if you

if you watch this it's really kind of funny you see a little kid stumble and

fall and before they start crying they look up and see where is mommy and they

look at mommy's face to see what is the expression is it 10 horror or is it one

of delight and if it's one of harder then the child mimics that and starts

crying but if it's one of delight the kid gets up and keeps playing and this

is how they learn what things mean so if there's a snake crawling through the

backyard and mommy goes oh my god terrible it's dangerous get away you

just program that behavior but if mommy says oh how about that that was not very

dangerous let's come take a look now you program a completely different behavior

so think about that next time you see a kid fall and notice what's happening and

the famous joke is the little kid that falls and then someone watches from the

side and says oh well you fell why aren't you crying and the kid says I

didn't know anybody was home

so but there's a lot of truth to that and that is just how that's human that's

how we form most of our behavior and

just programming so even some of the things that we consider universally true

that we don't think about they're mostly learned so things like social behavior

and courtesy what we consider rude or nice or gross people in this country

don't eat many bugs yet in other cultures bugs are delicacies then go

pick the termites and the ants and they crunch them up and they can't wait

because they're they're tasty to them all reactions to what's good or bad news

Shakespeare said 400 years ago that there's no such thing as good or bad

only our thinking makes it so so all those things are learned behaviors and

beliefs on basically every matter what's important what's fun what's frightening

what's worrisome all those are things we learn and what's important to understand

now is that the more often a neural network is activated the stronger it

gets the more likely it is to fire off in the future we know this principle

we've talked about it before use it or lose it it holds true for muscles it

holds true for bones it holds true for individual brain cells and it holds true

for patterns of brain cells pathways and networks of brain cells so beliefs are

neural networks so beliefs are nothing more than thoughts that you've been

thinking lot it's a practice thought and if you

have a belief system that dude that you don't like if you have a belief that

doesn't serve you if you understand this then you can change it beliefs are not

written in stone if you don't like it get another one on the downside of that

is that the more you practice negative thoughts the more things you find to

feel negative about and is the practice patterns that that we have they become

our most global belief the most fundamental the most the widest broadest

belief and that is how we see the world so the question is when you think about

the world when you think about society when you think about politics and

countries and state of the world an economy and environment do you think of

it primarily as good or do you think of it primarily is bad and if you do who

told you and most people get there a lot of their beliefs from news and news are

not a good representation of what's happening in the world because they

focus if there's a million things happening they're going to find the

worst and they're going to show you the worst even though there were nine

hundred ninety-nine thousand and some then some good things happen that that's

not newsworthy so they're not going to tell you so because they're selecting

such a narrow slice of the world for you they strongly influence how you feel

about the world and that becomes your your basic feeling how good you feel and

how you get on how much you get out of life on the regular basis another

concept another way of looking at this we talked about it as the hard drive we

type in things for the little kid well all of our beliefs and all of our

programs are like a tape player and if you record something on a tape

player the tape player is not going to judge whether it's good or bad for you

it's not going to judge whether it's right or wrong it's not going to decide

whether it's true or false if you push the button it's going to play the record

and if you push the button on your recordings inside if they're just going

to play and there's no no judgment or evaluation of whether this serves you or

whether it's true or whether it's used to be true or no longer true it really

doesn't matter so neural networks basically behave like like a tape player

and of course it doesn't help to get mad at the tape player if you notice

something that you're doing is like darn why do I keep doing this why do I keep

believing this why do I keep reacting and acting why do I feel this way well

that that anger that upset you're being angry at a tape player so just

understand how it works and then we can start talking about how to change it so

now we'll move into what we call the ego and for more references on this my

favorite source for this material is a guy called Eckhart Tolle so if you if

you want to learn more he's probably the best source that I've seen he wrote a

book called a new earth and there's a lot of good material on that so

basically the ego is sum total of all your thoughts and the beliefs that you

call I and this is a different different way of looking at things

most people think and as modern human beings we have about they estimated

somebody walked around and and counted their thoughts and said oh well we have

about 60,000 thoughts a day and then you realize how many of those thoughts are

the same today as they were yesterday they're repeating so thinking doesn't

really serve much purpose it's just reiterating and most of that are

thoughts that you identify with the thoughts become who you are and that is

essentially what and who the ego is but the ego is not who you are the ego is a

program you are not your thoughts you have your thoughts and this gives you a

false sense of self because you identify with these things that aren't truly who

you are then when you to the extent that you identified with them then they

become you so this is part of our language for example we don't say I have

a happy thought we say I am happy and on the reverse we say I am angry we don't

say I have an angry thought or I am reacting in an angry way which would be

more appropriate when we say I am angry that thought that state takes us over

and we become it

so what else does the ego do the ego games a sense of value it expands its

value by identifying with thanks so if you have a nice shiny car and you feel

good about the car then your ego attaches itself and identifies with the

car and all of those properties of the car it brings on to you on to itself and

if it's a Carlin you can be proud of something that's better than somebody

else's then you feel superior and the ego feels enlarged and the ego gains

strength the flip side of this is that the ego has no value in itself the ego

only finds value in comparison with other things another thing where the ego

is that it's addicted to having more because it only has value through

identification with things then as soon as it has something then that's old news

and it's going to want something else it's going to want more so therefore the

ego becomes addicted to more and this becomes a very short-term gratification

because you go for years and you you dream about that new TV that new car

that new house but as soon as you have it then you start looking well who's got

a better one who's got a bigger one so it's not that the ego is incapable of

enjoying the present it only enjoys looking forward or by comparing so the

only way it can compare what you have is by comparing it to someone else and say

oh well they have less

so because of this the ego also cannot stand the present moment the ego gains

its value from attaching to thanks by identifying with things so in this

present moment here is all there is but somewhere else some other time some

other place holds the promise of something better something that is

something that can raise the value of the ego so therefore the ego is it hates

the present moment it always looks into the future or into the past but never

now and because of that if you identify with the ego that's where you get this

sense of restlessness where you're never you're never satisfied with where you

are you're always looking back to try to remember something good or you're

looking forward to hope for something better what are some things that

strengthen the ego the number one thing is having more then so we've covered

that having a having more money having more education having more property

having more brand labels having more toys then you can identify with those

and feel superior because someone else has less knowing more than this could be

that you have a better education than someone else or it could be that you

know a secret that you come across some gossip that the neighbor lady doesn't

know yet then your ego is strengthened because you have something okay being

morally superior now this is funny because you can actually the ego is also

strengthened if you are let's say if you disavow all

property if you give up all property and you live a a pious life for for some

higher purpose then you you strengthen yourself in the belief that you are

morally superior by giving up all these things but it's still ego you're still

separating your own uniqueness even though you're having less so the ego is

always doing this comparison and trying to find some aspect of which where

you're different so if everybody has a million-dollar home then you're going to

be different if you have a little cottage okay being unique being a martyr

being proud patriotism all of these things depend on the ego so for example

patriotism and the next one is related us versus them if you don't create

patriotism which is ego and if you don't create a sense of us versus them then

you can't start a war so before they start a war they have to make very very

sure that they have created this separation and and this difference in

level where we are we are right and they are wrong and now it's okay now we're

morally justified to start a war being right how many would rather be right

than happy you've heard that one that's the ego that's the ego we get so

involved with something that we don't care that we're not recognizing that the

purpose the point the justification for for continuing the argument is long long

gone we just have to prove a point we I get the last word in and in that

you're not making yourself happy you're not making the other person happy

nothing is gained because the ego has taken over and it wants to strengthen

itself by being right being angry same thing blaming complaining every single

aspect of complaint if you complain about the weather if you complain about

the traffic if you complain how late it is how stupid people are why they do

this you are stating how you are being right and the thing you're complaining

about is wrong that's strengthening ego and we do this even if we're complaining

about the rain okay we have no one's going to do anything about it obviously

but if we complain about it then obviously we are right and the weather

is wrong okay making wrong laying on guilt unforgiveness revenge all of those

things they go hand in hand with what we just talked about and also ego like we

said the ego cannot exist in the present moment the ego is thought and as such it

can only find strength in the past or the future because in the present

there's nothing to hold on to accept beingness so in the past it holds on to

all the great deeds that you did in the past and in the future all the great

things you're going to do

so here's the time for my little disclaimer this is the official

disclaimer just because I have some strong opinions doesn't mean I agree

with everything I say so just in case you find something to complain about at

the end here's so why do we have an ego in the first place well the ego is there

for survival the ego is what gives us the desire and with desire comes to

drive and where the drive comes comes from silica said survival so if you

don't have an ego if you have no preferences if you don't want anything

then you're just sitting there you don't even care about food and there are some

people who get into such deep meditative States that they're just totally

blissful they don't care they can pass on or they can stay it doesn't really

matter so when you totally disengage the ego you can't stay around very long and

it also provides a lot of automation so we don't have to think about every step

but we need to find some balance because the ego also has a lot of disadvantages

the number one is that the ego is completely unconscious the ego isn't

aware of anything so because of that you're very very limited in how much joy

and peace and happiness that you can experience because with the ego you

cannot get into a gym peaceful rajaiah state because it all

depends with the ego it all depends on comparison and as soon as you have

something you want something else and because the ego misses the now it really

misses out on life completely because then now this moment is all there is

there's never been anything outside of this moment because now is this moment

and five minutes from now when we experience that time that will also be

now so if we're present in the moment then we are aware of where we are and

what's going on but thought connects backwards and forwards in time and so

does the ego but true peace and joy is only present right here and now and with

the ego and with thought we just can't experience that so what's the main

problem with the ego is from a health perspective and from a joy perspective

is because of everything that we discussed the ego is the main source of

stress in life and as we talked about on other seminars on the videos stress is

what gets away in the way of health it's the number one thing that gets in the

way of your body heat the natural healing ability on your body

some more ego characteristics the ego is composed of thought so those

never-ending thoughts that race around in your head we are on 16 that's the ego

the endless judging and evaluating and justifying and you probably recognize

what I'm talking about that everything you have an opinion about everything

that you even think about or label you you're making a automatic judgment and

we're always racing around with our thoughts justifying our behavior well if

he said this I should have said that and then we were playing these scenarios for

for some imaginary person and that's all the ego and it gets in the way of joy so

again the ego isn't good or bad it is simply unconscious and because it's

unconscious to the extent that you identify with ego you're missing out on

life on joy and peace and and the prep the present moment the ego can only be

happy for very very short moments of time and that's when you have the

experience of getting something you you acquire something new you win the

lottery you graduate you get a new title you get a new knowledge you find

something out but those are very fleeting moments and they're not the

true joy so who are you you are not the thought you're the one who has the

thought and if you start relaxing and finding out where you're feeling the

absolute best when you're feeling absolutely totally blissful

you learn to find that what you truly are in that state is just pure beingness

you have no opinions to have no thoughts and in that moment there that as good as

you can feel basically the ego instead is about doing this and having this so

once you realize that you are not your thoughts and you are not your ego then

you can step back and you can watch your thoughts you can watch the ego and as

soon as you can create that separation that little bit of distance between

yourself and what's happening then you're not sucked in and now you have

disengaged the ego and you become conscious and and you can you can start

experiencing again some more ways of dissolving the ego is consciousness and

awareness dissolves the ego when you stop and question your thought your

behavior or your reaction that dissolves the ego meditation the ability the

practice of stopping repetitious thoughts dissolves the ego when you make

peace with the present moment so when you don't make peace with the present

moment you're basically arguing with what is and whatever is it is there's

there's no way to change it because it is what it is and when you're arguing

with it when you want it to be any way different than what it is you're you're

arguing with reality and you're not going to win that

alright and that's basically where where most of stress and frustration comes

from is when you argue with what is so how do you do how do you do this I

mentioned a few resources books tapes discs programs videos youtube leave the

resources are endless but commit yourself to sharpen your axe and commit

yourself to grow that consciousness grow your ability to recognize what's going

on your awareness so take 30 minutes a day to read and to listen and to grow so

we'll keep this brief and short and if you have any questions at this point

we'll be happy to take those and for next time hope to see all of you back

and feel free to bring someone else who wants to know more about this and if you

have suggestions for topics if there's anything else that you'd like to know no

more about let me know thank you thank you