Geri and I have only recently begun to integrate into EHS and our leadership the enormous amount of research that has been done on the neuroplasticity of the brain. (I recommend The Mindful Brain and Parenting from the Inside Out by Daniel Siegel for starters). The implications for our spirituality and formation seem far-reaching. The following are a few insights that I have been considering as a I seek to build a healthy community at NLF and deepen EHS:
- Interactions with our primary caregivers directly shape our neural circuitry.Betweenbirth and five years old, millions of messages are encoded into our circuitry.
- Our brains are innately structured to ATTACH to human beings. God created us emotionally, spiritually and physiologically to bond with others.
- We also need ATTUNEMENT in order to thrive. At the heart of attunement is the sharing of non-verbal signals – enables us to “feel” each other (eyes, face, tone of voice, gestures, body posture, timing, etc).
- We were created to need parents to pay attention to our interior world. When there is insufficient attachment and attunement in our family of origin, we may be avoidant, unresponsive, emotionally distant, have difficulty with certain emotions, or become easily triggered. In other words, parts of our brain circuitry are underdeveloped.
- New neural pathways can be formed through intentional mindful new behaviors – even as adults. Providing new experiences for people (e.g. contemplative spiritual practices, new emotionally healthy skills such as community temperature reading, clean fighting, listening, etc.) promotes activation of new genes that enable new brain connections/synapses to form.
This helped me put in words what Geri and I have observed the last 15 years as people engage emotionally healthy spirituality. When people learn to attach and attune (i.e, incarnate and be present), they experience spiritual, emotional and physiological changes. Ted Roberts from www.puredesire.org has been working with sexual addicts for 18 years. He argues that sexual addiction is both a brain and a moral problem. I recently spent time with him on the phone talking through his work with brain-state technologies and the integration of neurochemistry into his ministry. It was fascinating. My initial readings and research have left me with a deeper passion to lead people into emotionally healthy skills and a more mindful, contemplative spirituality. It also has helped me understand why it is so challenging to build healthy church communities. We are redoing the hard-wiring in people’s brains! How else do you see this research on the brain possibly serving our efforts to see Christ deeply transform peoples’ lives?
