In NYC to share her book, Becoming Aware: How to Repattern Your Brain and Revitalize Your Life, Lisa Garr recently offered her story, insight, and inspiration on how to live your best life at a truly experiential workshop hosted by Rose Caiola of Rewire Me.
If you're not familiar with the story that would change the trajectory of her life, here's the short version: A competitive mountain bike racer, Garr found herself severely dehydrated during a race in triple digit temperatures as her body wasn't absorbing the water she drank. While riding on top of a mountain, she passed out. Bike and body flying through the air, helmet cracked and shattered, body rolling downhill, Garr eventually finds herself in a place absent of pain. "We're so vastly interconnected," she says, describing the pure euphoria she felt in this out-of-body-experience. "We're missing the biggest piece which is total, complete, utter inner connectedness." The cosmic giggle is, whether you mean "inner" or "inter," it's true either way.
While cynics may attribute this realization to the severe accident, it seems natural to me that a flip side of major pain is massive clarity. As Garr embarked on the journey to restore her right prefrontal cortex, she absorbed, embodied, and lived the tools and techniques that allowed her to "effectively heal my brain." If you see her conduct interviews on TV, online, or at conferences you'd never guess that this woman could hardly speak after her bike accident, let alone have captivating conversations with leaders in health, science, and wellness that serve a huge audience.
So how do we optimize our lives? How can we repattern our brain to create what we desire? Below's a taste of the exercises Garr's used to reboot her brain, which can inspire you no matter if you intend to do a complete overhaul or just fine-tune and reinforce existing neuro-pathways.
Visualization Exercise
Bring to mind what you want to create. This could be related to health, fitness, body image, beauty, family/relationships, work, financial abundance, art, creativity, spirituality... Walk into this image with all five senses. Full immerse yourself. Feel it, taste it, touch it, see it, smell it. Neurons that fire together, wire together. This multi-sensory experience will create fresh neuro-pathways.
Journey of Consciousness
A nice tool to pull your vision into the here and now is to see it as if it is happening. "Use your imagination! Play! It's all possible. You're playing in a new arena in your brain. It's fun!" Garr states. The beauty of neuroplasticity is that we can continue to shape our brains. Learn a new language, pick up a new exercise, anchor into your most sacred vision. Make your brain your best friend by molding it to support your thriving.
Your Dream Fully Realized
Garr shared a wonderful meditation/embodied visualization that involved a gorgeous glass-encased, golden elevator with soft-close doors, and other magical features. I'll let her elaborate on this exercise in a future interview... For now, know that you can create your future in your brain and let its essence, the vibration of your dream, sink into your every cell. That's what I'd call whole-body plasticity. Once you've created those new neuro-pathways, your mind will start to scan for them, looking to find matching vibrations.
Action
Visualizing and embodying whatever you desire in one thing but you have to put in inspired action to bring your dreams to fruition. Do the necessary work; speak it; write it; share it. Viscerally feel it. You create best when you're filled with 100 percent of your energy.
Formula for Success
Story + Passion + Giving Back = Success. Garr certainly practices what she preaches; her own goal is to uplevel the consciousness of humanity through media. Looking at the discerning buffet of her book, radio, TV, and online shows, it seems she's right on target. Garr's ultimate tip for you is this: Combine the story of your life with your career and giving back.
Becoming Aware is a beautifully interactive book. Look for the QR codes that'll open up guided exercises for extra support. Sprinkled throughout you'll find Awarisms -- handy gems of wisdom. Moreover, Garr shares her nutritional plans as well as inspirational photos with family and friends (many of whom I'm sure you'll recognize). Dive in. Live in joy. Stay aware!
Story + Passion + Giving Back = Success.
You create best when you're filled with 100 percent of your energy.