Mentor Path

Mindfulness: Psychoanalysis Meets Quantum Physics On the Buddhist Trail to Neuroscience

David Krueger MD

Activation of the self-conscious mind occurs most vividly at the beginning of a new, exciting endeavor. This “honeymoon period” generates the most energetic attention and passionate engagement. The conscious awareness focuses on present attitudes and beliefs. When our conscious minds are more in charge, we generate the behaviors and qualities we most aspire to. Buddhist spiritual practice – now affirmed by biology and physics – terms this mindfulness.

Later, habitual traits programmed into the unconscious mind take over. This switch from mindfulness to habitual behavior parallels the neurochemistry of the excited, honeymoon phase with dopamine and epinephrine transforming to the maintenance system of norepinephrine. See: Sleep On It: The Neuroeconomics of Striking When the Iron is Cold.

Approaches to revising limited and outdated beliefs and rewiring brain pathways require that we keep our self-conscious mind focused in the present, attuned to specific purpose and intent. Otherwise, it slips into the past or future, back to autopilot.

Mindfulness is an awareness of what’s happening while it’s happening. Mindful attention – a full awareness of self – is an inherent human capacity. The Buddhist tradition offers one effective way to access and refine this mindful attention (in Asian languages the words for mind and heart are the same). The coaching application I teach of this mindfulness is self-regulation, with mastery of states of mind.

Psychoanalysis addresses coming to the end of an old story, but not how to strategically create a new story. Quantum physics recognizes the participation of the observer in the creation of reality, but omits motivation. Neuroscience illuminates workings of the conscious and unconscious mind, while disregarding the spirit. Psychology helps us understand the developmental role of effectiveness and mastery, yet remains silent on brain contributions. Early interpersonal development shapes both brain and psyche – our capacity for insight and empathy.

I integrate and apply these perspectives with strategic coaching to help clients systematically rewrite even longstanding behavioral programs. Guided along the pathway of desired intentions, this journey can move from passive to active, responder to initiator, victim to creator.

Your brain and its unconscious programs are not fixed or unchangeable. You can rewrite mind software and rewire brain hardware to create a new life and money story.

Mentor Path

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