Harnessing the Reticular Activating System to Turn Dreams into Reality [ep.132]
Hello lovely lady and welcome to Higher Self and I!
One of the very first things I learned about when I entered the coaching world was the Reticular Activating System or RAS, and it BLEW MY MIND!
If you are anything like me, you roll your eyes whenever people say things like "I totally manifested my dream business." It leaves people confused, like what? How did you manifest it? Did you just think about it one night, wake up, and it was there? Of course not! You thought about what you wanted, took action, and then it turned into your reality. And the Reticular Activating System played a significant role in the process, so let's talk about that!
Join me in today's podcast episode as I tell you more about what the heck RAS is, how it can help you achieve your goals if you direct your attention and emotions correctly, how you can harness the power of the reticular activating system, and practical tips on activating the RAS. So if you're ready to bring those juicy dreams to life, tune in now and discover how to prime your mind for success!
Topics covered on Harnessing the Reticular Activating System:
What is the reticular activating system (RAS)?
Why should you be mindful of what you allow to filter through the reticular activating system and where you direct your attention?
Ways to attach positive emotions to your desired goals to stimulate the reticular activating system.
How can visualization and scripting help you step into your dream reality and achieve your goals?
Why is it extremely important to regularly remind yourself of your goals and keep them at the forefront of your consciousness?
The reason why affirmations don't work for you.
Tapping into your emotions in relation so you can bridge the gap between where you are now and where you want to be.
Examples of strong emotions that activate the reticular activating system and enhance its sensitivity.
Using the reticular activating system as a support mechanism to take action and achieve success.
Quote:
“Where your focus goes, energy flows.” - Rebecca Haydon
“Opportunities are staring us in the face but we are looking everywhere else rather than actually just focusing on it.” - Rebecca Haydon
Transcription: Our AI tried its best, but expect a few quirky typos in the transcript. Embrace the imperfections and enjoy the read!
[00:00:00] Welcome to The Higher Self and I your go-to podcast that will release you of your victim mindset and become your one-way ticket towards the mind-blowing results you desire in your life and your business. I'm your host, Rebecca Haydon Mindset and business mentor ready to help. You unlock your mindset into gear and empower you to step into the person you always knew you were meant to be.
[00:00:37] A badass, CEO, who is here to claim her freaking millionaire life. Ready to find out what life could be like if you just did the thing. Let's go baby. Hello baby. Welcome back to Higher Self and I. Today we are getting a little bit neuroscientific on your SS and I am diving into the reticular activating system now the Raz, which is what I will coin it for the rest of the podcast, save me saying reticular activated system every single time.
[00:01:11] Because God knows how many times I'm gonna say it in this podcast, but the Raz has been a massive part of my life, of my business and of the success that I've had so far. And I love the Raz because it was one of the first very, very first things I learned about when I got into the coaching world. It blew my mind and.
[00:01:35] I know it's going to blow yours if you've never heard of it before, or if you have heard of it and you've heard me say it a lot, which I do, I say it pretty much in every podcast. Um, but if you haven't heard much about it or you want to know more about it, you are in the exact right place because the Raz has had.
[00:01:55] Such a huge impact in the change of identity that I've gone through since starting my business. Since I've started in the self-development world, it's has a, has put my teeth back in. It's had a massive impact on the reality that I have now versus the reality of what I was in 2019, and it really helps me to tap into.
[00:02:22] What manifestation means for me, because to be honest, I do not resonate with the word manifestation, and I think there's a lot of noise out there with manifestation. And if you are anything like me, which I know you probably are, if you're listening to my podcast, I need tangible things to hold onto, to, to believe, to see it.
[00:02:44] I need that tangibility. I, I need to really understand something to really start to use it in my life. And to start to use it to get results or create my reality that I desire, create the reality that's on my vision board. [00:03:00] And the reticular activating system did this for me because it takes manifestation and it actually shows you the scientific process behind it, the neuroscience behind it, what is actually going on inside our brain.
[00:03:15] Inside our braint stems when we are trying to step into the reality that we desire. And I wanna break that down for you because I speak about it a lot and I actually haven't done a like focused podcast on the reticular activated system. I think it was probably one of my first four or five when I started the podcast back in 2019, which was God dummy years ago now.
[00:03:41] So I wanted to bring it back up with new findings and new learnings and new takes on it because it really has changed my life and it goes on to change my client's lives. And I want it to change your life too, because I am not a fan of looking at things online and they're like, oh my God, this, I've totally manifested this bag.
[00:04:07] Oh my God, I've totally manifested this amount of money this month. And I'm like, no. You thought about what you wanted and then you took the action to get there. That's what you've done. And I ha like, I have this like, uh, feeling around the word manifestation, which is why I never use it, because I think it can have such a connotation for people where they're like, how the fuck have you done that?
[00:04:31] Like, you did what? You just thought about the bag and then the bag became a thing. Like, no. No. So I wanted to really break it down today, and I'm sorry. Anyone who is absolutely in love with the concept of manifestation, it doesn't, it just doesn't resonate for me, and I prefer to see it in this way. I prefer to use the kind of neuroscience behind what we're actually doing so I can tangibly understand it.
[00:05:01] And I find a lot of people are very, very similar. So let's dive in. So the first place that we're gonna start is what actually is the reticular activated system, cuz you've heard me say it many times now. So the Raz is a network of neurons that is located in the brainstem and basically serves as a filtering system for any information.
[00:05:30] That we have coming in, and it's any sensory information that we have coming in minute by minute, second by second, and the Raz determines which stimuli to pay attention to and which to ignore. Very, very simple. So it's a filtered system. It's a filtering system. Imagine your Brita filter. Does anyone have any?
[00:05:58] Does anyone have that anymore? [00:06:00] Imagine you've poured the water at the top. That's the information going into our sensory. And then we have the Raz, which filters and determines what goes through to for us to drink and what gets filtered out. So when it comes to the Raz system, It includes the visual, it includes auditory sensors, tactile, you know, all of the, the physical sensory, um, symptoms that come into us.
[00:06:30] And we then filter through. Now with our filter, this is where the Raz gets very. Interesting because, because we've got so many bits of information coming into us at one point, we obviously can't take all of that information on. And the way that I used to see it is I want you to imagine that 2000 toothpicks are being thrown at you.
[00:07:01] Every second. Now, that's a lot of toothpicks, right? We have to pick the toothpicks that we wanna see and we let go of the toothpicks that we don't wanna see, and actually the toothpicks that we do want to see, as in what gets, um, filtered into our mind and into our subconscious and into our conscious depends on what we.
[00:07:29] As humans are choosing to focus on. So if you are focusing on I'm not good enough, which is a belief that I see time and time again in the entrepreneur space, if your focus is, I'm not good enough, then everything that comes into your Brita filter will filter through things to prove that to be true. It will filter it through and it'll go right.
[00:08:01] We found everything to prove that what she's thinking about is correct, because the brain receives an overwhelming amount of sensory input from the environment, from our environment. Right now. Just have a look around you. Of how many things you can see what's going on. You are hearing my voice. Can you hear cars?
[00:08:25] Are you driving? That's a hundred other things to think about as well. So we have an overwhelming amount of sensory input from the environment at any given time, and the RAs helps us determine which immune stimuli is important. And which deserves conscious attention, so it acts as the gatekeeper and it allows certain, certain sensory inputs to reach into the bra, into the brain.
[00:08:58] And some of these regions, and I won't [00:09:00] go too far into the neuroscience of this, but some of these reasons as such as the cortex, which is where a lot of things happen that we need when we're in business, because in your cortex, Especially your, your prefrontal cortex. That's where a lot of the, um, higher leg level cognitive functions happen.
[00:09:26] It's the CEO of your brain. It's responsible for making the decisions and setting goals and planning actions. So we have to be very careful in what we are allowing to be filtered. And we need to be very careful in where we are directing our attention, and we need to be very careful in what we're letting through.
[00:09:53] Because when we are focusing on something that we don't want, which is usually the case, when we are focusing on a belief that we believe to be true, which actually in conscious logistical moments, we know to be bullshit. The RA becomes primed to prioritize information that's relevant to that, so that means it's consciously directing our attention towards what we are thinking about.
[00:10:30] Now that is great for our clear goals and the life that we want and the reality that we're choosing to create. But it's not so good when we are constantly focusing on the things that we don't want, because guess what? The Raz system will go and find it, and you are consciously directing your attention to towards what you are focusing on.
[00:10:59] And what happens is the Razz scans the environment for stimuli and opportunities to align with where the focus is. And this is what we mean by where your focus goes, energy flows. So right now, if you've got in your RAs, some thoughts around. Business is never gonna happen. I'm never gonna make that amount of money.
[00:11:30] Clients never sign with me. Guess what? The RA is going to go and find. Guess what? It's gonna go and seek out. Guess what It's gonna allow you to see. So I want you, first of all to be very aware of where your focus is. It is the simplest thing when it comes to the RAs and whether that is a check-in point for you, maybe on the hour, [00:12:00] every hour if you need to from the beginning or maybe halfway through the day where you have an alarm on your phone that goes off and goes, where's my focus right now?
[00:12:11] What thoughts are most prevalent right now? What am I focusing on right now? Just so you can become very aware of where you are leading your razz. It's that simple. It really is that simple. So what I want you to remember is if we can focus on things that we don't want, we can equally focus on things that we do want, and then the Raz becomes prime to that.
[00:12:40] So when we set clear goals, when we set consistent focus on them, when we set a belief system that supports us in that, and that is why I so heavily work with mindset when it comes to, with, with working with me one to one. One-to-one is because of the RAs. Because the RAs becomes primed to prioritize information that is relevant to those goals.
[00:13:09] And that means by consciously directing our attention towards what we want, we can activate our RAs to scan the environment for stimuli and opportunities that align with those objectives. Boom. That's what we want, right? So as long as we've got the subconscious beliefs behind the RAs of what we're feeding to the RAs, as long as we've got the subconscious beliefs that are supporting the life that you're stepping into, which is what I work with, with my one-to-one clients.
[00:13:44] We then can use the Raz to scan the environment for opportunities, for stimuli, for creativity, for those random thoughts that you have in the shower that is all influenced from that. So what we can do is we can use the Raz in our favor. Now, having listened to this podcast, you might have been using the Raz in the opposite way.
[00:14:10] You might have been using the Raz to bring in all the things that you don't want, but now you've listened to this podcast, you can start to change that. Now. Additionally, what I also want to talk about, and we'll come into more kind of logistical steps that you can take to actually use the RA in a minute, but additionally, the RA is actually influenced by our emotions.
[00:14:33] So strong emotions, whether positive or negative, can activate the RAs and it can activate it and it can enhance it. And this is why emotional engagement with our goals can be so powerful. That is why if you've listened to any of my motivational magic tracks, which are on the podcast, I'll tag a few in the show notes.
[00:14:58] If you listen to any of the [00:15:00] hypnosis tracks that I've done, if you've listened to a piece of music whilst you're visualizing your goals, that emotional engagement can be so. Powerful because by attaching positive emotions to our desired outcome, we stimulate the RAs to seek out opportunities and resources that support those outcomes.
[00:15:23] And what usually I say when we're really stepping into this is some of those opportunities and some of those resources have been staring you in the goddamn face for years, probably for months, for weeks. They've been right there in front of you and have you ever had that moment where you go, oh my God, yes.
[00:15:46] That's just so simple. Why didn't I think of that? Or, oh my God, it was literally right there in front of me all this time. If you've had moments like that, it's because you've allowed your Raz to seek out the opportunities and show you. So it really does play such a pivotal part of us creating our dream life.
[00:16:07] And this is why when we have the the kind of, um, Real strong belief system behind the RAs that amplifies it because our emotional engagement with our goals, that kind of positive emotions to our desired outcomes, rather than the negative desires to our des negative emotions, to our desired outcomes, really make the change and really allow us to see things that we haven't seen before.
[00:16:36] So now you know how the Raz works. You are itching to know what to do next. I can just tell. So before we move into a couple of things that you can do to really activate the reticular activating system, just to go back. It is a filter for the sensory information which determines which stimuli we consciously become aware of.
[00:17:04] It determines what we hold onto. It determines what we filter into our water, not physical water on, on about the Brita filter here, but it really understanding, but really understanding how we can consciously direct our attention and our emotion. Towards our goals because then we can really start to harness the filtering mechanism to increase our awareness to relevant stimuli and things around us to achieve what we want.
[00:17:36] Can I get a hell yes? Why aren't we using the RAs more? So let's have a look at how we can use the Raz to achieve goals. Now you. Now you consciously understand what actually is happening in the reticular activating system. Let's start to step into some things that you can do. So the first one, goal setting [00:18:00] and visualization.
[00:18:01] Visualization is such a huge part of you stepping into the reality that you want and that you desire. And whether that's scripting, which is when you write down, um, in your journal as if it's already happened. You know, it is the 31st of December, 2024, and I am doing this, and I am feeling that, whether it's that.
[00:18:23] Whether it's visualizing them in your mind, if that works better for you. And really closing your eyes, creating the picture, seeing the, you know, seeing, seeing what you see, smelling the smells, tasting the tastes. A lot of times I do visualizations with my clients, adding all the sensory information in there, but visualization is going to prime your RAs to prioritize information relevant to that visualization.
[00:18:56] Relevant to your goal, which actually starts to increase your awareness of opportunities that align with them a lot of the time, like I said, opportunities are staring us in the face. They're right in front of our face, but we are looking everywhere else rather than actually just focusing on it. So that's one way that you can do it.
[00:19:22] Really getting clear on what you want that life to look like or what you want your business to look like, and then the visualization behind that for you to fully step in. This is where the higher self really comes to life. Number two, focused on your desired outcome. So regularly reminding yourself of your goals and kind of keeping them at the forefront of your consciousness is really important.
[00:19:49] And like I said, with all of these and all of the rest that I'm gonna go on to say, make sure you've got your belief system sorted before you start to step into these. Because actually, if you visualize and you focus on your desired outcome, and I tell you the rest in a minute. But you don't believe you can have it.
[00:20:08] That's where we're gonna have the disconnect. So work on your mindset first. You know, what are the subconscious beliefs behind the goals that I'm stepping into or behind the desired, behind the desired outcomes that you want? Focusing on the desired outcome regularly reminding yourself, we as humans, Even with our big juicy goals, forget.
[00:20:29] Okay. And when we do forget, we're not focusing on it, are we so regularly reminding yourself of your goals, whether that ma, that means every single morning you write out your goals as if they've already happened, or you have a vision board. You know, I have my next kind of set of visions that I wanna bring into my reality on a vision board, on my screensaver, on my phone.
[00:20:53] And on my, on my laptop, really kind of regularly reminding yourself what you are working towards, whether [00:21:00] that's having it up on your whiteboard, whether that's a track that you listen to, whatever that that is, make sure you are consciously directing your attention towards what you want, because then again, you activate your RAs to search for the related stimuli in your environment.
[00:21:17] Number three, affirmations. Now, yes, I will talk very, very quickly about affirmations, but I just wanna preface it is your affirmations need to feel good for you to say. If you're saying your affirmations and you are saying, God, I don't freaking believe what I'm saying right now, they ain't gonna work.
[00:21:37] They are not going to work. You need to do the subconscious work on that for you to truly step into your affirmations. But definitely affirmations really help with your RAs, not only because a lot of affirmations that you do happen through repetition, so you will repeatedly say them. Um, and the brain learns best from repetition.
[00:22:02] But your Raz, again, will recognize and seek out the situations that affirm your desired outcomes, that affirm your affirmations. So your life is gonna look very different if you are working, working, if you are walking around with the affirmation of, I am so lucky, everything works out for me. That's gonna look very different than a couple of negative beliefs that I hear a lot of female entrepreneurs saying.
[00:22:35] So really repeatedly stating your affirmations, whether that's using the Thinker app, which I've talked about before. I'll link it in the show notes, or just having your affirmations, you reading it out to yourself, recording yourself on your phone, whatever you need to do. Really stepping into that. So, Those are a couple of things that you can do.
[00:22:56] I think the last one that I really wanted to talk about is the emotional engagement, and this is a huge one. This is where we bridge the gap between where you are now to where you wanna be, and we don't hold onto the outcome having all the answers because yes, we are moving into that big dream life and yes, we are moving into that reality that you want, but actually we get to feel those emotions.
[00:23:23] That you believe your goals are gonna get, give you right now, you know how often I say this. So the last thing that I want you to do is to really tap into your emotions in relation to your goals. Those strong emotions, like I said, positive or negative, activate the Raz and actually enhance, um, enhance its sensitivity.
[00:23:50] That associated with what you want. So when you are in that emotional space, positive emotional space of what you [00:24:00] believe your dreams are gonna give you, if you practice that emotion every single day, practice, practice, practice feeling it again, because you can feel that right now. You, you, you can feel what you believe.
[00:24:13] Your goal is going to give you right now, and if you keep practicing that emotion, you really start to bring in that sensitivity around what you are trying to move towards. So I hope this has helped. I hope this has allowed you to see how powerful the RAs can be, not only in a good way, but in a way that is hindering your success as well.
[00:24:43] Because the Raz can help direct your attention and increase your awareness of the relevant stimuli. Now, the relevant stimuli being good or bad, as in the negative thoughts or the thoughts that are actually gonna move you towards your dreams. So really a use the Raz to act as the support mechanism. It's not magic.
[00:25:10] It's not a magic solution. It's not something that you just think about. You have to take the action, but it really does start to take, um, to, to take your life to different places when you use it correctly. If you have any questions on the Raz, anything that I've spoken about today, please drop into the dms, um, on Instagram.
[00:25:32] If we're not following, come on over. Give me a follow and I will see you on the next episode. Love you, luck. Your love and support means the absolute world to me with this podcast. So if you have enjoyed the episode today, please make sure that you are sharing. Or reviewing or even rating the podcast because it allows me to get into more ear rolls.
[00:25:56] Now, if we are not connected on Instagram, head over and add me at underscore Rebecca Haydon underscore. Come and say hello. I'd love to see you there and I will see you on the next episode.
More about Higher Self & I:
Higher Self & I is the podcast for ambitious female entrepreneurs who are ready to achieve and sustain mind-blowing results in their biz. It’s a show that will release you of your victim mindset and give you complete freedom and energy to jump into the self you always knew you could be. Each week, Rebecca Haydon will help you lock your mindset into gear and empower you to step into the person you always knew you were meant to be – a bad-ass CEO who is here to claim her freaking millionaire life!