It is our brain that defines our desires and often puts up resistance

The way we think is often the biggest obstacle. Why this happens and what we need to know to manage it.

It is our brain that defines our desires, but often resists. Why is this happening and how can we reverse it so we can feel happier?

The first time I heard that we can resist what we love, I was in the phase of looking for trouble spots in relationships. I had read then that “the love of your life can be feared and chased away”. It seemed like an exaggeration.

Reading a new book, I understand that this can indeed be the case, and it has to do with our brain function, which is related to personal desires and pursuits.

Brain and Desires: Why Do We Put Barriers on Ourselves?

In Brianna Wiest’s work published by Kleidaritmos, “The mountain is you“, there is an entire chapter devoted to it. The author focuses on all the obstacles we put on ourselves, intentionally and unintentionally, to achieve our goals, where she focuses on self-deprecation as a key obstacle to achieving our goals.

When we think about our goals, we do it believing that if we achieve them, we will enjoy the fruits, we will feel more calm and relaxed so that we can have more beautiful moments.

But things don’t end up exactly like that. Experts say that when we achieve our goals, we automatically add new ones. This is due to a brain chemical in the increased dopamine, which ultimately does not imply a good mood, it is the cause of the dynamic to want even more.

So the end result of achieving our goal will be the creation of another challenge, another situation that we will have to deal with. This in essence is the reason we stop all our real desires. Intuition is what leads us to the conclusion that the desired tranquility will not be achieved nor will we feel peaceful as was our original desire.

So when we believe we will achieve our goals, a toxic cocktail of neurological biases is activated and we begin to resent, criticize, and even doubt our very pursuit. Practically what happens is that we feel that we will not be able to enjoy the success of our goal, and this our brain translates as failure, increases the stress of doubt and discourages us.

If for a long time our desires do not come true, our subconscious thinks that something is wrong. As soon as we achieve our goal, a fear of loss arises that we push it away, so that its loss does not disappoint us. This is also why we don’t commit romantically to someone we want too much

But what happens when we get what we want? We are facing another situation. How will we adapt from how we were until now to a much better situation.

What happens is a confusion between what we want and what we want. Change, no matter how much we want it, is difficult until it becomes an integral part of us.

It is not easy to recognize at all stages the ways in which we tend to self-validate, so we end up getting in our own way out of pride. It’s even harder to admit that the things we envy others are parts of our deepest desires, the ones we don’t allow ourselves to have.

Our brains tend to want more and more, more and more achievements. But if we understand the processes by which it works, we can bypass its programming and begin to define our lives.