Page 30 - Advance Copy: Todd Kaufman, Author

TODD KAUFMAN
“Just because you have a thought, Does not mean you have to keep it.”
You don’t have to keep your thoughts! How you let go of, change, reframe or otherwise manage a thought is a learned skill – just like learning to play ball or write with your non- dominate hand. (But fear not: You don’t have to have any athletic inclination here!) Imagine what your world will be like when you finish this book and have mastered these skills!
Thank science for discovering what those of us who have conquered panic attacks or learned a new skill already know: Our brain has a “plastic” nature, which means we can change and mold how it works at will. Science calls this neuroplasticity. We will be talking a fair bit about neuroplasticity in this book as it is one of the essential keys to solving the riddle of anxiety!
In Freud’s Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis he states: “The problem of anxiety is a nodal point at which the most various important questions converge, a riddle that is bound to throw a flood of light on our whole mental existence.” This is an evolution of his initial thought that anxiety arose out of the surplus energy of an unfilled libido. On both counts he is correct to varying degrees, yet his suggestion that it may impact our understanding of our whole mental existence is both profound and exciting.
Indeed, the very concept, well understood in many Eastern cultures, that we have the capacity to manage and choose our thoughts, and the recent understanding of the plastic nature of our brain (neuroplasticity) is truly incredible! It really does shake up the way we view our mental existence as Freud predicted.
So what this all means for you (perhaps right up to the very moment you are reading this chapter!), is that most, or even all, of your thoughts are precipitated by – or at least heavily influenced by – your amygdala. And not unlike an overly-protective helicopter
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