It has been some time since I last made an entry to this blog. My attention has been elsewhere, although I have continued to read and think about a number of issues I have posed here.
I have been reading about neuroplasticity (a friend lent me a book called The brain that changes itself). This lead me down the path of how meditation can impact on ways of thinking and that there are likely to be physiological changes. I didn’t realise it, but there has been research into this very issue for some 30 years or more. Dan Siegal’s book, The Mindful Brain, outlines these linkages. I am now very comfortable with the idea that a transformative experience that occurs over time (as it would appear is the most common pathway) can be explained by neuroplastic science. I can see that something that changes our perspective, a disconcerting experience that causes one to deeply reflect and question underlying assumptions can be a trigger to ‘reconfigure’ neural pathways that over time and practice are reinforced (‘neurons that fire together wire together’). What I am unclear about, however, is how to explain what happens with an epiphany. What can cause a sudden ‘rewiring’?
As I’m learning more about transformative learning, the principles are becoming clearer at an individual level, and I’m starting to get my head around community transformative learning, but there is still so much to learn and understand. I can see this area of inquiry is a rich and deep one and one that will take quite a bit of exploring.
References
Doidge, N ?, The Brain that Changes Itself, ?
Mezirow, J & Taylor, EW 2009, Transformative Learning in Practice. Insights from Community, Workplace and Higher Education, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco.
Seigel, DJ 2007, The Mindful Brain, WW Norton & Co. New York.
