When we talk about taking control of our lives and creating our own reality, one of the terms that is bandied around frequently is "Fake it 'til you make it.". There's a lot of confusion over the meaning of this. It doesn't mean lie to yourself, nor does it mean pretend to be something you are not. Like many things in language, it is simply a useful quick way of remembering a complex concept.

The concept is important, because if we are to change our realities to that of Love and Joy, we have to re-train our brains - and emotions - to respond differently to past events, and to the world around us. And in order to understand how we do that, we have to understand what goes on in our bodies when we encounter a person, event or memory.

Every person, object or event in our life creates a unique chemical signature in our body - which allows us to recognize it/them again when they next appear in our story. This process is an extension of the ego, in many ways. The ego is there so we can tell the difference between us and the world around us. This is a handy thing to know when we go hunting. If we didn't recognize which parts of the world that actually part of our own body, we might start chewing off our own hand when we got hungry...

Now let's say you meet someone you like for the first time. Their unique chemical signature gets generated in your body, and receptors in your cells get a little initial 'kick' from the neuropeptides that are produced.

If you fall in love with that person (in the classic, Newtonian sense ;) ) then each time a cell divides, more of the receptors on the new cell are aligned to receive that chemical signature, and since there are a finite number of receptors on a cell, less are available for other things. This is why people in love often find other aspects of their life unimportant, where they held higher priorities before. In fact if you were able to take a cell, examine the receptors and identify how many receptors responded to a particular stimuli, you would have a pretty good idea of where a persons priorities lay in that moment.

Now, at some point the relationship may go south, and the other person may decide to go their own way, for whatever reason. Now since a significant proportion of the receptors in the cells of your body stop receiving the chemical 'hit' they have been expecting, you start to go through withdrawal, like a heroin addict. So what do you do? You think about the person a lot; perform an internal post mortem on the relationship; go over every detail of the experience.

If the addiction is strong enough, you will look for signs of them in your life - asking friends how they are doing, seeing things that remind you of them - maybe a favorite restaurant etc...in your head you may have feelings of bitterness, resentment, perhaps betrayal, sorrow and loss. So how did the emotional state and view you used to have become so changed into something else?

Well, what is actually happening is your body is fighting the withdrawal by generating the somatic equivalent of methadone - it is attempting to placate the cells that have become addicted to that person by generating a synthetic experience of that person.

In other words, you are delaying the withdrawal process. This is not healthy because now you are creating new cells that are in a sense twisted caricatures of their former selves, and over time that manifests in actual physical problems. So what's the solution? How do you get rid of the addiction faster, so that you can move on?

Well one method people use a lot is another relationship. But that is setting yourself up for more withdrawal down the road, and you haven't addressed the underlying issue. A better method is new experiences - coming out of your cocoon and finding new ways to interact with the world that force new cell production with many varied receptors...and most important of all, Love Yourself. Nurture yourself. Many people have a hard time loving themselves, because it seems egotistical, arrogant - even a little elitist. But really it is the most wonderful thing you can do for society and those around you.

It is starting to become clear as we learn to create our own realities and clarify our intentions, that the energy that moves through as and operates the Universe in which we live, can most easily be tapped into when we extend into the world as the essence of Love. We can most easily manifest what we truly desire when we start from a place of Love. This means, fundamentally, that we have to love not just ourselves, but every other being on the planet. When Love is your foundation, all things become possible. And Love begins with you...

Something that has worked well for me when I feel down is to visualize my higher self with arms wrapped around me, telling me everything will be okay and just looking after me, and loving me.

But in order to get to a place of existing simply as Love, we have to stop old patterns of behavior, and that brings us back to the whole fake it 'til you make it thing. Sometimes it sounds like a shallow concept - we don't like to use the word 'fake' when we are evolving ;)

But look at it like this: Basic Hebbian theory states that 'neurons that fire together, wire together'. Once your brain has become hard wired to generate neuropeptides for a specific person so you can feed your cell's addiction, it is only your 'will' that allows you to break down that configuration. The connection of wired neurons is an electrical charge. To disconnect them (and tear down the factory you created to support your addiction) you have introduce a new thought process, or stop the existing one, so that the electrical charge holding the old connection in place is overwhelmed by the new connection, and the previously wired neurons break free.

A very good friend taught me a technique which has helped me immensely in the past. When you feel your thought process taking that spiral into bitterness and sorrow over a lost love/possession/card game, say out loud (or in your head if not alone) "You have no power of me, {name}!" And keep saying that until the thought stops. If you have a mirror handy, smile into it when you say this.

Initially, you may find anger there instead, and that's ok (for a while) because it means that you are triggering a reaction in your head that says 'You know what? I'm tired of feeling like this!'. Anger has its use in personal growth. All emotions have a purpose or we wouldn't have them. The key is to not over-use or abuse them. So let the anger give way, it's just a temporary tool.Gradually, you will come to a place of Happiness and Joy, Acceptance and Love. Cells that store the emotions we previously felt begin to be broken down and replaced with new healthy ones. This process can be sped up with laughter, orgasms and tears. In my experience they usually happen in that order if I end up at the wrong dive bar...

So think of "Fake it 'til you make it" as meaning to recognize that you are rewiring your brain, replacing cells and making your body, mind, heart and soul healthier. Understand that you have to encourage that process sometimes, nudging it along a little by saying things like 'You have no power over me' even if you don't feel that way, or smiling though your heart is weary, because tomorrow it will feel better, and the day after that even better...

You can forgive, let go, accept and love. But you have to stop with the cell methadone program in order to do this. Recognizing that you are feeding an addiction by swirling those negative emotions around in your body, is the first step to doing that.

The above is an excerpt from "Quantum Spirituality - Being a Better Human", by Vaughan Wynne-Jones, due for release in Fall 2008.

Copyright (C) 2008, Vaughan Wynne-Jones all rights reserved. Article may be reproduced providing appropriate credit is given.