There are seven rules of neuroplasticity that can help anyone overcome an addiction to shoplifting. The seven rules are discussed in Chapter 8 of “The Power of Neuroplasticity.” Here is how each factor can apply in the context of overcoming a shoplifting addiction.
- Mindfulness: Developing the ability to be present and attentive to your experiences, without distraction, can help a person with a shoplifting addiction become more aware of their thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. This can increase their ability to recognize triggers and develop strategies to cope with urges to steal. To practice mindfulness, be fully present and conscious of your thoughts when you enter a shop.
- Choices: Making intentional choices to engage in activities that promote learning and growth, such as seeking counseling or attending support groups, can help a person overcome their addiction by creating new neural connections and strengthening existing ones.
- Intention: Setting a conscious intention to change one’s behavior and develop new habits can create new neural pathways and change the strength or direction of existing ones. This can help a person with a shoplifting addiction break the cycle of their addiction and develop healthier patterns of behavior. To start, think about what your goal is and what you intend to do in order to stop your addiction and start living.
- Focus: Sustaining attention and concentration on specific activities or experiences, such as developing skills or engaging in positive behaviors, can promote changes in neural connections by strengthening specific circuits that are involved in overcoming the addiction. To maintain focus, zoom in on your goals like using a “thought magnifying glass.”
- Repetition: Repeatedly engaging in positive activities or experiences, such as practicing coping strategies or seeking social support, can strengthen and solidify neural connections over time. This can help to establish new neural pathways and reduce the impact of unwanted or maladaptive ones, such as the urge to shoplift. Remember that you are in this for the long haul and it will require repeated mind practice to achieve lasting change.
- Emotion: The role of emotion in promoting learning and creating lasting changes in neural connections can be harnessed to help a person overcome their shoplifting addiction. By learning to charge your repetitive, intentional, focused thoughts with positive feelings and emotions, you can strengthen positive neural pathways and weaken negative ones, which can help to reduce the urge to shoplift.
- Belief: The power of beliefs and expectations can shape neural plasticity and play a role in overcoming addiction. By adopting positive beliefs and expectations, such as believing in your ability to overcome the addiction, a person can promote growth and change in the brain and increase their chances of success.
Overall, by applying these principles of neural plasticity, a person with a shoplifting addiction can take an active role in changing their brain and behavior over time, and develop healthier patterns of thought and action. You are not dependent on therapists, counselors, support groups, doctors, medication, etc., in order to effect change in the way you live your life. You are like a computer programmer and the rules explained above are the programming language that you will use to create a life program that does not include shoplifting. Write the program and run it! (The programming metaphor is from Steven Covey’s “7 Habits of Highly Effective People.”)