Repetition Creates the Master

Everyone learns through Repetition…….

This is an immutable Truth that applies equally, to everyone everywhere, without exception. Even those who have an eidetic memory are not exempt … because remembering isn’t learning. Being able to remember what you’ve seen or read does not mean you have actually learned what the information means, or how it functions in relationship to other information, or how the information is integrated into your general store of knowledge.

Learning is a process … a journey that takes one from simple ignorance to educated and informed.

While people frequently confuse ignorance with stupidity, there is a profound difference between the two. Let’s take a moment here to make the difference clear: Ignorance is educational innocence. An ignorant person is an uneducated, uninformed person. There’s been no opportunity for the individual to gain the knowledge necessary to end their ignorance. They remain innocent of any greater truths or facts that might end their ignorance.

On the other hand, stupidity requires a person to be deliberately ignorant ~ they have the opportunity to become educated and informed but refuse to open their minds to new information or new ideas. It’s an attitudinal stance based on nothing remotely related to logic or reason and they seem stubbornly allergic to facts or evidence that contradict their long-held beliefs.

Remembering that beliefs are decisions you continue to make, repeatedly … consciously or subconsciously, over and over until you’ve formed a habit of thinking. This demonstrates the Real Power in Repetition … which can be used skillfully or unskillfully … for the Greater Good or for personal gain … or to your pain. We are always at Choice about how we utilize the energies available to us. Because of this Truth, you will frequently see information on this website repeated. Repeatedly repeated, in fact.

To repeat is not to fail, but to reinforce, relearn, re-energize. As an Aspirant on the Path, Soul will often send you repeated opportunities to reaffirm a choice, re-make a decision, re-experience an opportunity they feel is so important it bears repeating.

It is only the Glamours of competing and/or comparing that tell us repeating something is “bad,” a failure, or an indication of a lack in some area ~ when in Truth it is because Everyone learns through Repetition.

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Repetition is a core component of The Asceni Method for Cognitive Restructuring, (TAM), for many reasons. One of the most important reasons has to do with the brain and its relationship with the Mind. The brain does not think the thoughts you have ~ those are generated by your Mental Body, what we generally refer to as your Mind.

The brain is the physical receptor for the workings of the Mind. Current science tells us that the electrical activity in the brain includes 100,000 miles of nerve fibers that connect the various parts of the brain. Every time we think a thought, it takes the same route along those hundred thousand miles of nerve fibers. If we think a thought over and over again, it takes the same route over and over again. The more we repeat a thought, the deeper the path and the stronger the memory.

If we decide to change a thought, we have to consciously create a new pathway. Whenever a circumstance comes up that might typically spark a thought to go down the old pathway, we must catch the thought and replace it with the new thought we do want, which starts the process of creating a new pathway. As we repeat this over and over again, the new pathway is established.

The brain needs time to form the new connections, including the dendrites (Greek word for “tree”) and synapses, which are the “highways” on which thought travels. Because memory depends on actual physical changes in the brain, time is required to build the strongest memories. But it generally isn’t rapid change. As Theos so often reminds us: “Cycles in, Cycles out.” Thankfully, it’s not a one-to-one ratio. The stronger and more positive the new thought, the easier ~ and faster ~ building the new thought pattern will be.

Proving yet again: Everyone learns through Repetition.

There is also the power of “spaced repetition,” which involves repeating information over a period of time with gaps in between. For example, research has shown that repeating something 20 times over the course of one day is far less effective than repeating something 10 times over the course of a week, followed by further repetition at varied intervals.

Spaced repetition is highly effective in improving long-term memory recall compared to other study methods, such as rote learning and cramming before exams which is repetition without spacing. Thankfully, Theos doesn’t give us exams. (Only “Pop Quizzes.”)

Theos does use spaced repetition on a regular basis to help us learn all the information necessary to participate in TAM. Demonstrating the Truth that:

Everyone learns through Repetition…….