How come when I buy a new car I start seeing more just like it!

I know, that you know what I'm talking about. Remember when you decided to get that first car. You began shopping and drove (or walked) onto your local car lot. There it was! It was a car that you've never seen or if you did, hadn't thought about owning.

You look the car over and it's exactly what you want, or it fits your needs. You get all excited and make that buying decision, thinking that you will be the guy or gal, that stands out in a crowd. Here you are buying that beauticul new ride that is different than anything else out there, or is it?

Can you imagine all the different sounds, movements and goings on during a normal day for you? While I type this article, I'm listening to the clicking sound of my keyboard. Of course I notice that because my hands are connected to the fingers that are doing the typing. Sometimes though, I don't hear the clicking noise associated with my keyboard because I'm focused on other things. Maybe there's a nice tune playing on the radio in the background and my feet and tapping away.

If we were able to concentrate on every event or happening at every moment of our lives we would all go "NUTS!" It's just not possible to listen to every noise all at once. Our minds are built to shut or "filter" out noises or "images" that are not important at the moment. This filtering devise is better known as our "RAS" or "Reticular Activating System."

The Reticular Activating System consists of a bundle of densely packed nerve cells located in the central core of the brainstem. Roughly the size of a little finger, the RAS runs from the top of the spinal cord into the middle of the brain. This area of tightly packed nerve fibers and cells contain nearly 70% of your brain's estimated 200 billion nerve cells or about 140 billion cells. That's a bunch!

The Reticular Activating System has a purpose; it's supposed to protect us, by only bringing into our awareness things that are important to us at the moment. Maybe a new mother awakes in the middle of the night because her newborn baby cries in the other room. The husband might not hear the child crying but the new mothers' RAS is tuned in. Below are some more examples of what I mean.

Let's say that your getting ready to do some laundry and you notice that the dryer is EXTRA noisy today for some reason. It concerns you because it's getting pretty old. It's still working howeverand it's not an immediate concern. Later in the day as your browsing through the Sunday paper, you begin to notice that Sears is having a big sale on "washers and dryers! These sales are going on all the time, but you don't normally pay any attention to them because it's not important to you. Now that your dryer is ready to self destruct you are concerned and your "Reticular Activating System" no longer filters out those ads! Your mind is looking for things that have to do with "washers and dryers." You might even run across an ad online or driving down the interstate and notice a bill board that shows where you nearest appliance center is located.

You can also have happen what I mentioned in the opening paragraph. You go down and buy a car that you've never considered before and after driving it down the road a few times enjoying your new luxury; you begin to see them EVERYWHERE! This is how our minds filtering system works. it has a filter that filters out things that aren't important to us. When they become important, our RAS lets it through.

Here's another side of this that I'm sure you've heard about. I'm erferring to the Universe and the "Law of Attraction." The "Law of Attraction" is very similar to how our RAS works. When you focus on certain things, it has a way of coming to reality. The problem is that if can be BOTH positive or negative. The Universe or your RAS doesn't know any difference. So be careful what you think about!