“The greatest Victory is that which requires no battle,” Sun Tzu,  author of The Art of War.

“A spiritual practice is a constant battle within, replacing previous negative conditioning or habituation with new positive conditioning,” The Dalai Lama.

Why start with these two quotations when talking about winning the battle inside? The answer is, that no battle is necessary. It is in recognizing this that we “win” the battle.

How we function and behave, ultimately the life we live, is 100% determined by our synapses (the ones inside each and every one of us). Our synapses are developed from what happens in and around us everyday of our lives from conception until death. Our synapses record everything and reinforce themselves based on some determination of importance. The importance is ultimately determined by how many synapses are created or attached regarding that person, place, or thing.

For survival reasons, humans are fear-based and tribal by nature. Our synapses keep track of past events which caused us pain or fear in order to avoid those events in the present or future. Our synapses also house the positive lessons and skills to survive (or do anything else). It is these synapses which drive us to seek and be a part of tribes. Today, for the majority of the residents of the United States of America, the energy required for survival is at least half of what it used to be, yet the synaptic proportion of these remains the same. So, many of us are living our lives driven by concepts “hardwired” into us that no longer serve us and in fact make us behave in ways which are detrimental to ourselves and others.

The best way to “Win the ‘Battle’ Inside” us all is to create “new positive conditioning” of love for ourselves and others more often than allowing ourselves to follow our natural instincts of survival.