A recent study published in Nature Communications suggests the brains of close friends respond in remarkably similar ways. The study was conducted by having two groups of people—some friends and others not friends—view a series of short videos. While viewing the videos, and at the same time having their brains scanned, the results of the friend groups were startling. It turns out they shared the same ebbs and swells of attention and distraction, the same peaks of reward processing at certain parts of the videos, and the same levels of boredom in response to others. The neural response patterns evoked amongst friends proved so similar (versus the patterns witnessed among people who were not friends) that over time, the researchers could predict the strength of two people’s social bond based on their brain scans alone.

The results “were more persuasive than I would have thought. I was struck by the exceptional magnitude of similarity among friends.” said Dr. Carolyn Parkinson, a cognitive scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles and the study’s lead. Nicholas Christakis, a biosociologist at Yale University said of the study, “It suggests that friends resemble each other not just superficially, but in the very structures of their brains.”

What this tells us is that there’s strong evidence that the roots of friendship extend far beyond just external experiences. It seems the more similar our external experiences, the more our internal experiences seem to align. We could call that good chemistry. How? Relationships are forged through shared experiences and as we know experiences create neurocircuitry in the brain. If the end product of an experience is an emotion, then if we share an experience with someone, chances are likely we are sharing the same emotion. If we share the same emotion, then it makes sense that we share the same chemistry, and thus we relate with each other better. So when we are hanging out with friends, our similar chemical makeup causes us to resonate at the same frequency and the same energy because we are creating the same brainwave patterns. Since emotions are energy in motion, we can also share the same energy. This can work both for us and against us.

As an example, at our weeklong Advanced Workshops, we often have anywhere from six hundred people to more than a thousand people in the same room. Since most everyone is learning the same information, they are embracing similar thoughts, feelings, emotions, and behaviors, not to mention a common goal which is to move towards brain and heart coherence. If you have that many people striving to connect with a greater energy and frequency of the quantum field—while becoming more aware of their unconscious thoughts, behaviors, and emotions—then you have a greater consciousness, or a greater level of awareness. Since you can’t have consciousnesses without energy, you now have a greater level of energy, and once everyone’s energy becomes more coherent, their biology follows suit. With more energy and information for people to tune into, this serves to accelerate the change in the group’s brain chemistry and brain circuitry. In this regard, a more cohesive community is created, which allows for more available energy to heal the sick or be healed, create new futures, and create a new culture. This is when it is working for us.

But let’s say that after a weeklong workshop of creating brain coherence you walk back into your same environment. If you start unconsciously agreeing to the same circumstances with the same people in your life—the same people who you have related with for years (coworkers, boss, roommate, partner, friends, etc.) and who you once shared the same brainwave patterns with—your brain will slowly over time oscillate back to everything that was familiar in your life. Now you’re back to your past because your old environment has caused you to turn back into the old personality. We could say then that your personal reality is now creating your personality because everything that was known in your past environment is affecting how you think and feel. In essence, your brain reverted back to the relations with your former life—not your new future life.

This is why doing the meditations daily is vital to creating your new future. Every time you meditate you change your brain and body to be greater than your environment. When we makes these changes enough times, we no longer belong to the past—we belong to the future. Is it possible then that when you change your brain to become greater than your environment you will begin meeting new people and creating new relationships with people who share a new brain frequency? Now that’s evolution.