By Taira St. John
The economic storm in the past few months has created stress in the air that is palpable and difficult to resist. All it takes to arouse fear is to turn on CNN or WNBC. Meeting a friend at the post office or for lunch and finding out what is going on economically and otherwise with many people is often worrisome and depressing in the midst of today”s financial and psychological climate. Yet we still need to remain humanely cheerful and go through our days as productively as possible to survive the downturn ourselves and support our families mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually. It is not easy! From reports out of Washington, D.C. and Sacramento, it could be a long test of our mettle.
One of the techniques that we teach in our Alternatives to Violence (ATV) classes and that I use in my counseling practice is to “train your brain.” We little realize the actual patterns of our thinking and the doubt and fear that tug on us until we get into a trench too deep to dig out. But we can get out, many times on our own steam and we can also help others get out of their ruts through this simple concept of training our own brains.
It goes like this: the neurological system is like a massive and sometimes seemingly hopeless web, a tangle of thoughts, ideas, feelings that can overwhelm us if we leave them to their own devices. But guess what? They are our thoughts, our ideas, our feelings, and we largely created them or they were created in us as children. Either way, as adults, we can actually change them, change the direction of their growth at any point in their complex traverse through our brains, and change the tone of their adverse effects on our feelings and behaviors.
Since we are largely victims of habit in our thoughts and needs, we can begin to notice that stressful or negative thoughts are also habits and can become addictive. They want to cling to us and are difficult to change — but not at all impossible. They are just as pliable as a piece of pie dough, but we have to shape, reshape, and keep reshaping them while clearing off their residue on the side of our psyches until they give us back what we really want (rather than what we fear or dread).
Because we don”t get a vacation from our own minds, even after we reach a satisfactory plateau, we still have to be mindful to keep ourselves on track. We can make our brains serve us rather than pull us down with negative, fearful or even morbid thoughts that commonly lead into depression and anxiety. It is not always easy, it is rarely quick, but it can be done by anyone at any time and there is no reason we cannot take control of our own thinking and bring it into compliance with our own dreams and wishes, even when we have been trained since childhood to think negatively about ourselves or others.
Here is the protocol for changing your brain: Every time you have a negative thought, feeling or fear, say “false” or “delete” to yourself, then let it go. It is a practice of awareness. You do not have to be a Pollyanna to do this. All you have to do is to catch and gradually eliminate negative thoughts and feelings that scare and paralyze your own proactive solutions that otherwise constantly feed your brain. Remember that success can also be frightening and doubt can set in about even taking steps to eliminate old thoughts and ideas. After all, to take steps in our own behalf means that we have to change our thinking and sometimes it is easy to remain stuck or to throw our hands in the air and complain loudly, “I”m tired of trying!”
However, this is your life, no one else”s and if you don”t do it, no one will. No matter how dependent you may have become on another person, no one will get on the exercise machine for you, no one will get rest for you if you don”t go to bed and no one can speak for you or honor you as you yourself can do for yourself! No one can read a book, take a walk, or clean out the garage for you. No one else will make that job call. It is easy for us to count on other people to do it for us, but (1) it never gets done; and (2) it doesn”t work, it just makes us more dependent and vulnerable to the energies around us, instead of changing our own brains.
So, that”s all there is to it. Just start changing your brain today! The next time you catch yourself being a couch potato, say, “No, false or delete,” and eliminate that image about yourself. You can also create a new image about yourself and your energy and practice thinking those ideas. Energy follows thought. Your ideas won”t all change overnight and the practice takes time, energy and perseverance. It is a daily strategy plan and life-long plan and will bring you deeper fulfillment and a sense of achievement even while you are learning how to do it and stick to it.
Changing your brain doesn”t mean that you never have problems and issues that require your attention. You will still have hurdles that you have to deal with. You still have to solve problems. They don”t disappear. For example, we don”t have control over all the thought of others or of natural disasters. However our responses can help cut our losses and restore normality. And by training your brain consistently, you will reduce and even eliminate some of your problems, because your thinking is clearer, more objective and free of the detours, mistakes and impulsive actions created by anxiety and stress. By facing any problems and issues that do remain in a calmer and more effective, solution-oriented manner, you eliminate overreaction. The results of training your brain feels miraculous and maybe it is. Perhaps it is a gift from God that we are just now discovering about our own power and reflection of the divine.
Use your mind and soul to heal and redirect your brain. By changing it, you will find greater success and happiness in your life. Worry, stress, and anxiety-ridden thoughts never did anything for anyone but stir them up negatively and inevitably create more chaos. Taking simple proactive steps to change your brain could change the world and couldn”t we all use that? Just think of what our community would be like if we all start working on that one little aspect of our thinking. We might even find that our economy bounces back a lot quicker than the rest of the country and put Lake County even larger on the map. Try it and see! I dare you.
Taira St. John, Ph.D., M.F.T. is a local therapist and radio show host.
