Episode # 29- You Are Not Your Thoughts

In this episode I talk about what we make our thoughts mean about ourselves- especially our negative ones.  But as humans are brains are programmed to be negative.  If we don't expect that or allow for that, it is easy to feel frustrated with ourselves or feel like we are doing it wrong.  But just like life is 50-50, we will have good thoughts and bad thoughts.  And that's OK.  

I talk about becoming an observer of your brain, a watcher of your thoughts.  This is just as important for thought work as it is for healing chronic pain. 

So listen, and learn ways to be more gentle with yourself and your brain.  You are NOT your thoughts.

 

Follow Betsy on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/bodyandmindlifecoach/

 

Youtube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvXZSYYGL2cfJl-oEOzqspA

 

Website https://bodyandmindlifecoach.com

 

*Free Nervous System Modules- 4 free videos explaining the nervous system, how it affects your health, and how to regulate it  https://view.flodesk.com/pages/620ffa96e0eda1a0d870b5a6

 

*Curable App- 6 Weeks Free with this code http://www.curable.com/betsyjensen

 

If you like this podcast, please give it a five star rating and review on Itunes  https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-unstoppable-body-and-minds-podcast/id1493360543

Transcript:

This is Betsy Jensen, and you are listening to Unstoppable Body and Mind. Episode Six- How to Get the Results You Want. 

 

In this podcast we learned to upgrade our brain and understand the power of our thoughts, to heal and to create the results we want in our life. Become the person in control of your healing and make peace with your life.  Become unstoppable, body and mind.

 

Hello, today we are going to talk more about the model. So if you want to review the model, listen to Episode Five. 

 

But basically, it's a way to break down any situation into the circumstance, thought, feeling, action and result. 

 

Now really looking at our problems in the model allows us to see what the circumstance is.  Which is basically something objective that a court of law would find.  

 

We learn how much is coming from our thoughts, and how our thoughts create our feelings.  

 

Feelings cause our actions, usually not showing up the way you'd want to. 

 

And the result is what your actions cause. Our results always prove our thoughts true. That's just the way our brain works. 

 

If you find that you're trying to do a model, and the result is not proving your thoughts true, it's probably because you have mixed models, which is very easy to do when you're first starting to do models. 

 

Remember, you have 60 to 70,000 thoughts a day. So it's very easy to get sidetracked on a different model. 

 

So now that you can understand your problem and the role you play, and where you have the power to change, how do you solve the problem?

 

It's tricky.

 

In life, we want an easy answer. So I warn you this does sound deceptively easy, but be patient with yourself in the application. Remember, the brain is programmed to be efficient. And there are lots of strong neural pathways that are activated with these thoughts that you've been thinking for decades possibly. And the cells even are used to getting certain neuro chemicals. 

 

Joe Dispenza explains this is how we can get addicted to certain emotions like anger, or judgment or shame. To make a change in our brain requires energy. Most of our models are based in the past our brain is very efficient and sometimes has even formed these models when we were children, trying to make sense of the world. 

 

But remember, that past is gone now. The only thing that is left from the past is the stories that we retell in our brain. And you know what happens to stories that get retold over and over and slightly morph over time. 

 

I watched a program on Netflix called Memory Explained. They said that 50% of the details about a memory change with each passing year, yet people are still convinced they're 100% right. 

 

Thank you brains. 

 

But we all do this. So if you've been telling a story from your past, over and over again for years or possibly decades, chances are that it's kind of a super glossed over photoshopped, almost social media worthy story.  

 

Sometimes we call it story fondling, which is just what our brains do to make sense of what happened and how it fits into our context. We might mold the story so that we are put in the best light, almost like using a filter to reflect what we believe and want to portray back into the world.

 

Maybe thinking this way we can continue to be a victim or blame someone else. In fact, one good way to know if we're living in the past is that we have a lot of stories of victimhood. When we blame someone for making us feel or do something, we have a model that is based in the past. 

 

If you also are having an emotion in your model that is guilt or shame, that is a model from the past. 

 

Another example that I like to use in every situation is the model with pain. Pain would be a model that's based in the past. Joe Dispenza says we wake up and remember our pains each day. So it kind of makes sense that the brain's programming is just reliving the story of the pain and this kind of background program that it runs efficiently over and over and over. 

 

In fact, research has shown that brains become more hypersensitive to pain and have a lower threshold of what's needed to register pain when pain becomes more chronic. 

 

What if we could Question each model from the past that has been causing us pain?  If it's from very long ago, the thing that we may be calling a circumstance may not even be 100% true, or really what happened in reality? 

 

If you're noticing that something from the past is causing you pain, can you accept the thought that things happened just as they were supposed to? Remember, Byron Katie's observation, that the only times we have pain is when our thoughts are in contrast to what happened in reality. 

 

If we could tease out each model, like a knotted up ball of string that we untangle one string at a time, and the more conscious we become, the more we can begin to choose and shape our future. 

 

Speaking of the future, you've probably already guessed now that the way to solve any problem using the model is by putting what you want in the result line? 

 

Really, you could put it in any line of the model because it's like a building with floors. And the model is like an elevator you can take up or down. 

 

But let's start with the result line, because that's the best way to show how you can get what you want with the model. So imagine what you want in the result line. Do you want more money? Do you want to lose weight? Do you want to start a business? Do you want to learn to play an instrument? Do you want to find love? Do you want to play tennis again? 

 

You can literally put anything you want in the result line.  Do you want to make a million dollars? Put it into a model.  

 

What actions would you need to take to make a million dollars?  Working back from the actions, what feelings would you need to have to generate those actions? And what thoughts would you need to think to feel those feelings? 

 

Let's get more specific with a model about pain. 

 

So the result that I may want is to sleep through the night.  Then I think, what are the actions I might need to take in order to sleep through the night?   I would probably start by journaling, just letting my mind go into a receptive mode and writing down whatever I might think of. 

 

One way I might start is to ask my body what it would need to do to sleep through the night without pain, then just grab some paper and start writing without a filter without thinking.  Just fill up pages. 

 

Maybe I might decide to drink some herbal tea, or not to drink liquid past a certain time. Maybe I might think to listen to some soothing music, or try a meditation app. I could try some yoga nidra which is sleeping yoga, which is restorative and has comfortable positions. Or I could think of taking a bath. Maybe I might try reading a book like Divided Mind by John Sarno, that looks at pain in a way different to what I'm used to. That is how I can help my brain rewire. 

 

If you want to have some fun you could look up the books by Louise Hay or her explanations online for why a certain pain or ailment in your body is manifesting in you. Like sciatica, she says is related to being hypocritical, fear of money or fear of the future. And neck pain is because of inflexibility or unbending or stubbornness. 

 

So those might be thoughts of things you can journal about. Maybe they relate to you and you can apply it maybe not.  But just a springboard of ways to get you thinking a little bit differently.

 

Maybe I could look into joining a pain coaching group which is something I do plan on starting. So we'll look forward to that in the future. There are apps like Curable that can teach you modern neuroscience, and how the newest research is suggesting a whole new way of looking at and treating pain. 

 

Gaining information is the first step and helping your brain rewire. You cannot continue to think the same way and create change. Here is an example of some information that might cause you to question your thinking about how you've been taught to view pain. 

 

MRIs are traditionally used to determine if there might be a cause for the pain or a physical need for surgery. But research has been showing that MRIs really should just be used for red flags for things like cancer or infection or tumors because they're not reliable and showing a structural cause of pain. 

 

A study I learned about from 2015 performed MRIs on people who did and didn't have back pain.  47% of the people who reported back pain had no abnormalities on their MRI findings. They had no signs of disc degeneration. 32% of the patients who had no lower back pain did show abnormal MRI results. They had clear signs of disc degeneration but had no

back pain.

 

They were tracked over the next year and 13 of the patients who had no back pain initially started experiencing back pain. But when they did another MRI, they did not see any physical changes that could show why or explain this onset of pain. 

 

Dr. Tim Flynn who hosts the International Spine and Pain Institute's podcast says that changes on imaging are just common with age.  We get “wrinkles on the inside”. These are normal age related changes, but we give them nasty names like “degeneration”, and “torn”, and “herniated”.  

 

For the majority of people and chronic pain, these structural abnormalities are unrelated to the pain they are experiencing. The action of learning more information could help with rewiring the way you conceive of your pain. 

 

And remember, this is not just for pain. This is for other body maladies like skin disorders, gi issues, allergies, or even asthma.

 

So back to our model, what other actions could I take to help sleep through the night?  I could brainstorm and list maybe pages of things that I might be able to do just in my imagination to help me sleep at night. 

 

Now, how would I need to feel to take those actions?  I would say I would need to feel trusting. I really like that emotion. For me, it really embodies hope and belief, empowerment, and letting go. 

 

You could look on an emotion chart to see what emotion you like the best. Try to feel it in your body.

 

What would I need to be thinking to feel trusting?

 

I like the thought, “I'm rewiring my brain and taking control of my health.” 

 

The thought is really important though, it has to feel true to you. If you don't believe that you can rewire your brain, this will not generate the feeling of trust for you. 

 

So just pretend and get creative here. Future models can be fun. We often don't even plan our futures with a purpose like this. Also, most of us start to think we are at the effects of our circumstances, or the all we're capable of doing is things that we've already done in the past. 

 

But what if you had a magic wand and you could pick out a result? Most of us don't spend any time thinking about the results we want. Once we're adults, no one is asking us what we want to do and where we want to go. We just settle into our routines. And we don't think about our plan, what we want to do or where we want to be in five years. 

 

We worry about the future. We want maybe something to be different in the future, so we can feel differently than we do now. But I think we should spend more time thinking about the results we want to have in our lives, and what we would need to do to achieve those results on purpose. 

 

In Becoming Supernatural, Dr. Joe Dispenza describes his walking meditation.  Where you totally embody how the person you want to be would talk or walk or even think by choosing, imagining, and visualizing details of the life you want to have, and the way you want to feel. This is the way you can achieve that reality. 

 

Just like a method actor, you could play the part of a wealthy person or the calm person, or the unlimited person you want to be. 

 

Your beliefs about yourself are all of your thoughts about yourself. So try to think of yourself more in these ways you want to become, or imagine how it would feel. Don't forget to pick an emotion that really moves or motivates you. Changing our brain takes energy. So the fastest way to create change and rewire our brain is to add the power of an emotion. By choosing with intent and purpose. Your mind can control your body rather than your body, controlling your mind.

 

So I want to share with you three different brain hack strategies that I found. 

 

One is by BJ Fogg. I learned about him from the Untangle Podcast by Muse. BJ Fogg wrote a book called Tiny Habits, which I'm reading right now. It's awesome. It's based on 20 years of behavior research. And he created a behavior model, which explains our behaviors, in terms of a few different factors so that we can not blame our behaviors and inability to change them on us having character flaws or problems with our self discipline.  But we can look at it more objectively about what all is going on. 

 

So what I want to tell you about from him, though, is kind of a brain hack to forming new habits. He says the best way to create a new habit is to break it down into the tiniest possible steps, like the tiniest step, like flossing, one tooth Or just putting on your walking shoes. But creating this habit that you do consistently and making it part of your routine, or a prompt that you're consistent with. 

 

So for example, if you're flossing your teeth, when you put your toothbrush down, you start by just flossing one tooth. And then the most important part is that you celebrate doing this first baby step. I found this part of it so interesting. 

 

So in a few days, you can start flossing all of your teeth but you start by just building the habit, putting your toothbrush down, flossing, one tooth, and then in a few days, if you want to start flossing all of your teeth you can, but if you go back to just flossing the one tooth, you still celebrate that when you start seeing success that you have with these tiny habits. Then the motivation that you have to change really snowballs. It's kind of like a life hack to get your brain breaking out of the models from the past and starting to see yourself as a more confident, dynamic person that can change. 

 

Then you start to naturally want to change and take on new challenges without needing to rely on willpower, or resistance or force. 

 

The other thing I found interesting is that if you want to decrease a bad habit, like stop eating sugar, you don't even focus directly on stopping the bad habit initially. He starts by having you build positive, tiny habits. So maybe you would build some habits around starting an exercise routine, or making your bed something where you can be successful and build that power. 

 

I love this.  I really think of David Hawkins and the vibrations of the emotions and how much more powerful you'll be if you're coming from a place of courage, or even neutrality than  if you're starting from a place of disgust or being critical of yourself.  Most of the time we start our habits in a place where we're not liking where we are kind of disgusted with ourselves and already negative. 

 

I love how in BJ Fogg’s model, the power of change is coming from success and positivity. So remember to start tiny, and celebrate the little changes. 

 

Life Hack number two. I also found from the Untangle Podcast, they interviewed the author MJ Ryan, who wrote a book called Habit Changers. It's not on Audible yet, and I've ordered it and I haven't gotten it yet. So I might be sharing more from this brilliant author. It sounds like an amazing book. But at least from her interview, I was able to understand a few of her main ideas, and I think they're valuable and habit change. 

 

She talks about how up to 90% of our behaviors throughout the day are automatic So our brain wants to be very efficient. It learns things like how to pour a glass of water or how to drive or how to believe certain things. And those behaviors are housed in the basal ganglia where habits live, and they just run and they're hardwired and they are hard to change.

 

So you really need to bring a lot of intention to changing a bad habit or forming a new habit. She says you end up doing the same old thing, not because you're weak, but because you're on automatic pilot. 

 

She has 81 game changing mantras in her book, which are mantras that help override the autonomic nervous system. So they're not mantras like I am calm, I am calm, where you might not feel calm, necessarily, when you say them.  She combines the statements with a few other key things. You have to have a “strong why” .  You have to pick one thing that you want to work on changing.  Pick one thing that you have the most motivation to change first, and to have a “strong why” you have to have a reminder of what you want to do. 

 

You might put it on a card that you hold in your wallet, or have a bracelet or something that reminds you of this phrase that you want to say. Now the phrase or a mantra should be directive. It should tell you what to do not I am calm, I'm calm, but something that's directive, like, “reach for a better thought.”

 

Now, this I thought was super interesting.  She talks about pairing your mantra with an action.

She references Amy Cuddy, a researcher who found the Wonder Woman pose or standing in a powerful position with your hands on your hips and your feet out wide. If people would stand like that for two minutes, it would significantly increase their testosterone, it would decrease their cortisol They would have more risk taking behaviors.

 

And in other studies, they found that similar positions, increase the pain threshold caused you to think more abstractly, and have helped people perform better in interviews when they're seated in a power position. 

 

I think that's so cool because I've been a physical therapist for 16 years working with pediatrics. So I know that the way that children learn first is through their motor actions. So think of maybe clapping or pointing you might see a child do something like that before they would actually say the word or speak. In fact, a lot of kids learn to do finger plays or things like patty cake before they would say the words. So learning a motor action like a sign for sign language usually ends up that that is one of the first words that that child also says the one they've learned the physical sign for.  So she suggests if you're working on patience or being more calm, you might want to touch your heart.

 

So this way, you're pairing a visual, if you have the reminder on a card, and audio hearing yourself, say the mantra, and a physical gesture, and that is much more powerful for change.

 

One of the mantras that I thought of when I was listening to the one she gave as an example, is “become curious, not critical.” 

 

I would like to do that with my hand on my heart. I think that's the place where I feel the vibration of gratitude. And she also says that when you touch one or both hands to your heart, you increase the production of oxytocin, which is the feel good or the love hormone. 

 

Here are a few other mantras that she suggests. “My response is my responsibility.” “Stop, breathe, rewind”. “You're on your own path.”

 

This one is one of my favorite favorites. “People do what people always do.” Isn't that great? It just relinquishes you from any power of trying to control anyone or judge anyone. You're letting people do what they do. And you're not surprised when people might disappoint you or not follow through, because that's part of what people do, right? 

 

I think of this with kids, kids do what kids always do. And that might mean sometimes siblings are fighting or sometimes kids are drawing on the walls, or sometimes they're disrespecting you, (according to you.) And that's what kids do. 

 

I think of this also, with our brains with all that we talk about. “Brains do what brains always do” when you catch yourself obsessing or worrying or going back to the past. You can just think up there's my brain. Again, it's working brains do what brains always do. 

 

The last Life Hack is from Brooke Castillo from The Life Coach School. This is called the urge jar. I love this idea. It's so simple and brilliant.  If you're working on changing a habit,

then anytime you have an urge that you don't give into, you put a bead in the urge jar. 

 

So usually when we have an urge, we just try to resist it. And that's kind of like pushing that beach ball underwater. You can only do that for so long and have so much willpower. But with the urge jar, it's like a little hack for your brain, where you still get a reward, even though you haven't given into the urge. It's really fascinating how your brain likes this reward system. I really liked the urge jar and encourage you to try it. 

 

So I challenge you to think of a result you want in your life. Try doing a model work backwards from the result line. Don't worry about how you're going to get it exactly. You can brainstorm at this point. 

 

But if you could pick anything for yourself in the future, what would that result be? What actions would you need to take? What feelings would you need to feel? And what thoughts would you need to think? 

 

If you can get to the place where you can think and believe a thought on purpose, it won't even matter what the circumstances of your life are.

 

Thank you so much for listening.  I hope you learned a little bit about your brain today that helps you in your life like it helped me. Please be sure and subscribe and leave a review. And of course, be sure and share this podcast with someone you know that wants an unstoppable body and mind.