Nothing is Wrong With Your Brain: Part 3 (How to Begin Managing your Brain)

Welcome back!  In the first two posts in this series, I discussed the difference between your Higher and Lower Brain. 

Today, I want to share with you why I think that going along with our Lower Brain is often what holds us in most of our pain and suffering, and what the heck we can do about it!

A quick recap of the Lower Brain: Our Lower Brain is programmed for our survival.  It likes familiarity and what it believes will keep us safe (read: alive).  Its job is to seek pleasure, avoid pain, and function as efficiently as possible. 

Unfortunately, the Lower Brain can only think about our immediate present, and does not have the ability to anticipate whether an action we take in the present will actually be most beneficial to us in the future.

Let’s look at the example I presented in my last post:

Situation: A 3-mile run scheduled for Tuesday morning at 6:00AM.

Lower Brain Thought: My bed is too comfy to get up; I want to press snooze and skip this run!

Lower Brain Emotion: Tired, Apprehensive, Conflicted

Action: Press snooze, stay in bed

Result: Miss planned run; feel disappointed, lethargic, and scattered; reinforce my original thought and make it harder for myself to get out of bed at my next alarm

Notice how my Lower Brain is focused on the immediate gratification in the moment, avoiding the strain of exercise, and focusing on what feels good right now: my warm, comfy bed!

Avoiding pain and extra expenditure of energy was great back in the days where we did not know if we would be chased by a predator later in the day or where our next meal was coming from.  During this time, if we didn’t need to be moving around, it made sense for our Lower Brains to let us know it was important to rest and not use energy needlessly. 

But this isn’t the case in our lives today.

Most of us lead much more sedentary lives that what humans had been accustomed to in the past.  Instead of walking to our destinations, many of us use vehicles to transport us to and from various locations.  We also expend less energy at our jobs than in the past.  And most of us have access to limitless amounts of food whenever we are the slightest bit hungry. 

Put simply, our jobs and gathering sustenance do not require the amount of energy, compared to human lives in the past.

Instead, we engage in deliberate exercise to produce endorphins and to keep our bodies in top physical shape.

Many of us feel energized, focused, and happy after we complete a strenuous workout.  Exercise releases the same endorphins that our ancestors used to feel when they caught their next meal, or were on the go for several hours a day. 

But our Lower Brain does not register that exercise is necessary for survival.  In fact, it believes the opposite: It will tell us that it is useless for our survival, that it is painful, and it’s just too much work. 

And our Lower Brains can be very convincing!

Notice how, as the time of your scheduled 3-mile run is approaching, your Lower Brain begins to offer you all sorts of enticing and creative debates as to why you should press snooze instead of heading out for your run.

“I have such a busy day, I deserve to sleep in!”

“The dogs are finally being quiet and cuddly; I couldn’t possibly disrupt them now.”

“If I make noise around the house, I might wake the kids up!”

“What’s the point of sticking with a running routine?  I haven’t lost any weight since I started to run anyway…”

“The weather was calling for rain…I really don’t want to run in the rain!”

Personally, my Lower Brain LOVES offering scheduling negotiations: “If I don’t go for a run this morning, I will definitely go after work.”

I never go after work.

When we don’t understand that ALL THOUGHTS ARE OPTIONAL, we begin to hear our Lower Brain offer excuses of why it wants to stay nice and safe and warm, and we just believe that these thoughts are facts and we listen to them!

And then what happens?

We give up on our goals.

We sleep through our alarm.

We skip the run.

We eat 3 helpings of a meal.

We continue to yell at our spouse or children.

And we don’t get the results we truly want.

All thoughts: optional

Watch how this scenario plays out differently when you observe that all of your thoughts are optional.

All thoughts are optional means that you understand that you do not HAVE to believe any thought that doesn’t serve you.  It means that even though your brain is offering you an enticing way out of your grueling run, you can redirect your brain to create the results you want (finishing your run!) by using your Higher Brain.

Situation: A 3-mile run scheduled for Tuesday morning at 6:00AM

Higher Brain Thought: I will honor myself, my goals, and my plan by completing this run, and will feel amazing all day!

Higher Brain Emotion: Determination, Commitment, Self-Love

Action: Complete run

Result: Feel energized, accomplished, and focused; make progress with training plan; teach yourself you are able to redirect your thoughts to create better results

My Higher Brain is focused on the goal set and how I will feel in the future if I work hard now. 

Easier said than done, right?

You may be wondering how in the heck you start to think different thoughts in the first place.  After all, aren’t thoughts automatic?  Don’t they just happen?

To a certain extent, yes. 

Our brain gets incredibly good at what it practices.  If you have practiced a certain thought over and over—even without realizing it—your brain gets increasingly better at creating neural pathways between that thought and your emotions and actions.  Eventually, these pathways become so well ‘traveled’ that they happen instantaneously, and it seems as if your alarm clock causes you to press snooze and go back to sleep.

In reality, the thought, “I want to skip my run and stay in bed,” is happening so quickly and efficiently in your brain that it seems as though you aren’t even thinking.

What would happen if you practiced the thought, “I will honor myself, my goals, and my plan,” on purpose…consistently?

Your brain would begin to create neural pathways that would make it easier…and eventually more automatic…that you think this thought as your scheduled run was approaching.

First thing’s first.

In order to be able to change your thoughts to create different actions and better results for yourself, you need to start by gaining a thorough understanding of what is actually going on in your brain. 

Most of us have no idea. 

Because we are not taught to observe our thoughts!

The Thought Download

I want to encourage you to start observing your thoughts and the story you are telling yourself about a given situation by completing a Thought Download.  This is essentially the practice of dumping all of your thoughts about your situation onto a piece of paper.  What you are doing is allowing yourself to really see what it is you are thinking about your situation.  The story you have created for yourself around that situation.

By completing a Thought Download, you will get to see for yourself—in black and white—what your brain chatter looks like. 

Then you get to decide if those thoughts are serving you. 

Is it really serving you to believe the thought, “I’ll never be able to get through my day if I get up so early to run,”?

Is it really serving you to believe the thought, “Maybe I’m just not cut out to be a runner.”

When you decide that a certain thought, or maybe even the entire story, is not serving you in a way that creates the results you want in your life, then you get to decide to think different thoughts on purpose. 

In my next post, I will share a more thorough exploration of the Thought Download.  See you there!