Which Fits You Best?
- Are you one of those people who flow through life, and everything is easy? Where you always feel happy and at peace within, and people like to be around you?
- Or are you always stressed and feel like you are always taking two steps forward and one step back? And tend to struggle in life?
- Or are you someone who tends to see what’s wrong, butt heads, get irritated or upset easily and point fingers or judge others?
If you related more to the second or third scenario, your brain might have been auto-programmed for unhappiness or failure.
What’s Going On?
- Negativity Bias: Many of us are pre-programmed with what they call a negativity bias. We tend to respond to and dwell more on adverse events. We also feel the sting of judgment or criticism more powerfully than we feel the joy of praise. Answer this question to see if it applies to you: If you receive ten compliments and one criticism in a day, what do you remember?
- Negative Thinking: According to the National Science Foundation, an average person has about 12,000 to 60,000 thoughts per day. Of those, 80% are negative, and 95% are repetitive thoughts. If we repeat those negative thoughts, we think negative way more than we think positive thoughts. Take a few minutes to journal out what is in your head. What are you thinking? Do you think I am stressed? Or have too much to do? Or aren’t good enough. Look at all journaled notes to decide if more are negative or positive.
- Pre-Programming: Studies have shown that people who have had a good childhood with laughter, fun, and positive role models are more likely to pre-wired for happiness or success. People who have had a more difficult childhood with any abuse or trauma, high-stress, or constant judgment are more likely to be auto-programmed for the negative, struggle, or failure. Which environment did you experience more of the time?
- How do We Get Pre-Programmed? Children’s brains operate in the Theta brainwave state during the first seven years of their life. The Theta brainwave state is a suggestive or hypnotic state. Everything a child sees feels, experiences, and hears becomes ingrained in their belief system and impacts how they respond to the world. It is stored in your subconscious brain, which I call your ego brain or that voice in your head that repeats itself continuously.
What Did You Hear? If your father or mother always said something and modeled that behavior continuously, it is most likely in your belief system. For instance, they may have said, money does not grow on trees and were always struggling financially; you might find yourself struggling financially. Or they may have said, our family had terrible genes and experienced a variety of health issues, you may find yourself with health issues. Big boys don’t cry? You may have learned to turn off your feelings and be tough.
What Was Expected of You? Was it more important for you to go after success and achievement than happiness? Once you start school, the focus often moves to pleasing others, getting good grades, and fitting in. We stop listening to what makes us happy inside, and as a result, we lose touch with our true selves. We have become auto programmed to react as our parents did.
I call this your ego brain (that voice in your head) that runs nonstop, and that is what causes unhappiness, stuckness, stress, anxiety, and struggles as we go after success and achievement over happiness and what feels right.
The good news is, you can reprogram your brain to think and operate differently.
What can You do to Re-Program Your Mind?
- Learn to catch yourself operating in your Ego Mind and stop it in its tracks! Stop it, pull that feeling out of you like it is a physical thing, and throw it away. If you feel angry, stop and catch it, throw it away. Stressed? Stop it and toss it. Not enough? Stop it and throw it away. Anxiety? Stop it and toss it.
- Replace it with Listening to Your Intuition. You want to do what “feels right.” You want to learn to go back to that and listen to your intuition instead of the pre-programmed negativity. It is about learning to listen to your body and how things feel. You may have turned that off your natural intuitive sense when you were young so you could meet the expectations of others. How to listen to your intuition. Warm your heart thinking of a baby, a pet, a favorite place where you love to be. Once your heart is warm, ask yes/no questions. Your heart will stay warm with truth and cool when it doesn’t feel right. This tool will reconnect you with your intuitive sense.
- Learn to Exist BEING Zone: We are a highly stressed society always on the go, doing this, and doing that.
If you want to get in touch with the real you, it is all about getting back into the BEING Zone, which is where you existed in the first seven years of your life because your brain operated in the Theta brainwave state in those years. Neuroscientists have shown you can reprogram your brain by taking it back into that Theta brainwave state. There are specific yet simple steps to get you into a calm, centered Theta state. The easiest is mindful or focused breathing. Just stop and take in deep breaths of air through your nose and notice where you feel the air move in your body. Do you feel your lungs expanding or stomach expanding or what? Then release through your mouth, watching what happens in your body when you exhale and release all that doesn’t serve you.
You can learn more about how to create and exist in a calm state in my book, The BEING Zone, due to be published in June 2020. Feel free to sign up to be alerted when it is available on Amazon and in bookstores. https://marlawilliams.net/my-book/
