“With every thought, we must have the discipline to ask: “Is this true?”
I keep reminding myself my body is my home. But my head doesn’t always feel like it’s a part of my nest.
Over the past year in particular I’ve noticed my inconvenient ability to replay situations and fabricate brand new ones. This habit has been an ailment to my well-being and makes my brain seem more like a leggo attachment than an organ. The outside affects the inside, but how much autonomy do I have over the temperatures in my skull?
It is universally true: on this side of eternity there’s always going to be social injustices, biological malfunctions, stock market crashes, boys who don’t keep their promises, etc. etc. and the sooner you accept there isn’t much you can do to prevent yourself from being in life’s line of fire, the sooner you’ll find peace.
But what about safety within? What about the arrows and armor for the inside? What do I use to combat the greatest enemy I’ve fought to date:
Myself.
If the human experience is already hard, why do we subconsciously make it harder?
On average, a person has 6,000 thoughts per day. 90% of which are repetitive in nature.
But here’s the kicker: your thoughts don’t affect how you feel. *Your emotions affect how you think.
You can’t control an emotion.
But you can control a thought.
Emotions are neuro-physiological reactions unleashed by an external or internal stimulus (emotions are physical). Feelings are self-perception of specific emotions (feelings are mental). Thoughts are scribes we tell ourselves in conjunction to the two.
We all think our feelings.
We all feel our thoughts.
A constant cycle.
Chicken and eggs.
According to psychologist Martin Seligman, when animals experience painful situations, they learned helplessness. In conjunction, Seligman’s research also led to the creation of a term he coined as learned optimism. Essentially stating, through various tactics in resilience training, animals can literally train themselves to have an optimistic perspective.
Which to be honest, is equally terrifying as it is encouraging to me.
On some level, we are all programmable. The Latin word sapiens quite literally means "wise" or "intelligent."
But I have come to realize that most of us don’t realize how much power we have until someone tells us.
Parents. Teachers. Rabbis. News reporters. Your favorite podcaster or the quote on your phone background.
(*Below I have linked some helpful resources I can account for)
Your head, though influenced by chemicals and characters alike, is capable of change. This sentence right here, is: me telling you that your brain isn’t stuck.
Let me repeat:
The atoms of your being are so feasibly powerful that you have the capability to change the way an organ works. (Just one organ though… I don’t see the harm in telling your pancreas to create insulin, but a verbal encouragement alone probably won’t be convincing.)
Routines and in conjunction; thoughts that we have been taught to engage with repetitively inherently become our habits. Our brains form pathways that signal safety. Something that’s required and craved by every being on earth. Therefore, until we insert our power of will, our brains inherently operate accordingly. And though there is a certain level of safety in avoidance, I have found that the level of danger found in comfortability is much, much higher.
What would it look like to re-train your brain?
To re-wire the pathways of pain?
You don’t have power over a lot. But you have the power to punctuate the stories you tell yourself in your head. The first step stems from simple curiosity rather than solidarity. A prompt rather than a rule.
So what’s today going to be:
A period or a question mark?
*Helpful Resources:
Based on decades of research from Yale, this app helps you accurately identify your emotions and keeps track of them along with your circumstances to build emotional intelligence.
Open Path Psychotherapy Collective is a network that offers sliding scale psychotherapy and mental health education services (online and in-person).
Where is the one place your eyes look more than anywhere else? A home screen widget containing positive affirmation statements that helps strengthen the connection between your unconscious and conscious mind.
*(1. Disclaimer: I am not a licensed psychologist or healthcare professional. All thoughts in this essay are purely observationally contemplative. If you or someone you know is showing signs of mental health instability or illness please seek professional help or call 1-800-mental-health)
*(2. Disclaimer: Resources mentioned are just personal tools I have found to help my overall well-being. I am not affiliated with any of the above)