Brain rewire.

Rodney and I were having an interesting conversation. We were discussing how to get the old negative self talk words and thoughts to go away. We do all kinds of things to make those crazy thoughts go away.  The downside is most of us have no idea how to get them to truly go away.  That’s where Rodney and I were in our conversation talking about what it is that we say to ourselves and why it has such an effect on us.

I always heard, when I was in high school, that talking to yourself was a sign of mental illness or schizophrenia or you’re crazy.  What you hear me telling you right now is that the only way to deal with your crazy thoughts is to talk to them.

Problem is most of us do not know how to talk to those words to get them to go away.  I mean, really!  Telling them we don’t like them doesn’t make the go away. Acting like they are not there is not effective.  Getting angry with them, and venting or agreeing with them does not change them.  Blaming others for putting them there doesn’t help either.  So how do we get the brain to change?

“It’s like rewiring” I told him.  “It’s  called brain rewiring”

I remember in the New Testament where Jesus was talking to Nicodemus.  Jesus told him that unless you are born again, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.  Nicodemus said “how can a man enter into his mother’s womb a second time.” This was fascinating to Nicodemus because he didn’t understand.

Rodney had the same kind of thoughts about my words.  “How in the world do you rewire your brain, Dan!”

It just takes skill like any other skill.  Sometimes these skills are easy and sometimes they are hard. Skill level is: hard.  Why is this skill so hard?   Because it takes a few other skills for it to work!

Learning how to rewire your brain takes several skills including mindfulness, being non-judgmental and self-aware.  Brain rewire is like doing thought surgery. You have to have some practice at what you are doing before you are good at it.  A skill sometimes come naturally and sometimes it does not come naturally.  This is usually not a natural skill.

Brain rewiring means your talk to and about your own thoughts. You know how it is when you have thoughts about your self that you don’t want to have. “I am so stupid” I use to say to my self.

What I began to practice a few years ago was taking those thoughts and changing them into new thoughts.  I would say to myself that “it sure is silly to think that way, because I am not stupid.”  I would speak to my brain and say, “who taught you that I am stupid. That is the silliest thing I have ever heard!”

Now, those thoughts seldom come up in my mind. I have completely rewired my brain that when the idea that I am stupid might show up, my mind runs this little program and – I don’t feel or think those thoughts any more.

Learn more about how this works in the Transformed Life.