58 - The Boss of Your Brain (take 2)
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[00:00:00] Hello, my friends. Welcome to another episode of life after therapy. If you've been here for a while, you may have heard me say this tagline, "Be the boss of your brain. " A lot of life coaches use it, because when we're not paying attention to our brains, they just kind of do whatever the heck they want and it's important that we're mindful and paying attention even being the boss.
[00:00:25] But there's some tricky nuances to this saying that I want to dive into a little bit today to make sure that you aren't getting stuck when you're trying to use this visual that can be very empowering, but it can also keep us in negative patterns if we're not careful.
[00:00:40] So first, I want to talk about why it's even important for you to be the boss of your brain.
[00:00:45] I've talked about this quite a bit in the past, but *your brain on autopilot has three main jobs. 1) to avoid pain, 2) to seek pleasure, and 3) to conserve your energy* and all of these jobs work together to keep you alive. So that part of your brain, very helpful. God made it. We're grateful.
[00:01:06] But when we have it be on autopilot, It leaves you wanting to do things like eat ice cream while scrolling through social media and avoiding exercising.
[00:01:16] That's your brain's idea of a good time, right? Because it doesn't take the energy to just sit there and scroll through social media like it does to exercise. It gives you the pleasure of things like ice cream and the visual stimulation of social media and you're avoiding pain by doing anything uncomfortable.
[00:01:32] This is a great scenario for your brain. It's like, "Yes, we want more of this. This is good. "
[00:01:37] And that's totally natural. It's natural for your brain to want those things. You are made that way and if you can give yourself some compassion and neutralize those automatic responses, you'll go a long way because when we resist them and we beat ourselves up for them it just keeps us in negativity. But also when you recognize that this is naturally what's going on, you don't want that to be in charge, making your day-to-day decisions, right?
[00:02:05] This part of your brain is just like the brain of any animal out there. And animals, as much as we love them, they don't have value systems. They don't recognize their natural gifts and how to learn and grow. They're not setting goals and progressing. They're not making plans about the future. They're just reacting in what is naturally going to keep them alive and further species. Totally beautiful for an animal.
[00:02:31] You are capable of so much more than that and that is why I invite you to be the boss of your brain. There's a separate part of your brain that honors your values is more connected to your spirit and allows you to move forward, progress, learn, & grow. That's the part we want to be in charge. That's what we want to be the boss, right? We want to have the whole experience, honor those automatic tendencies that are natural but be in charge of how we respond to them.
[00:03:05] This is the ultimate goal and why coaching is so empowering because you've come to realize that you can influence your life when you pay attention to your thoughts and your feelings and you process them and you create empowering ones on purpose. So much power comes from that truth and practicing it in your life.
[00:03:26] But sometimes when we have this vision and capture that energy of being the boss of your brain, some other beliefs come along with it that aren't so useful.
[00:03:36] This ends up when we take it a little too far and we embrace that word boss kind of like we're bossy. Bossy about how we're going to be the boss of our brains. It leads us to kind of resent the natural brain or shame ourselves for doing it wrong. We struggle to be patient and control all of those natural urges, kind of like we're an authority figure, putting our finger out and waving it in our brains face saying, "You better behave. I'm the boss. "
[00:04:08] Now, the problem with this is that your brain doesn't like to be told what to do. When you get big like that with your brain, you start being bossy and not listening to it and just kind of shutting it out, it does what any teenager would do: it rebels against you, intensifying those natural desires. "No, we need more ice cream to deal with this emotion. I can't keep pushing down my natural tendency. I need to go scroll on some social media again because I need a break from all the energy it's requiring for me to push down all of that. "
[00:04:42] These are the things that your brain is saying to you when you are super bossy. And it creates this vicious cycle where you don't feel motivated to do things like exercise and you beat yourself up for it. You end up feeling overwhelmed, deflated, and your relationship with yourself suffers because whether you like it or not, that part of your brain that just is automatic like that, it is useful to you and it's part of the way God made you. It's part of who you are.
[00:05:14] Now, God also said that if we only listen to the natural man, it becomes an enemy to God and it's harder to connect with that spirit. There's a scripture that says, "But the natural man receives not the things of the spirit of God for they are foolishness to him. "
[00:05:33] Your natural brain thinks exercise is foolish. It takes energy. It causes pain and it's definitely not pleasurable.
[00:05:43] And so we do want to be mindful of what that natural man is doing so that you can also have space for that spiritual connection for the things that are not foolish, are actually so useful to you, and what this life is all about.
[00:06:01] So how do we be the boss of our brain without creating that resistance, that teenager response that just feeds these negative cycles?
[00:06:11] Well, let's redefine the word boss. Instead of boss as in 'control' or 'push around,' what if we think of it like being an employer? Like your boss at work.
[00:06:26] Not a bossy know it all, someone who is in charge of helping make sure that you have what you need and is on your team, giving you the resources to progress towards the same goal. See how that simple mindset shift was so much more empowering and exciting? Like, "Oh yeah, let's do that, Let's work together with our brain in positive ways. "
[00:06:50] I want you to think about a boss that you'd actually want to work for. You may have had one in the past, someone that you just knew believed in you and gave you the resources that you need.
[00:07:01] They helped you be the best employee that you could be. And if you haven't had a boss that you like to work for, you can think of the opposite of whoever it was you didn't want to work for, right? But really, I want you to think about the environment that you enjoy working in. What is it about that type of boss that is inviting to you? I bet it's because they believed in you. They taught you what you needed to know and gave you tools to succeed. They gave you support when you were struggling, celebrated your successes, treated you like you were valuable.
[00:07:39] Your brain is just like a child. At times it's like a teenager and at times it's like a toddler, but it's still a child and you are the one who knows better. You are the one who has more understanding, more resources, more knowledge to teach it.
[00:07:55] When you see your natural brain as negative and you try and control it, just like a child it will want to resist or rebel against you. But if you encourage it and support it and help it along the way, give it a job to do and celebrate the successes, then you build that confidence, that relationship and your brain will be more naturally obedient. It will want to work with you because you give it pleasure along the way and you're not giving it a bunch of pain that it's trying to avoid.
[00:08:30] Knowing this about your brain helps you use it as a useful resource.
[00:08:36] Let's talk through some scenarios of what this might actually look like. Maybe you're not a morning person. If you've listened to many episodes, you know that's something I've struggled with over the years. But let's say you really struggle to wake up in the morning. First, how about we give space to acknowledge that that's natural. Of course, your body wants to stay in bed. It's at a state of rest, which doesn't require energy and the comfort of your blankets and their pillow and the dreams that you were just having—that's all pleasure and your brain wants to continue that pleasure. Also, if you have a long to-do list or children who are fighting or something that you're scared to accomplish, that's ahead of you in your day, that all is emotional pain and your brains like, "Nope, we don't want to do that. We want to stay in bed instead. " And that's totally normal and natural that you struggle to be a morning person.
[00:09:32] So first, a good boss would see what its employees are struggling with, would give space for those complaints, and get curious about what their needs are and how to support them to move forward.
[00:09:46] Whether it's struggling with getting up in the morning or something else that you struggle with, *give yourself some space to see *_*why *_*you are struggling*.
[00:09:56] Now let's go back to that metaphor of being the boss of your brain. A good boss also has clear authority. They have boundaries, even if their employee is struggling, they're not going to be like, "Oh, well, since you're struggling, you can just do whatever you want today. It's totally fine. Just go spend all the money of the company and you don't have to come in this week. " And I mean, there might be mental health days and things, but just because they're struggling doesn't mean they're going to just give in and say, "Do whatever you want, " right?
[00:10:24] *A good boss has clear boundaries. When you have boundaries about what to expect from yourself, it helps teach your brain to obey.*
[00:10:33] Remember that part of your brain is like an animal and if you've ever tried to train a dog, if you're not consistent that dog is going to jump up on people or rip up the couch or whatever it naturally wants to do. You have to set clear boundaries and teach it how to act responsibly.
[00:10:52] If you're struggling to get up in the morning, and you're just letting your brain think about whatever it wants and you're focusing on those thoughts about staying in bed or trying to remember your dreams or dreading what's going on for the day, you're teaching that animal in your brain to just do whatever it feels like in the mornings. So of course you're not getting out of bed. It makes it harder for you to hold the boundary and follow through on your commitment to get out of bed.
[00:11:18] One of my favorite ways to boss my brain in the morning is to know when I'm going to be thinking about. And honestly the simpler, the better. When I wake up, I have one focus: get out of bed and turn off the alarm, get out of bed and turn off the alarm. And I have it completely on the other side of the room because I know that if my alarm's right next to me, there's no way I'm getting out of bed because I can just reach over and turn it off. I have to get out of my bed to go turn it off.
[00:11:47] So that's my first boundary for my brain. I don't let myself sit and think about the dreams or the covers or what I don't want to do today. I'm very clear in my morning, get out of bed and turn off my alarm. And then I know exactly what I'm doing next. I've already planned it out. We're going to go to the bathroom and get some water.
[00:12:08] It's an automatic routine that my body's used to, that my brain knows. And it has natural benefits that my brain likes. Going to the bathroom and getting water will help me stay alive, will avoid discomfort, will add energy to me, and my brain likes those things. It also doesn't really cause pain for me to do those simple things first.
[00:12:29] So those first three minutes where I get out of bed, turn off my alarm, go to the bathroom and then drink some water, that simple routine keeps me in charge of my brain in the morning.
[00:12:42] And if you have a simple routine that you have, whatever is easiest for you to do right as you get out of bed—do that. Because you want to help your brain. You are the boss, you are the employer. Give it what it needs. It needs direction. It needs focus. It needs clear boundaries so that it knows what to do. Otherwise, it just does whatever it wants. And of course, it's going to go and want to stay back in bed.
[00:13:07] So that's a clear example of how you can be the boss of your brain in the mornings.
[00:13:13] Let's take another example of exercise because that's something that we often struggle with wanting to do in our day-to-day lives, right? One of the things that can help you be the boss of your brain with exercise that will make you want to do it more is recognizing how you're measuring success. If you're a boss that's very all-or-nothing that if you don't do it this way then you fail, are you going to want to try? Like in everyday life, if you had a boss like that's like, "If you don't get all of your goals, then you hundred percent fail and I'm going to be negative and be mean to you. "
[00:13:47] You're not going to want to try, right? What type of boss do you want to work for ? Someone who celebrates the wins along the way.
[00:13:55] You also want someone who gives you tasks that you can complete and feel confident doing. And then when you build that confidence, then they add more, right? You don't want to say you have to start this new skill and be really good at it right away.
[00:14:09] No. A good boss would give you baby steps to get there and help you have what you need celebrating each step. Right? So with exercise, what if, instead of having to exercise five times a week, you started smaller. You started by saying something like, "I'm going to put on my running shoes three times a week. That's it. I'm just going to put on my shoes and we're going to celebrate every time I put on my shoes and it's fine. And if I want to run after that, that's cool. Or if I want to walk or if I want to go to the gym, whatever it is. I just am going to put on my exercise shoes three times a week. That's my goal. " And then every time you do, celebrate that you showed up and did that goal. That's being the boss of your brain by giving it a goal that you can accomplish in a way that uses its natural desires.
[00:15:04] Celebrating success is pleasurable. Saying you're just going to put your shoes on goes around the resistance of your brain that's like, "We don't want to exercise. That's uncomfortable. Putting shoes on, that's totally fine. We can put shoes on. " But then that momentum gives you pleasure and your brains like, "We want more of this. Maybe we do want to exercise. I'm going to go for a run. "
[00:15:25] You see how you're giving yourself that support? You're measuring in a way that creates that natural momentum. And it improves your relationship with yourself along the way. Your brain is amazing! It is trying to keep you alive. And you can appreciate that along the way. It is part of your team.
[00:15:47] *But you do need to be in charge or it will take over and you will not honor the things that matter to you. *
[00:15:55] My friend, remember your automatic brain is not who you are. You have a bigger vision of what you want to create for your life and just like any good boss. They know what direction the company's going and how the team can work together to get there. Creating that vision, knowing that vision, keeping it at the forefront of your mind, is one of the most empowering things you can do.
[00:16:22] Just like a boss of a company, it can help its team members have that vision, but the vision belongs to the boss, not to the team members. If your brain wants to still be automatic and is struggling to overcome behavior patterns that you've practiced for a long time, that doesn't mean that your vision isn't valuable or that you are worth less because you're not accomplishing what you want. You are in charge of your vision. You're in charge of your worth. It's okay that your brain struggles sometimes.
[00:16:56] It's not what defines who you are. It's just a part of the brain that you have while you're in this earthly experience.
[00:17:05] *Here's my invitation to you: do a quick check-in. Are you being the boss of your brain?*
[00:17:13] And if so, metaphorically, do you like working for yourself? Do you feel like you're being a boss that you want to work for?
[00:17:24] No matter that relationship with your brain. I'm sure there's one thing that you can do to be a better boss of your brain. Think of that thing right now. And commit to embracing it, practicing it, letting it be a small step forward and celebrating that win along the way.
[00:17:47] If you do, you will ultimately become the boss of your life, not just your brain. Because what's in your brain influences everything else that you do and you deserve to have a life that you create on purpose.
[00:18:05] I know you can do it. I have watched woman after woman come to my coaching and learn about how to use the amazing gift of their brain in ways that support them and then celebrate that gift along the way.
[00:18:21] If you want some help being the boss of your brain, reach out to me, anything that you're struggling with, send me a message. You can email me or reach me on Instagram @stephaniethelightcoach I want to hear from you. Where are you struggling? Where is your brain feeling stuck?
[00:18:39] I promise it's not as hard as you think to use it for you instead of against you.
[00:18:47] You can do this, my friend. I believe in you and I'm excited to see what you create in your life when you are the boss of your brain.
[00:18:56] Take care.
[00:18:58] Are you getting my TLC Tuesday emails? They are filled with tips, insights, and invitations to help you add light to your life. Go to www.thelightcoach.com/subscribe and make sure you're included. Because big things are coming and I don't want you to miss them. *Together, we can create confidence, connection, and clarity in life after therapy.*
