Rewire negativity
Be gentle and forgiving with yourself when it comes to toxic or negative thinking. Your brain is literally wired that way!
Yes, it’s true that where our focus, energy and thoughts go... grows. So, ruminating on worries or limiting beliefs creates more of what we don’t want in our lives.
You can change the thoughts you have, and in the process rewire your whole self. There are hundreds of books, TED talks, motivational speakers and YouTube channels devoted to the subject. It’s true, and it’s definitely life-changing in a great way!
Be gentle, it’s a process!
But rewiring our negative programming is a process, one requiring baby steps and discipline. We need to build up sustainably and create new habits in place of others, remembering you may have been in these old habitual ways of thinking and operating for many, many years.
Be supportive of yourself as you create your new habits, and gently bring your thoughts back when they drift into the old patterns. This is where discipline really helps: having a practice or routine, positive affirmations, and having a circuit-breaker for yourself when you slip back.
Even more so, know that our brains are wired with a negatively bias. Read that again: our brains are wired negatively! Therefore, we are not only rewiring a lifetime of habitual thinking, we’re rewiring nature!
How ironic that reprogramming ourselves is counter-intuitive to the survival wiring we developed as Homo sapiens to stay alive.
Why victim-mode comes easy
It makes sense when you think about it. That negativity bias of our brain helped us move quickly into fight or flight mode to scan for Sabretooth tigers, move to safer ground or avoid poisonous plants. Protecting ourselves and our family was a daily requirement, so when we scanned a horizon our brain scanned for danger – rather than to see the beauty of that horizon.
This survival programming is largely why we get so conditioned into patterns of negative, spiraling thinking that cause anxiety and depression. You often see this manifesting as ‘victim consciousness’, where we operate in life as though it’s being done to us by external sources. These external sources can include parents, the government, religion, society in general, your employer, friends...
When you’re in victim-mode you ask, “why does this always happen to me?!” when things go wrong, rather than understanding the power of self-responsibility and self-choice to change the circumstances of your life.
Again, be gentle with yourself if you recognize victim-mode in yourself. Identifying victim consciousness in yourself is a positive step towards understanding your current state, and the programming that’s keeping you in a place you want to move away from.
As yourself questions such as:
When challenged, do I react, or act?
Do I take responsibility for things?
Do I ask, why me?
Do I blame others and outside circumstances for how things are for me?
Am I often sidetracked by drama, fear or guilt?
Allow yourself to answer these questions honestly. Then get into consciously rewiring yourself by rewriting your answers – remembering that, if you are reading this blogpost, the chances are very high that you do not have to fight for your family’s daily survival, or kill an animal to have food tonight. You are safe to do this!
That survival wiring of your brain is no longer serving your highest good. We have literally evolved past that, and now our brains need to catch up.
How to move into thriver-mode
Other than rewriting our responses to circumstances in life, we can use tools such as meditation as a ‘brain gym’ to help refire and rewire our cognitive functions.
The fundamental goal of mediation is restful awareness. It gives our brain a rest, letting it float in a protected space while we access our authentic self.
Mediation moves us from victim consciousness to transcendental consciousness, which is literally a higher state. We shift from thinking we are our mind, body and ego to observing our mind, body and ego, the so-called silent witness.
Benefits are endless and life-changing when consciously move into this way of operating. Overall, we feel more calm, centered and intuitive in life and our relationships are more loving and less about drama. Our biology also evolves, with a stronger immune system and reduced stress markers like blood pressure and heart rate.
It’s a fascinating thing when you look at yourself like this, and understand how and why you came to be in a stressed anxious state... but also know that you can access tools which you can tailor to yourself that work – and will rewire you for your highest good.
