You or your brain. Who controls whom?

I am on my way to the post office, two parcels in my hand, music playing in my headphones, I am taking a short stroll. Life is good.?

Getting closer to the traffic lights, I realize that they are renovating that part of the road and I should have taken a different turn, but I forgot...

My internal mind navigation system let me down and I followed my regular route without even giving it a second thought.

I pause for a moment to decide what to do. Do I go back and take another turn to the left or do I continue straight, face the renovation work, and then turn left?

This moment of sudden awareness of getting tricked by my own brain got me thinking.

Doesn’t the same happen with our thoughts when we just let them roam in our heads and blindly trust them all?

I am especially interested in negative thoughts that sometimes make us feel just horrible about ourselves. All those annoying, nagging thoughts like:

‘Who am I to start this new project or business? Others are a better fit. They are more qualified and experienced.’

‘I will never succeed.'

‘This is futile. I am hopeless’.

‘I am a bad leader, friend, colleague, spouse, etc.’

‘I am not good, smart, confident, beautiful, entrepreneurial or whatever else .. enough.’

Enough, enough of that!

We have the power to work with our thoughts just as much as we have the power to decide which direction to walk if the road is under construction.

How do we do it?

1. Practise mindfulness

Start being mindful of your thoughts, feelings and events that cause them.

If you feel good, notice what made you feel this way. Was it a short walk, a great meeting you facilitated, that tomato plant that gave the first fruit or the first snowflake outside?

Now catch the thought that you find unhelpful, that does not serve you any longer, take a pause and ask yourself the following:

• What does the thought sound like? (e.g.I am a bad public speaker)
• What event has caused this thought? (e.g. I have just delivered a presentation to the board and some of them seemed uninterested)
• How do you feel as a result of it? (Stressed, incompetent)

2. Challenge that thought

• How true is it (that I am a bad public speaker)??
• What facts do I have to prove this thought is true??
• What facts prove the opposite? (e.g. I aligned with them on the agenda, presented the data in a concise way, interacted with my audience)
• What thought or belief is true about me? ( if you need to form a new one, do it, write it down, say it out loud, and take a moment to be with it)

Notice how you feel as you say it to yourself or write it down.

3. Do a daily thought tracking exercise?

Let this practice flow be your way to control your brain.?

Our brain controls us a lot. With the steps above, you can learn to take control of it and decide if you want to listen to it or not.

Is it easy? No, it’s not.

Is it possible? Yes, it is.

Everything is if you put your mind and heart into it ???