I have a lot of small exercises I use to keep practicing thinking differently than I have before and stretching my brains capacity. I am working on giving my prefrontal cortex more air time and hearing the lower brain but not believing it or acting out of it. So I wanted to share some of those exercises with you.

All or nothing thinking

My brain loves to think in big clear black and white terms. I like to think and sort into good and bad, right or wrong, works and doesn’t work. I see this with my kids. They will say is this a good guy or a bad guy? They are trying to sort it out and put it in a category. My brain likes categories, because there seems to be a safety in it. I don’t have to wrestle with what is if I can just sort it into a category and move on. I do this with people, concepts, situations, world views, etc. Our brain likes to feel certain about things, we don’t like the uncertainty. But practicing this simple switch of the word and is a way to start pushing your brain. I recently was doing this with I am a good and bad mom. I don’t have to be one or the other, I can be both. The problem with believing both pushes me to be accepting of all. That maybe sometimes I make bad decisions or do things that I don’t love that I do, like raising my voice, looking at my phone instead of giving them my full attention, shaming them with my words, the list goes on. I also am a good mom that loves them well, listens to them, cares for them, and serves them. I can be both a good and bad mom. That will stretch my brain and allows me to hold the space for the friction that even thinking that brings. I like it when I am the good mom. I don’t like it when I am the bad mom. But if I am both I work at accepting both of them; the good and the bad.

Practicing this type of thinking with issues in the world will stretch your brain. When you ask yourself how can the vaccine be good and bad, you start working on holding space for both views. When you do this you practice thinking cognitively and allowing for cognitive dissonance, which is the tension you feel when you hold two opposing views. We want to get better at thinking in ways that allow for cognitive dissonance, it helps us to look at both sides. Our brain likes the comfort of one side. It likes to think I am right. It has a hard time thinking I could be right and wrong and still make a decision from there.

Worst case scenario and best-case scenario

Another similar concept is working to push your brain to look at both scenarios. You are often met with the worst case scenario in a lot of situations. You might get asked out on a date and immediately think of all the things that could go wrong. But, I want you to start practicing giving the same amount of air time to the best case scenario. So thoughts like it could work out. We could be a great fit. He might be just the guy I have been looking for. He could be interested in me and want to pursue this relationship.

Now your brain doesn’t like practicing this because if you start allowing for the best-case scenario and it doesn’t work out, you are left with disappointment. If you just think worst case scenario you just have to deal with fear and worry. I want to offer you that practicing the best-case scenario isn’t any harder than the worst case scenario it will just push you to be open to feeling the negative emotion later if it doesn’t happen. You can either feel all the negative now, or try, believing in the best, and it doesn’t work out that way and you have some negative emotion then. Either way, believing in the best is actually harder for your brain and that is why we need practice in that type of thinking.

So allow for the worst case scenario, and then think of all the best-case scenario’s and work from  there. Allowing room in your brain for both to be possible and decide how you want to act regardless of the outcome. 

Both sides of the argument

When you are chatting with someone and they share an opinion that is different than yours allow them the opportunity to be right. I love to do this anytime someone shares something about me. Someone told me I was too loud, and immediately my brain wanted to get defensive and say no I am not. I wanted to spend energy and words telling them that they were wrong. But stopping, pausing, and thinking how are they right, really helps me to just let it be there. When I defend myself I want them to see that they are wrong and I am right. But what if they are right? Just allowing for that doesn’t mean they are, it just pushes our brain to stop fighting anything we don’t like. Maybe they think I am loud. That is okay… maybe sometimes I am loud. Is it a problem to be loud, maybe sometimes, but maybe not all the times. I can be loud and be told to be quieter and not take it personally. You can practice this anytime someone says something and you notice you want to defend. Stop, pause, and think; how are they right? Just doing this over and over will allow for you to expand that cognitive dissonance and be less offended by others.

Just the facts

Maybe the most useful practice for me has been breaking down any situation to just the facts. I have a lot of thoughts that I think are true but when whittled away they aren’t at all. They are just thoughts that muddy up the situation I am in. Practicing just looking at the exact words someone said, or the actual numbers, or the bear bones of a situation is so helpful to making things neutral. The facts are that, neutral. The way we think about them is what creates the emotions behind it all. I can have a number on the scale and that is absolutely neutral but the minute I add a thought it becomes emotional. Seeing everything through that lens helps me take things less personally. I can remove a lot of the judgment or hurt or offense if I just peel it all back to this is exactly what happened. I want to think about it this way. The trash didn’t get taken out. The tire is flat. The video is not on my computer anymore. She said she is hurt by what I said. He said he was disappointed in how I handled that. Those all become very factual and I don’t have to make them about me or affect me. I can look at the facts of it and be more subjective. I can show up and affect circumstances in a better way when I am calm and not charged up.

If you just took one of these and worked on thinking differently in one aspect of your life you will see change and growth. It is like going to the weight room and picking a piece of equipment to get stronger in your quads. I want you to pick one piece and get stronger in that this week. Come back to this post and practice different parts of our thinking. It will take practice but you will get stronger.

Exercising right along with you,

Angie