Click HERE to listen on iTunes or HERE to play on another platform. The episode show notes or Transcript can be found below as well.
Please subscribe and SHARE with anybody you think would be helped by this message. If you love the podcast, please leave a review on iTunes. Thank you and have a great day!
In this episode we talk about how our brains take in evidence to enforce what they already believe and how we can harness this and own our choice. We talk about using visualization, curiosity and reflection on where we are easily offended to gain freedom and power in our lives. Enjoy!
TRANSCRIPT:
I am really excited about this topic. I kind of nerd out all week about something I want to talk about and when the day finally arrives, I get really pumped.
Anyway, today this idea has to do with hearing what we want to hear. The idea that we generally will hear only that which we want to hear. That what we are hearing isn’t always necessarily what is being said, and that it isn’t always the whole picture of what is being said or presented, but that we hear the part that we want to. This idea is a very interesting topic to me, and very important to thought work and finding internal freedom and growth, peace and self-acceptance. In order to talk about this, I want to start where the brain is taking information in from the world.
Our brains are constantly making sense of the world around us. They are interpreting what they see and searching for more evidence to back up what they already have chosen to believe. The thoughts that we believe become a mission, an assignment to the brain. The brain evidences over and over the thoughts we believe. So, if we are passively believing thoughts that we are unaware of, our brain is going to reinforce those thoughts, even when they’re unhelpful. When we believe that we can do anything, our brain won’t stop or give up when a challenge arises. If we believe we are crushed under pressure, then our brain will respond accordingly when pressure arises. It’s like computer coding; you’ve told your brain how to respond by your agreements, and despite the fact that you may not want something to happen, you have believed a thought that’s already programmed your mind that “X” is what will happen, and your brain is a master at carrying out orders, thus “X” happens… The thoughts produce ideas, feelings, and affect your motivations and state of being. Your actions result and then reinforce the very thoughts they came from.
This is one very important reason why we need to focus on what we want, not what we don’t want. Because we are reinforcing powerful thoughts. When we think bad will happen, and obsess over it in anxiety, we are essentially creating powerful visualizations and meditations about what we DON’T want to happen. We are making that become a reality. We are laying a framework for our brain, a blueprint for it to follow to confirm the truth that it believes.
These very ideas that we cling to as reality… the thoughts we choose to believe that dictate our emotions and our actions, these ideas become akin in some ways to a dogma. They become sort of a foundation that we lay other thoughts and ways of thinking upon, and often we cling to those thoughts as a part of our identity. We have a hard time separating what we think and believe, along with what we do, from who we are and from our value… and every time we think about the thought or act in accordance to that thought, we again, reinforce the root thought.
Because we can begin to cling to some of these ideas as identity, we can tend to feel incredibly threatened when faced with ideas that contradict these deeply held ideas. These (often unchecked) thoughts about who we are and where our value lies. These ideas and believed thoughts are enmeshed with who we see ourselves as that when an opposing idea is presented that feels threatening, it feels like it’s threatening our very essence and it makes us react from that place; react out of those thoughts and in perceived protection of those thoughts. We feel like we need to defend our thoughts and we become reactive and offendable. Opposing viewpoints feel like a threat to our core thoughts. The idea that our core thoughts are not on solid foundation causes fear and anxiety as, in our minds, our core self is also endangered. Because of this, our brain filters out that which doesn’t support those thoughts and keeps that which does support our thoughts. It is actively seeking out evidence for the thoughts that it believes.
I think there are two main ways that thoughts can exist in our lives that I am aware of; EITHER we are aware of and noticing the thoughts that come into our head, or the thoughts that are dictating a reaction, and holding each thought and inspecting or dissecting it; in this way, determined to make a choice of which thoughts to believe and choosing those that serve love, while living in that awareness; OR we are UNaware and sort of unconsciously acting and living our lives in response to these powerful and yet often very sly thoughts. This second way blurs the line between our thoughts and our value and identity, and blinds us, keeping us trapped. It holds us back from real and substantial growth. I believe we are all somewhere along a spectrum with these, doing our own unique dance back and forth between the two.
The goal for me is that I continue to grow toward noticing the thoughts and dissecting them for growth and freedom, but that at the same time, I learn to accept and acknowledge my imperfection and embrace my inability to always be aware; in this I can start to live in freedom as a beautiful part of the back and forth dance; as a part of the journey toward living my life as fully and peacefully as I can at any given time.
Now, I am not saying our beliefs are wrong or not true or downplaying our beliefs. I am trying to explain MY OPINION, from what I have read and dissected myself, about what is going on inside and show how important it is that we start to recognize our thoughts so that we can actually be consciously aware of our choice to believe the thoughts that actually promote love and truth and growth and peace in our lives. I am trying to explain that we have a choice, we just don’t always realize it. And just because within our minds they start with a thought, doesn’t mean that it is all a figment of your making. But I am hoping to share so that maybe this will help… so we together CAN see that there are already thoughts that are controlling our lives that are not helping us, that we don’t actually want or like, that are hurting us. We all have thoughts like this, and the goal here is to gain a practice of choice. A practice of active awareness as we engage in life, an awareness of where our impulses and habits and feelings are coming from. In this, we can also then become aware of what thoughts are bringing incredible freedom and value in our lives and choose to build up those thoughts… to feed them and fuel them and support them. But then we can also understand all of this from a different angle, to become less offendable and seeing the picture more fully; and realizing that we can’t see the whole picture even if we try. This brings more acceptance and love I feel. This humbles us and again reminds us that we are not God. But fills me personally with an abundance of gratitude and awe for the intricate and complicated nature of our brains and lives; the overwhelming beauty in the design of all of the complicated structures and how it’s all so interconnected… it is compelling and it’s incredible.
Anyway, when we are in the process of reacting to our thoughts… When we are stuck in those patterns. As I said before, the brain will look for evidence to support what it already believes.
Since we are not always aware of the thoughts that we are holding as truth; since we are not always aware of the lies that are looming in our mind and exerting control. Our brains will receive and process information that supports the thoughts we DON’T want, but yet we Do subconsciously believe, not just helpful and empowering thoughts. The thoughts that we are not holding to the light and inspecting, those thoughts we can believe, even if not aware of it, and they can start to dictate our emotions and actions because the brain took the belief as a programming… the brain will reinforce the thoughts that are producing your fear and your anxiety, along with those that limit you to roles in your life. For example; your brain will enforce ideas that you are dumb if you think you’re dumb, that you are ugly if you think you are ugly. Your brain will enforce the ideas that the world is doomed, if that is what you believe. Your brain is God’s masterpiece. You are his masterpiece, and it starts with your thinking. Your thoughts are where love is accepted or rejected; where truth and healing are either absorbed or blocked. Your thoughts are where your prison or your bliss begins.
I read that we have something called selective attention. This has to do with our opinions and beliefs, which are intimately connected to one another. We, again, choose to process what comes our way which supports what we already think about something and believe about that very thing. And it’s not intentional or conscious. Our brains are doing this for us. Our brains think they are helping us. They are doing their job. This is called cognitive bias and confirmation bias, although there is more to it. We will enforce our thoughts and beliefs with evidence of those thoughts and beliefs regardless of the data available and regardless of whether we are aware of the thought driving it all.
On the bright side, as we become more and more aware of this very idea… as we become more aware of the thoughts that we have and start to notice them from a neutral standpoint; As we start to hold captive thoughts that we uncover in our lives and actively figure out what result they are procuring in our lives, and decide if they are helping us toward truth or if they are hurting us; then we begin to have a choice whether or not we will continue to believe them. We can choose what beliefs we will keep and what beliefs we need to purge. We can make start to live our lives within a whole new blueprint. We can choose to do this as well with new incoming thoughts; aware that the brain is sending thoughts our way that confirm a belief we have, again, whether we are aware of the thought or not. It’s a process… a habit. A constant work in progress. Again, so much of the time there are thoughts that we believe which we aren’t even aware that we believe; this is until we can step outside of the reactionary place we so often tend to live, and notice how we feel and figure out what thoughts are causing those feelings.
I am being redundant here, but there is a point to this as well. When we want to hit home with these ideas, and really make a change, we want to repeat them so that we can remember them. We want to really understand and digest them, so bear with me in that please.
We are not trying to stop the thoughts. We are unable to stop ourselves from thinking. It’s what we do with the thoughts that will start to make change in the thoughts that your brain allows in. The more we do this, the more we can start to recognize thoughts to purge and dictate the filters that allow empowering thoughts through.
When we find that what we believe is resulting in love and growth and freedom, and when we see that we have a choice always in our beliefs, these beliefs which empower us in every area of our lives because of the role our thoughts play in our actions; then we will grow beyond what we ever thought possible.
My mother-in-law is an incredible woman, and I am so very grateful for her. The amount of love she has poured into our lives and the lives of those around her constantly and relentlessly is something I do not overlook. Well, this amazing woman got cancer… She had triple-negative breast cancer. It was aggressive and it was scary. I didn’t know what to do and struggled to let myself go there emotionally or to process how it felt. The truth is I was utterly terrified. I was so scared but that fear and that vulnerability was totally unsafe, and so I also started to feel shame as well. I am not sure of all of the beliefs that I let run rampant during this time but I know that amidst all of the emotional pain, I masked my emotions in anger and directed it on those around me, and eventually, I directed some of it at my mother-in-law. Maybe my brain thought that it would be easier to lose her if I was angry initially, because the fear and hopelessness… the feelings I felt of not having any control over losing her, it was too much… but my feelings didn’t go away when she beat cancer. They compounded. This fear and shame that I had shoved down and masked in anger, it didn’t disappear, and neither did the thoughts that produced them. I felt lost and in despair. I couldn’t control this. It was in God’s hands and I realized how much I struggled to trust God’s hands… how little I trusted his plan and how it made everything in my life feel shaky and uncertain, like it would all be swallowed up. All that I loved and everyone. All of it built up and I became incredibly offendable and reactive. Things that someone else did or said, that I saw or that I felt reinforced my fear and shame I reacted to with defense and offense… and it was too much. I wanted it to stop. During this time, I was incredibly volatile emotionally and vulnerable to anything and everything. Maybe it triggered how I felt when I was twelve and my mom had been told by doctors that they didn’t know what was wrong with her but that she was dying. Maybe it had to do with something else, but regardless, I was stuck being run by thoughts perpetuating the pain and misery and I was totally unaware of any of it… of my choice, of the truth. My brain continued to filter through what was before me; what came into my awareness and my thought world, to find that which would continue to reinforce these controlling and terrible thoughts that were buried deep down producing endless emotional pain. I was drowning in the lies that I was believing and could barely think actively because of the jumble of thoughts that were taking up space… taking up my life. I could try to connect with God but it literally sometimes felt excruciating.
When we are stuck, it can feel very helpless. We can feel lost and lonely and until we find the thoughts causing these feelings, causing these lies to be perpetuated, we can’t make a choice. It takes persistence and practice, and it’s not easy. It’s not rocket science either, it’s simple and yet a lot of work.
When we are highly offendable, in a reactive state to all that is around us living in fear and shame and anxiety, we are slaves to our thoughts.
When we start to practice watching our thoughts and feelings, and doing work to dissect them we can start to choose what beliefs we have. We can also have less fear of our whole world shaking when we can detach our value and worth and identity from our thoughts and our roles and actions. When we realize that what we think will continue to change, and become okay with that, constantly pursuing truth, constantly working to take every thought captive, we start to be able to feel unconditional love. We can feel God’s acceptance of us as we are; in his redemption of our story; in the beauty of the brush strokes within our lives with every mistake and every victory. We can find us in this place of freedom when we realize that the mistakes and victories are more similar than we realize and often overlap.
Then, when our identity isn’t wrapped up where it shouldn’t be, we are able to cling less tightly to those thoughts and hold them out enough to see the light and make a choice. When we are not gripping to them so tightly, we can see that there is beauty in the diversity of the World and the people of God’s world. His love starts to pour from us; this real, unconditional love, which makes it so that we are firm in our own worthiness and the ground we stand on feels more stable. We don’t get offended as easily. We aren’t as reactive, when we realize that we can choose how we see things, AND that others too have that choice of what they think and believe; and it’s not our business or fault when they disagree with us or our values. That it’s not personal even if it feels that way. When we see things with God’s eyes, or with a child’s eyes; when we see things with curiosity and honor and humility, with accountability and grace and humor and peace; then we see things in love. We see possibility and we see where the light is coming through. We see our own potential, and who we were meant to be and it becomes easier and easier to stop judging ourselves, and then to stop judging the world.
We don’t any longer have to prove to ourselves or to others that we are right, because we start to realize that we aren’t the only ones that are right. It is all about perspective. Describing a house from one side, is just as true as describing it from the other side. Describing a person from the back or the front will be different even though it’s the same person. We start to see how beautiful the perspectives of other people are and how they can help God to paint a picture in our minds and hearts of beauty and value… we can see that we don’t have to understand it all, and that we aren’t supposed to change the WHOLE world. We are here to love the world and to change our thoughts. We can start to honor and forgive each other, and to honor and forgive ourselves.
When we are being run by our thoughts without reflection and awareness, we cannot really grow, we can’t learn deep wisdom. Yes, amidst this, we can gain knowledge and we can find more and more evidence to support what we want to think and feel and believe, but in the choice to only see what we want to see, to never actively seek to see or understand another’s perspective as though we were actually in their shoes or to see that God has a purpose for them also and try to see from that lens; when we never do this, we shrink our world, we limit God’s voice in our lives and fill ourselves with fear and shame and more fear and shame and we perpetuate this in the world around us. We aid in the lies and strengthen the pain.
Again, we can’t take it all in. There is too much information. It is natural and not bad for our brain to filter through what is coming in to find relevant information to help us in life. We can’t know, do or be it all and it’s unreasonable to expect our brains to be able to process it all. It’s just not possible, especially in the information age, right? We make connections with what we are learning and the incoming information that our brain cherry picks and we learn. That’s ok and it is often good.
So how do we gain wisdom here and a habit of being open to learn and grow and see differently? I have some ideas… ideas that I hope to use or use more… and hopefully they will help. If you have any ideas, please share them with me. You can message me on Instagram or tag the Radical Imperfectionist in a related post. I would love to hear about your journey and where you have found success, and we can share them with others on this journey with us.
First, just this new awareness will help. Just notice…
Next; time and time again I will say “write it out!” Try expressive writing. I have an email address that I actually will email prayers to. I will just do a brain dump by opening up an email and letting the thoughts pour onto the page. I do this whenever I feel trapped in an emotion. When I feel trapped in an emotion, I am typically triggered to distract or numb myself and it makes it very hard for me (depending on how strong the emotion) to process the source. But when I just start writing it out, I find great clarity. If the thought is too strong, first I call my sister. She is a loving and supportive person who is also incredibly grounded, and usually able to stay neutral and help me dissect my thoughts. She asks me questions I wouldn’t think to ask myself for reflection and figuring it all out and I am able to start to see the thoughts that I’m feeling run by. So, if I am able and feeling up to it, and if she’s available, I will call my sister. If it weren’t for her, there would be no radical imperfectionist… This podcast would more likely be Called The Crazy OCD Alchoholic Perfectionist… or something like that I’m sure of it. Anyway, then, when I am listening to my own needs and what I know helps, I will write it out. A key here is WITHOUT judgement for yourself. Let yourself acknowledge what’s in there even if it’s not what you want to think. It’s not for you to shame yourself over either; it’s for you to be grateful for… grateful for being able to get it out, to acknowledge it for yourself and your feelings and grateful for being able to figure out the source so you can make a choice. Remember, the thoughts come and go. You’re brain is letting them in and you can choose not to believe them, but if you’ve believed them for some time, it will take work and that is ok. It’s not about shame or blame. Yes, you are accountable for your actions, but you are doing your best, know that. Accept what you have done. Forgive yourself, take action to change, but realize that you won’t grow unless you accept the missteps along the way as a part of it. Unless you give yourself the Grace God has already given you and see failure in a different way; until you see that failures are the stepping stones to success and to growth and to wisdom and all of it that is great, you won’t be able to get past that enough to do this work effectively. We aren’t God. We aren’t perfect. We aren’t expected to be or supposed to be and we need to stop holding ourselves to that standard. Do now. Do you. Move forward.
So again, write it out, without judgement. If you can’t essentially “listen” to you in allowing yourself to get it all out without judgement, then you’ll never heal. Remember, you’re not alone. We are all messing it up all of the time. And all of us have thoughts that are hurtful… hurtful for ourselves and for others; thoughts we have clung to and have dictated many of our feelings and actions. We can either be ashamed of it, ignore, shove it down and try to hide it… which will only perpetuate it; or we can bring it up to the light, acknowledge it, find the source and replace it with truth and do this over and over as we grow and heal and get stronger.
Next, as I mentioned earlier; stop living in worry and anxiety and in doing so doing powerful visualizations for what you do NOT want in your life, and instead, when you start to feel triggered toward worry, change your thoughts to actively picture how you would like things to play out. Do the opposite of worry and picture exactly how you want things to go. Try to do this each time and it will be powerful and helpful.
Choose curiosity. When out in the world, try to become curious of the information out there. Of other people’s opinions. Of your thoughts. You can try physically putting something on that will act as a cue for yourself to become curious. Remind yourself that you want to understand; place yourself in discovery mode, not detective mode. You’re not trying to prove something; you have nothing to prove. Instea, discover new lands. New ideas and truths. New evidence that will direct you backward to thoughts that will empower you. Choose curiosity, because it’s one of the great gifts God gives us, and many of us lose the habit of exercising curiosity as kids. But it still lingers inside of us as a need that needs feeling… a need that wants to become a habit. Just watch a small child, and become inspired.
Lastly, question your own offend-ability. Notice where you become easily offended and where you are triggered to defend yourself. Dissect your reactions down to emotions, and their root thoughts or beliefs. Question where they are coming from. What are you clinging to. Why are you so offended? The Work by Byron Katie was a very interesting book. IT was hard for me to read but the more I heard what she was saying and wrestled with the ideas, the more I was able to gain some perspective and paradigm shifts that have indeed been incredibly helpful. She encourages people to investigate their thoughts. She talks about turning thoughts around, and the work she does is powerful. She isn’t saying your thoughts are wrong, but again asks you to leave no controlling thought unchecked. If you are offended or offendable, this is controlling you. This is holding you back. Break it down. Try to be humble and vulnerable and do a brain dump to figure out where the thoughts and beliefs are coming from. See how those thoughts are impacting your life and consider how you would feel if you didn’t have those thoughts. Thoughts about what other people should or should not this or that. Break it down and make a choice how you will move forward. Take responsibility for your choice, and allow this to encourage you to continue to take this sort of action.
This world is a beautiful place. Together, let’s try to remain open and searching less for specific evidence just to support what we cling to; and instead take an open surrendered stance. A stance of gratitude where we acknowledge we are not God and where we seek to understand and discover. Where we take responsibility for our thoughts, feelings and actions and take steps to find freedom in this incredibly fascinating and beautiful world of thoughts and their fruit. This is a vast and abundant life and there is plenty for all of us. Spread the light and the love. Search for new truth, and share with me on your journey. Have you found something incredibly helpful in this area? Again, please share with me, as I would love to hear what helps you with this so I can try it too and share it with others… we are in this together. Thank you for hanging out with me today. I hope you have a wonderful day and a week full of curiosity, inspiration and grace for yourself and others. Keep your eyes and hearts wide open. You’re not alone!
Sincerely,
Holly Ann Kasper,
The Radical Imperfectionist