This week, to attain, maintain or regain your sense of wellbeing...
...practice noticing and naming the stories your brain tells you and thanking your brain for trying to keep you safe, in all senses of the word. We usually all have a few chains of thought that repeatedly pop up to trigger stress and distress and pull us away from the things we really want to be doing. We can think of these repetitive thought patterns as stories our minds have learned to tell us to try to keep us safe. In a way our brains are automatic storytellers. Often we get caught up and stuck in the stories our minds are throwing up at us. One way to detach from those stories and take the heat out of the distress they create, is to practice naming each of the stories and then literally thanking our brain for doing its job. We don't need to believe, accept or agree with the story - and if we do, that doesn't mean we get much out of being caught up in it or responding to it. Instead of resisting it and struggling against it, this week simply practice naming it and saying 'thank you brain!'
To prepare, take some time to write down some of the things that your mind often throws up when you are distressed. Name the most repetitive thoughts or the ones that trigger the toughest emotions, as in, give them titles you can refer to them by - there is often some kind of "I can't cope" story, "bad self" story or "dangerous others" story in the mix. These are tough thought-chains to deal with when we are caught up believing them or struggling against them, especially when they have been 'true' for us in the past. Struggling against a story makes our mind keep repeating it. Naming the story and saying 'thank you brain' lets our mind know we are aware and reframes the thoughts as ideas and words instead of realities we need to act on - this often lets our mind know it can stop telling the story so loudly.
Once you have named some of the stories you notice your brain often tells you, practice naming them as you notice them throughout your day. Try to pause whenever you move between tasks or situations to practice observing what stories your brain is telling in the moment and saying "Thank you brain, for telling me the xyz story. I hear you", then move forward with your valued direction or do another coping strategy to make things workable.
To start with, practice naming stories and thanking your brain for telling them in ordinary, transition moments, rather in times of intense distress when it will be difficult to use a new strategy. It can help to also observe what the function of the story and the emotions that go with it might be. It can also help to name what our intentions and valued directions are too. These can be like alternative stories we are learning to tell ourselves. For example, "Thank you brain for the "I can't cope" story, I know you are trying to make me anxious, so I will be cautious, to keep me safe from threats. My intention is to discover how to handle this risk because independence and new experiences are important to me." Some variation of "Thank you, brain, for trying to protect me" or "Thank you, I appreciate that you're trying to help, brain."
This might seem like a bit of strange thing to do. But imagine your mind is like a micro-managing advisor at school or work - or maybe a worried parent at home. Like any advisor, some of the advice is useful and some of it is not useful to us at all - and we get to choose what stories we want to take on board. What usually happens if you ignore an advisor or argue with them? They usually just get louder and more persistent, don't they? But if we let an advisor know we have heard them and thank them for their message, then they are more likely to quieten down and we can get on with what we need to do. Responding to our thoughts in this way can help us to see our thoughts for what they are - words, stories, and images that arise in our minds automatically - and this in turn can help us get a bit of distance from them and more mindfully choose which thoughts we want to respond to.
Here is a short video from Russ Harris for an example of what this might look like: Thanking Your Mind: https://youtu.be/206WtwEyqzg?si=my2d8Z_kBr_abccA
Once you are comfortable with this practice, add Naming The Stories and Thank You, Brain to your Personal Coping Kete for times of stress and distress.
