In this time of so much uncertainty, with Covid-19, political turmoil, environmental challenges, and general unrest around the world, it seems that much of the work I have been doing lately seems to centre around safety. Safety is defined as the "condition of being protected from harm or other non-desirable outcomes." It is our brain's main agenda to keep us safe and alive. You could argue that everything else is really just, kind of fluffy in comparison.
As I have dissected my life and what is going on inside my head that is creating it, I have found that there are themes...we all seem to have them, and many of them are familiar to all of us...abandonment and loss, self esteem and forgiveness, addiction and other self-sabotaging behaviours, and they all seem to be built on the back of FEAR.
Fear motivates so much of our day-to-day behaviour; in fact I would suggest that most of our decisions are motivated by fear of something....not having enough money, not being part of a "tribe", not being good enough, physical and mental illness and harm, and of course the mother of all fears, death. The irony of all of this is that the more that we focus on these fear-based thoughts and behaviours, the more likely we are to attract more of them into our lives!
So, how do we get to a place where safety is our new set point? Where fear no longer runs our brains and our lives? We spend more time, much more time in fact, doing things that make us happy, and send a signal of love, peace and calm to our brains and bodies. Maybe we even put "fun" on our priority list! What a revolutionary concept! ;)
Most of us have heard of the importance of spending time in nature, with fresh air, sunshine and all of the other things that we are in contact with when we put down our cell phones and GO OUTSIDE!! This is a critical piece of the puzzle.
It is also important to eat real food that nourishes our cells, spend time with people that nourish our souls, and to move our bodies in ways that feel good to us.
The piece of the puzzle that not as many of us are familiar with is the role that our choice of thoughts has on our experience of life. Deliberately choosing thoughts based on love, happiness and safety has the effect of flooding our bodies with "feel good" neurotransmitters, which in turn, creates more of these thoughts and feelings..momentum going in the right direction! But, how do we do this, when our "monkey mind" is taking us down a different road, with thoughts of fear, sadness, and hopelessness? How do we get off the hamster wheel of negative, self-sabotoging thought patterns?
Recent developments in neuroscience have given us tools that allow us to tame this monkey mind, and choose new, better feeling, thoughts and behaviours, rather than defaulting to the subconscious programming that we have developed based on the experiences we have had in our past, We now know how to install new "software" into the brain, allowing us to control the "programs" we run, and thus achieve much better outcomes in our lives...emotional intelligence at it's best!
If this sounds good to you, and you would like to know more, please reach out and schedule a free thirty minute discovery call with me at pattinorris.com. I look forward to hearing from you, and seeing how I can help you live a better life. Remember, getting your mind-body system into a place of safety is key, and I can help you get there!
