There are three things to keep in mind when trying to mange a human brain. The first is that we believe a lot of things to be factual, that are not. Second, we have two "brains" trying to achieve totally different things. Third, our brain is a trouble maker and needs to be supervised. For these reasons, it is essential to increase our self-awareness regarding what is going on in our brain.
Let's begin our journey to self-awareness by deciphering the fact from fiction in our brains. Just because we believe something, does not mean it is true. For instance, half the country hates our outgoing president, and half our country loves him. How can that be? President Trump is what we call a circumstance, which means he is neutral until you attach a thought to him. Some people have super negative thoughts about him, some have positive ones. Most believe their thoughts to be factual and the truth. Over time, the thoughts become so repetitive they become beliefs and we get even more attached to them. No matter how many times we have the thoughts or believe them to be true, they will never be the truth for everybody so they are not factual...just opposing thoughts from different brains.
In addition to needing to understand the difference between a thought and a circumstance (facts) , we have to understand that we have two conflicting brains trying to achieve different things. Eckhart Tolle refers to this as the ego and the soul. Brooke Castillo, my mentor and teacher, refers to these conflicting brains as The primitive brain and the prefrontal cortex. I use both interchangeably and call the havoc created by the primitive brain "brain BS". The primitive brain (ego) is all about instant gratification and keeping us in the cave. The prefrontal cortex (soul) serves our higher selves and involves planning ahead for what is best for us in the long term.
The problem is that whenever we make a plan to evolve and leave the cave without our prefrontal brain (soul), the primitive brains wants to stop us and keep us in the dark. It does this by offering us thoughts that are at best not helpful, at worst quite disturbing! If we recognize this and are aware that it is a normal function of a human brain that is working the way it should, we do not need to make it a problem and we can keep moving forward with our plan.
The other point I want to make between these two "brains" is that when we have disturbing or stressful thoughts, those are coming from the primitive brain, not our higher selves. This means just because you have a thought, does not mean it is coming from the real you that you want to be. The primitive brain has good intentions but it is often misguided and needs to be supervised.
The third point I want to make about our primitive brains (ego) are that they are trouble makers and love drama! We do not even have to be in a room with people or have contact with them to create relationship problems. We can create them in our brains just by offering ourselves a destructive thought (brain BS) out of nowhere and then choose to believe the thought. Everything we experience in life alone and with other people is created by our thoughts.
In conclusion, there are three things you need to know about human brains. They believe many thoughts to be factual, that are not. We have two competing "brains" trying to achieve different things. Our primitive brain is a trouble maker and offers us a lot of brain BS. Knowing all of this, we have a better understanding of why they need to be supervised, which will be addressed in my next post. Until then, remember, the only thing standing between you and want you want is your brain BS. Join me in The Brain BS Podcast to continue this discussion!
