Your Brain Believes Whatever You Tell It

My daughter was in her first real, intense relationship. And when it ended, she felt like the world was ending right along with it. 

We’ve all been there as teenagers and adults. But if you’ve ever loved a teenager through their first heartbreak, you know that there’s little to no perspective. I mean, come on, even as adults, perspective in the middle of an emotional crisis is difficult. Nobody wants to hear about plenty of fish in the sea, or that boys sucks and she deserved better (they do and she did, but that’s not the point).

In these moments, it feels like the world is ending and those feelings are real. It’s difficult to imagine anything ever being ok again.  

For months she couldn’t sleep. She cried a lot. She had a really hard time finding her balance again and figuring out what her life looked like with this new reality.

Despite my desperate desire to fix it, I couldn’t. Life experience is tough like that. Each of us has to experience life on our own; we can’t learn by osmosis. So I did the only thing I could do: I sat with her, let her feel all those big feelings, listened when she wanted to talk, and shared one piece of truth that I hoped she was able to hear and believe

“I know it doesn’t feel like it right now, but I promise it won’t always hurt this much. It does hurt now, and it’s going to hurt until it doesn’t. But it won’t always be this bad, I promise.”

I didn’t tell her to suck it up. I didn’t tell her it was all going to be fine (even though I knew it would be, that type of advice is useless when someone is in crisis). And I definitely didn’t tell her it wasn’t that big of a deal, because it was a big deal. It was a huge deal.

The only thing I needed her to deeply, truly understand was that it wouldn’t always feel this bad. That one day she’d wake up and realize it was slightly better than it had been the day before. I needed her to hang onto the possibility of change.

Because hope is everything.

Hope is the thing with feathers

This Emily Dickensen poem is one of my favorites. Hope is, indeed, the thing with feathers. It lives and breathes and flies – but only if we let it. Hope is life force energy.

As humans, we need hope. It’s a straight-up requirement for any semblance of a healthy, happy life. Hope is what keeps you chugging along when nothing seems to be going your way and it feels like the world is out to get you.

(For the record, I don’t think the world is out to get us. But plenty of people do, and I get why.)

Your brain is a really good editor

While supporting my daughter through her heartbreak or working with a client through a challenging time, none of it comes as a surprise to me. I’m a grown woman who’s lived a lot of life, and I’ve spent years studying how the brain builds the reality we live in through my NLP training, coaching certifications and just being alive. 

So why am I sharin this with you? Because your brain is a really good editor. 95% of your thoughts, patterns, beliefs, and behaviors are unconscious. Your conscious mind is only about 5%. That means the subconscious is running the show. But it doesn’t mean you can’t change your subconscious mind. 

I’m a certifiedneuro-linguistic programming  (NLP) Practitioner. Which is a fancy way of saying the study of how the way you think and talk shapes what you experience.

One of the first things we learned is that your brain takes in way more information every second than it could ever process. In order to compensate for this onslaught of information, your brain filters. It tosses out what doesn’t seem relevant, bends things to fit what you already expect, and turns a few experiences into big sweeping rules. (Deletion, distortion, and generalization, for my fellow NLP nerds.)

So what you experience as reality is really your brain’s edited version of it, cut to match what you already believe.

That old saying, “what you focus on grows”? It’s true. What you’ve decided is true for you is true for you.

If you’ve decided you’re never getting into a relationship again because people suck and you never want your heart broken, your brain will happily go collect the evidence. And you won’t go looking for anything different, because as far as your brain’s concerned, there’s nothing different to find.

This isn’t just about heartbreak

It applies everywhere. Maybe you want more peace of mind. Stronger boundaries. More vacations. Maybe you want to switch jobs, start your own business, get a divorce, start a family, or start a podcast. 

It doesn’t really matter what the change is. The way in is the same. You have to believe it’s possible that something else could be true.

That doesn’t mean what you’re living right now isn’t real. My daughter’s pain was very, very real. But it does mean you’ve decided it isn’t the only thing that could possibly be true.

And the second you crack that door open, you start building a new pathway in your brain toward hope and possibility. Suddenly you can see choices you couldn’t see before. Beliefs you can question. Patterns you can shift. Opportunities that were probably sitting there the whole time.

Possibility comes first

I talk a lot about radical responsibility, owning your choices and your life. But you can’t take responsibility for changing something you believe can’t change.

Believing change is possible comes first. Everything else gets built on top of it.

My daughter didn’t have to believe she’d feel amazing by next week. She just had to believe that one morning she’d wake up and it would hurt a tiny bit less. That sliver of hope was enough to hold onto and when, inevitably, that day came, she had the evidence her brain needed to prove that the message was true. One day it will hurt less. From now on, she can reach for that evidence when something challenging comes; it won’t always hurt this much or feel this bad. This pain is temporary.

You don’t have to know how change will come. You just have to let yourself believe it can.

If you’re looking for hope, possibility, and change, and you’re ready to take radical responsibility for your happiness and well-being, I’d love to support you. Let’s jump on a discovery call and see how I can help.

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Whether you grab one of my free resources or just pop into a live show to say hi, I’d love to support you in finding your own version of success with ease. See what resonates and join us whenever you’re ready.