Your Mind is a Garden

Dawn Damon 0:07

Hey, beautiful women. This is Dawn Damon, the brave heart mentor and you're listening to the brave hearted woman. This is a podcast designed to help you find your brave, so you can live out your beautiful vision. I have been working with women for years. And now I want to help you too. I'm here to awaken the brave heart inside of you. So you can ignite the flame of your vision, you can reach your goals and achieve your dreams. Come on, let's get brave.

We talk a lot about mindset and limiting beliefs, those things that hold us back those beliefs that we have, it's a combination of thoughts over a period of time, which have formed a neural pathway, that is an automatic response to life and behaviors, you automatically go down the road of negativity right away. Those are thought beliefs that you have that are limiting, they hold you back, they keep you trapped, they keep you caged. And you can only Excel to the point of what you believe about yourself, even if that's an unconscious or subconscious belief system, very much like cruise control on a car. Once it's set, you can hit the gas pedal, and you can go a little faster. But eventually you're going to go right back to the pre programmed setting. So it is with limiting beliefs when we have them in our lives. And we don't even know that they're operating. Because by the way, 90 to 95% of all of our behavior is based on unconscious beliefs. So how important it is. And that's why we talk a lot about mindset and beliefs. And we're going to do it again today from a little bit of a different angle. I like Eckhart Tolle, he said, if you get the inside, right, the outside will fall into place. So do you know that you are what you think we've talked about that right? You are what you think. So if you want to change the outside, you have to first change the inside. Because what you're experiencing in life right now is a direct result of how you think. So it works kind of like this right? Thoughts directly influence how you feel. And how you feel directly influences how your body reacts, you have a biological response to the thoughts that you're thinking, and how your body reacts well course that produces behavior, and how you repeatedly behave, that's who you are, and what you experience in life. So your thoughts and your patterns of thought, they really become critically important in designing the kind of life you want to live. A thought pattern is a habit of thinking in a particular way. And I'm going to talk to you about habits today, limiting beliefs and the types of habits that we have, do they serve us? Well? Well, there's a book out by psychologist john Arden, and he writes in his book, rewire your brain, the more you do something, the more likely it is that you will do it again in the future. Repetition rewires the brain and it breeds habits. And so the more neurons fire together, the more likely it is that they'll wire together in the future. And that's what psychologists know. And neuroscience tells you all the time, cells that fire together, wire together. So every thought we experience creates a chemical reaction in our brain, which triggers an emotion. And as we engage in this thought, it creates a new circuit that sends a signal to the body that causes a reaction of emotion and behavior. And it happens over and over and over again, the more we repeat this thinking pattern, the stronger the pathway gets. That's why we literally have to renew our brain, renew our mind, because in our brain, it becomes a habit. Just like a pathway. If you're walking down the road, and all of a sudden you see like a short cut effect that just happened to me today. I decided to take a walk today. And when you know it, the rain came pounding down while I was outside of my walk. It was so fun though. I just thought you know what everybody needs to take a walk in the rain every now and then. And but I couldn't help but look for the shortcut just then and there was a pathway beaten down because it's a shortcut. People walk through it all the time. And the more they go that way. The more predictable the pathway is the more beat down it is the more clear it is the more of a instant, quick path. It is you know what I'm trying to say. So it's like a thinking pattern. And the more you repeat the thinking pattern, the stronger the pathway is, the more is clear, it's our brain just automatically goes that way. And it definitely becomes a habit. That's what habits are they are, they are neurons that have wired together, that can happen automatically. They're encoded in your brain. It's a blueprint in your subconscious mind. And it runs 95% of your life, you're on automation. And we know that neuroscience, as I said a moment ago, they've shown that so the decisions and actions, our emotions, our feelings, our behaviors,

the ideas that come to us, we might think we're being really creative in that moment. But it's really beyond our conscious awareness. And it's coming from the programming of our mind. So don't you want to be a student of the programming in your mind? Don't you want to know, hey, what am I thinking about? How do I automatically think? If someone gives me a look, do I automatically go to a thought that says, they don't like me, they're judging me. They are shaming me. They think they're better than me. Why does our brain automatically go there, instead of saying something like, Oh, they must think that I look pretty today. Or they want to get to know me, they're staring at me, because they look, they think they do know me, I'm familiar. But because we've repeated a thought pattern, so many times that it's powerful pathway is established. And it reinforces our beliefs, that's the thing. So what we're going to end up with is confirmation bias. Because once our pattern is created in our brain, and then reinforced through our beliefs, our brain will bring to us everything that confirms our bias. So once you draw a conclusion about yourself, you're going to likely do two things, you're going to look for evidence that reinforces your belief. And you're also going to discount anything that runs contrary to your belief. I've seen it so many times, you'll say something to someone, maybe someone you're talking to is has a struggle with some low self esteem, or they struggle with ridet rejection or really understanding their value or their worth. Or they look in the mirror, and they don't really see that they're an attractive person, and you give them a compliment, you can see them only almost instantly batted away a hard time receiving and accepting it. That's because you're hitting their confirmation bias. You're hitting a belief system, a wall that does not align, it's not congruent with what they believe. And they're in cognitive dissonance. It's like hitting a nerve and a tooth or a bed chord on the piano or nails on a blackboard, it makes you go Oh, that statement that compliment that beautiful comment that you gave is not computing in their minds. And so they dismiss it. Or if someone gives them a look, that feels a little negative or a little judgy, or whatever might happen that somehow is read by them, this person that maybe has a confirmation bias, or a belief system a limiting belief that they're not worthy, or they're not valuable. And they see something they'll go right away to. Yep, there it is. See, they don't like me, either. The whole world is out to get me. So let's just remember something. our beliefs have come to create the reality that we experience. I think it's a story of two people who moved to a new town and the first set of people came in and they end up meeting the town mayor and they said, what kind of town is this, Mr. Mayor? And he said, Well, let me ask you a question. What kind of town did you come from? Oh, we came from a town that everybody gossips. And they're mean, and they're, they're judgmental, and they're selfish. And the mayor says, yep, that's the kind of town this is to. Well, the next person rolls into town and they meet the mayor and they say, Hey, Mr. Mayor, what kind of town is this? And the mayor says, Well, let me ask you a question. Where did you come from? What kind of town? Oh, everybody was so nice. It was like we were all one big family. They were generous. They went out of their way to serve one another. They helped each other out. They were kind they were friendly. And the mayor said yep, that's the kind of town we are to you're going to fit in really well here. What just happened?

As they believed so is it as you think so shall it be, you will become what you believe. Whatever you think about on the inside, you are going to create it on the outside and your confirmation bias your limiting beliefs, they're going to help you see exactly that. So you know, thoughts do come to all of us that but they're powerless until you decide to accept one of them. Once you decide to accept one of them as true and you meditate on it, that's where it actually becomes a seed that gets planted. So let me many, many leaders talk about this just for a month, this kind of analogy, and we think about it a lot in our ministry of faith where we say, think about your mind as a garden, okay. And in this garden, you can plant either good seeds, like watermelons, or you can plant bad seeds. There is an invasive vine called kutsu. kudzu is something that looked beautiful, they brought it over, I believe, from Japan. And it became it wasn't indigenous to America, and it became a very deadly invasive vine, it grows like crazy. And it wraps itself around trees and produce, and all kinds of things that literally just chokes the life out of vegetation. We've got some of it growing in our yard here. And we have to pull it out of the plants and the trees all the time. But let's say you plant good seeds of watermelons, or you have a choice, you can plant kudzu and invasive vine that is going to overtake your mind garden. And whichever seed you choose to focus on and plant, that's what's going to grow. And that's what's going to multiply. So if you think about that, for your mind, what do you want to plant, whatever thought you choose to focus on, that becomes your seed, that's what you're planting, it is going to grow, and it is going to multiply, it's not going to stay benign. It's going to do what its DNA is created for it to do if you have a good positive, holistic, wholesome thought. It's going to produce beautiful fruit for you it's going to grow, you're going to get stronger in that positive mindset and that belief, you're going to grow in a in a growth mindset that says I can, I am, I'm able to. But if you plant negative seeds like kudzu through what you meditate on and the thoughts that you choose, you're gonna grow negativity. And you are the planter of the seeds. You are the thinker of your thoughts, they come to you. But you get to choose what you're going to meditate on just like emotions, they come to you. They're they're yours, though you have emotions, emotions don't have you. You have thoughts, thoughts don't have you, unless you allow it. Do you want your mind to flourish into a garden? That's beautiful. So many authors of neuro linguistic programming, talk about this, trainers talk about this, I talk about it in my book, The Freedom challenge 60 days to untie the cords that bind you. It's not the thoughts that pass through your head that impact your life. It's the ones you take possession of, it's the ones that you think about and meditate on all day long. And once you agree to give your energy and your attention to those thoughts, they become more real. And the more real they become, the stronger that neural pathway becomes. And over time, the more power they have over our life. So if behavioral patterns are creating our life, and they are then we have to create new patterns. So So here's a few steps for you today. First of all, think about what you're thinking about. Okay. Think about the thoughts. And again, psychologists call this metacognition be aware of what you're thinking about. It's the idea of his mind, in your mindset, thinking about what you're thinking about. So what are you thinking about? Don't just think about it? How about you write about it? What am I thinking on? What is taking up a lot of my unconscious time? If you have emotions, do this next step, ask your thoughts or your emotions. What are you trying to tell me? I've come to find out that emotions are signals for us. They really are there. They're trying to let us know that there's some pain there. They're trying to let us know that there's something underneath of it. So don't numb out. If you're having an emotion, don't grab a bag of chips.

Don't turn the TV on. Don't get a glass of wine. First of all, ask yourself The question, emotion, what are you trying to tell me? Bring your awareness to it, and pause and just ask yourself, you know what's going on with me right now? What's going on in my mind right now? Why am I feeling this way? Why am I angry? Or why am I? Why am I upset? Why am I feeling so low. And this can help you figure out what you're feeling and why you're feeling and what feeling is driving you. And you can get back to the root cause of these feelings, they might find that it's a thought that we were dwelling on that's producing that feeling. Here's the third step, I'd like you to practice, practice expressive writing. Once again, you know, I have discovered that expressive writing is so powerful. And I do this with my clients. And I share with them the connection between the brain and the hand, the writing that happens, specifically how it opens up the right side of our brain, because logic lives in the left side of your brain, but emotion and feeling you know, the limbic system and the amygdala all in the right side of the brain, where perhaps emotion live, where it does live, where perhaps trauma is, where triggers for your emotions are. And so when you begin to practice expressive writing, in other words, let the writing take over, don't edit your soul. Don't journal like somebody is going to find your journal some day, when we talk about journaling. And I can't tell you how many of my clients say, you know, I want you to journal that. And they said, Can I be honest with you? When I journal? I don't even journal authentically, because I'm afraid that somebody is going to find my journal someday, and I want to look spiritual, or I want to look healthy. So can you please find a journal that no one else is going to find or read. And let yourself tell the truth to yourself. So when you get triggered with an emotion, it's going to trigger a body reaction. And that's going to drive you in a certain way. Take a moment and write about that. Ask yourself those questions. Because the thought pattern is creating a mental circuitry in your brain. And again, if we repeat it, it becomes a subconscious behavioral pattern that runs on automation. And that is going to create our life. Our thoughts create our experiences, and thus we experience what we think so like so many leaders before us, the quality of your thoughts, equals the quality of your life. If you want a better life, you have to think a better thought. So that's what I have for you today. I want you to think about that dwell on that today. Once again, just talking about the mindset and the importance of being brave. Come on, ladies, being brave, being willing to take an honest, fearless inventory of your life. Because you weren't made to be average. You're made to be great. And I want that for you. This is your Braveheart mentor Don Damon's getting ready to sign off saying to you, it's time for you to live your brave. Live your vision.

Thanks for hanging out with me today and becoming brave. If this has helped you, be sure to share it with someone and subscribe so you never have to miss another episode. For more about me my books, my coaching or online courses, visit Dawndamon.com. And as always be brave and live your vision

Transcribed by https://otter.ai