Click here to return to Blog Post Intro
How the Brain Functions
Your instinctive brain is a computer.
Your personality is the software to your computer. Your personality is not who you are; your decisions determine who you are.
Your experiences are the data that your software uses.
You—your heart and spirit—are separate from these three.
Using your conscious mind, you are designed to manage and override much of what your instinctive brain feeds you.
Managing thoughts changes emotions. You can free yourself by taking charge of your perspective.
A Five-Step Journey to Renew Your Mind
- Discover how your brain works
- Learn how your personality is hardwired
- Understand how your experiences feed and trigger your instinctive brain. Find out where your thoughts and emotions (including emotional wounds) come from. Learn how to optimize your thinking.
- Gain insights and direction from personal coaching. Coaching helps you navigate to success quickly, using customized shortcuts to achieve maximum results with minimal effort.
- Enjoy the full YOU! Your spirit is calling to connect with you, but your instinctive brain is in the way.
Understanding the Structure of Your Mind: This is where your crazy starts!
Meet the Ostrich and the Rhino
The Ostrich (Instinctive Brain): “Reactive” (Crazy Self)
The Rhino (Conscious Mind): “Intentional” (Healthy You)
Your conscious mind is supposed to override your instinctive brain. That’s how the brain is wired.
The Physical Structure of Your Brain: A Blueprint
Logic & Reason: Neocortex (80%) makes decisions
Reactions: Limbic System (5%) which is the Detector; and Brain Stem (15%) determines Fight or Flight
All information must pass through the limbic system’s detector to be scanned for potential danger.
The Instinctive Brain Begins with the Limbic System
Input from the 5 senses comes through the limbic system to be received and scanned for perceived threats. The limbic system works like a computer security system. It scans incoming data looking for danger and sends Alerts!
The limbic system is not trying to drive you crazy. It’s just trying to protect you from danger. It is your instinctive, protective brain at work.
The limbic system also serves as your database. It records every experience and emotion in your life. The limbic system creates and thrives on insecurities (unresolved emotional wounds or unmet expectations). These insecurities become key to your Alert! protection system.
Your instinctive brain cannot help you move forward. It can only help you survive. The conscious mind is what helps you move forward.
The Limbic System Triggers the Brain Stem: Your Reactions
When the limbic system perceives danger, it triggers the brain stem to initiate a fight, flight, or freeze reaction.
- Fight behaviors include arguing, disobeying, acting out (making mischief), or physical actions such as slamming doors, hitting, or yelling.
- Flight behaviors include withdrawal, avoidance, silence, feeling subdued, passive-aggressive actions, depression, or feeling victimized or defeated.
- Freeze behavior is a numbed sensation, when you feel you can’t think or move. You are stunned; you don’t fight, and you don’t withdraw. You just freeze in disbelief or an inability to take any action.
Learn to identify your default to: fight, flight, or freeze. Once you recognize your go-to reaction, you can choose a healthier response.
The Neocortex: Your Conscious Mind
Your conscious mind is where you make choices and where you can thrive. You become the decisions you make. This is you!
A new and better you continues to evolve as you learn. It’s happening all day, every day.
You are the only one with the control and authority to manage your thoughts. To function with healthy thoughts and emotions, you have to override the instinctive brain.
Understanding the Problem with Your Mind: Reacting isn’t your only option.
So, What’s the Problem?
Memories play unconsciously all day, every day, in your brain as if they are still happening right now, until you resolve them.
The problems in the instinctive brain are waiting to be resolved by the conscious mind.
The Jukebox: Wound Tunes
Your unmet emotions are stored in your memory and play like a song in a jukebox.
Childhood would tunes play continually in the instinctive brain.
The Instinctive Brain: Your Threat Detector
A metal detector doesn’t know the difference between a gun and a belt buckle; neither does your brain. Thus, your conscious mind must constantly override your brain’s false Alerts!
Insecurities and Self-Esteem
Insecurities are formed and stored from old perceptions. While you consciously pursue successes, your instinctive mind Alerts! you of your insecurities.
You either react or override the Alert! The more calmly you learn to think, the less you react.
Fears feel real even when you know there is no actual danger.
Learning to reframe your fears will take practice, but your fears will become less intense and less frequent over time.
Your brain is wired to create the problem from the instinctive and conscious brains maturing at different times, but it is also wired for you to resolve the issue using your conscious mind. This is what self-development is. You learn about yourself and accept accountability to choose healthy perceptions and make good decisions.
Independence
Eventually, you move away from parental authority to be on your own. But you don’t realize that you bring your baggage (old wounds) with you.
Understanding Solutions for Your Mind: Redirect your emotions and connect with your conscious mind.
The Solution
Not reacting to internal emotions is the first step. Then, make a simple, corrective, and purposeful change. Redirecting the way you perceive a situation that triggers an emotional reaction is vital to healthy thinking. When you change your thoughts, you change your emotions.
Instead of reacting, find a positive thought or action—even a single word or action can make a big difference. For instance, when you meet someone, smile. When you smile, you will have a different disposition and cause different brain chemicals to flow.
It’s Like Riding a Bicycle
Once you learned to ride a bicycle, what happened to the fear? Where did your fear go? The fear was replaced with new confidence.
Every time you recall a memory, your brain seeks the corresponding emotion—the feeling associated with the memory. Here’s the important thing to recognize: once you learn something new, you can change your perception of the memory and put it back into storage (memory) with a different viewpoint.
How Healing Happens in Your Brain
The brain is designed to allow any emotion to heal by recording a new perception from new knowledge or experience to create a new emotion. This emotional perception change happens in the amygdala. The amygdala stores emotions associated with an event, and the hippocampus stores the memory of the event.
Unhealthy Versus Healthy Loops
There are unhealthy loops of thought, and there are healthy loops of thought. Healthy loops bypass the brain stem. Avoid brain stem thinking. Redirect quickly to rhino thoughts in your conscious mind.
Three Steps for Making a Change
- Think it until you do it. (Focus on the change you want to make until it becomes natural.)
- Keep doing it until it becomes automatic.
- When it becomes a habit, others will compliment your achievement.
When you want to make a change, the best possible approach is to recognize the root insecurity holding you back and find a way to change your perception at that source.
Don’t just keep treating the symptoms. Treat the source and your brain will apply the new perceptions to the other memories.
Managing the Cycle of Emotions
Emotions constantly trigger thoughts, which trigger actions, which trigger emotions, until you stop the cycle.
Healing the Mind: Healing happens when new knowledge or insight changes your perspective.
The ostrich sees the picture as something scary. The rhino says let’s look at it a different way!
Understanding the Mind in Your Relationships: Your crazy comes out in interactions with others!
Four Key Relationships
Old emotions surface in your new relationships.
There are four critical relationship areas where past emotions stored in your instinctive brain manifest in your behavior and communication. These relationships are with yourself, your mate, your children, and your coworkers.
- Yourself
Your first relationship is with yourself. Talk to yourself in a healthy way.
Talk to yourself (your instinctive brain): Say, “You can relax! I got this. I’ve decided to change that perceived NEED to a WANT. So, I’m okay now.”
It only takes a few seconds to pause, recognize your tendencies, and redirect to something productive.
- Your Mate
Correct your self-created image of your mate. You create an expectation of what you think you want your mate to be.
Harville Hendrix calls the unconscious image of your ideal mate your “imago.” Essentially, your imago is the unrealistic list of expectations you want for your mate to meet.
One day the reality hits that your mate isn’t ever going to meet your imago list.
It is best to love the one you are with and get rid of your list of expectations. Otherwise, you get rid of your mate and take your unrealistic list into the next relationship.
Couples love each other in their conscious mind. But their instinctive brains don’t date!
Say positive words and take positive actions when you least feel like it. This approach will redirect your emotions from your instinctive brain to your conscious mind.
Each partner needs to “fix” themselves first, which means understanding where their emotional perceptions and wounds originated in order to make healthy adjustments in expectations and behaviors. It is a slower process, but the rewards last a lifetime when you get it right.
- Your Children
Your parenting style is shaped by emotions from you lost self (what you wanted as a child but didn’t get) and what you think it means to be a good parent. These factors combine to determine how you relate to and discipline your child. Some parents become very strict, while others become overly permissive.
Be sure to recognize your child’s individuality as a gift. Don’t try to make them into someone they are not because that is who you want them to be.
- Your Coworkers
There are three perceptions that your instinctive brain will tend to apply in your work environment (unless you have corrected them):
- You view your boss as a parental authority.
- You view yourself as a parental authority over employees who report to you.
- You view peers and customers as friends, unless they are in competition with you, because there is no authority in those relationships. Authority dynamics tend to trigger brain stem perceptions.
“You’re doing a great job! Tell me how you do it?” (Remember, you are always talking to the other person’s ostrich.)
Be sure to keep recognition and appreciation of an employee as a person separate from appreciation of their work performance.
In his book The Five Love Languages, Gary Chapman explains that people have different preferences for how they receive love. Some experience love most deeply when they receive words of affirmation; others need touch, acts of service, gifts, or quality time the most. We tend to show love the way we want it rather than the way others want it. Learn to share appreciation in the way others want to receive it.
Four Coaching Situations for Coworkers
1. Does the person understand their role or position?
Think about being a good boss first, and being personable second. When you embody your role properly, your staff can understand and fulfill their role.
2. Does the person understand how to communicate with different personality types?
3. Does the person have the skills needed for the job?
Very good employees are often promoted into management because they are wonderful performers. However, many of them haven’t had the opportunity to develop the skills needed to manage and lead others.
4. Does the person bring an emotional wound, disorder, or dysfunction to the job with them?
Sometimes the problem is that someone cannot leave their personal issues at the door when they come to work.
Managing Emotions from Your Mind in Daily Life: Simple tips to manage your crazy into success!
How you react to your emotions during the day: Reacting leads to frantic chaos and disorganization.
How to manage your emotions during the day: Intentional thoughts give order to your life and emotions.
Twelve Take Charge Rhino Tips to Help Manage and Change Your Emotions
1. Name your crazy self.
Take a moment to name your crazy self, that is your undesirable emotions and behaviors. When you name something, you claim authority over it. Choose a name that will make you smile every time you use it.
Now, you can choose to take a healthy action.
Your crazy self isn’t the real you. Your crazy self is the emotions from your instinctive brain’s computer that generates issues from past wounds and unresolved expectations. Name your crazy emotions, redirect your thoughts, laugh, and give yourself permission to think healthy thoughts instead.
2. Limit yourself to one gripe (angry thought, worry, or anxiety) per day.
Only allow one gripe, worry, or stressful experience per day. You only get one gripe, so make it a good one.
3. Schedule acting on emotional stress for tomorrow.
Acknowledge your one gripe or stress point today, but act on it tomorrow.
4. Limit how much time you spend on any problem.
Schedule a limited amount of time each day when you will deal with big tasks or problems you don’t enjoy.
Another helpful strategy is to manage your emotional energy. Do so by exerting your energy in steps similar to those needed for a court trial. First, there is a pretrial hearing, then discovery, possibly mediation, and then the trial itself. Afterwards, a verdict is reached.
5. Identify the best and worst energy times of your day.
Identify when you feel your best each day, when you naturally have your best energy.
Spend some of the time when you feel freshest, whether one minute, 15 minutes, or a half-hour for you—not your kids, spouse, boss, or anyone else. Do some little thing that makes you feel like you’ve really lived today!
Make it a priority to use your best energy for your own betterment instead of giving that time to others (spouse, kids, boss, or anyone else). This isn’t selfish; others will benefit from you being the best version of you.
Minimize your exertion at your low energy time of day and instead feed yourself energy.
6. Wind down your brain before going to sleep.
Your brain is thought to work harder when you sleep than during the day. During the day, you gather information. At night, you transfer the information from temporary storage to permanent storage. If you go to bed worrying you hinder your ability to go into the cycles that give you deep rest and a smooth transfer of mental data.
Allow your mind to wind down. Nighttime is for you to rest and be worry-free.
7. Practice having a calm, assertive mindset.
Cesar Milan, also known as the “dog whisperer,” has a calm, assertive technique with dogs that can benefit us humans as well. He teaches dog owners how to change the dog’s state from anxious, stressed, and fearful to calm and submissive. And he shows them how to do it without words!
Trust comes from being with a calm, assertive leader.
Cesar means to make sure you are calm before you assert yourself. You will not get desired results if you are assertive before you are calm, because you will trigger the other person’s fight, flight, or freeze response.
8. Be aware of your body language; it speaks before you do.
Use your body language to sell the message you want to communicate before you start talking.
When you are stressed, keep an open posture with your limbs, don’t clench your fists, stand up straight, breathe slowly through your nose (not your mouth), and if you can, step outside for a moment.
9. Change one thing in your day.
Just focus on one change you will implement at a specific time every day or even better, several times a day. Once you see the difference you can add another.
Achieving a goal is great, but not addressing problems will eventually catch up with you, and is essentially self-sabotage. Doing both in one step addresses both the instinctive brain and the conscious mind together.
10. Do one great thing each day!
11. Realize you are always talking to the other person’s instinctive brain.
Learn to choose your words and actions to lead them to think with their conscious mind and avoid triggering their instinctive brain to react unnecessarily.
Look in the mirror and, in the words of Billy Crystal, tell yourself, “You look marvelous!”
Don’t let the ostrich control you! Be a rhino and take charge by accepting compliments and giving them to others often.
12. Ask yourself, “Who said?”
When you feel stress, anxiety, anger, sadness, or any other powerful negative emotion ask yourself, “Who told me to feel this way? Who said?”
Three stages you experience while making changes in your behaviors:
- Think of it, until you do it.
- Do it until it becomes a habit.
- Listen. At some point, others will notice and give you feedback acknowledging the change they see in you. This is when you know you are mastering the change.
Summary
Put the sequence all together. Picture converting negative thoughts to positive thoughts.
Turn down the volume of negativity. So often you get tired of the noise in your head. Limit the false Alerts! from your instinctive brain because they drain you.
Resonate with People
You resonate with people when you communicate in their style.
When you change, others will change too. When others do not improve their behavior, stay calm and strong. Find a way to help them move to their conscious mind.
Recognize Your Spirit
Calm your instinctive brain to experience your spirit. Thoughts from your spirit tend to feel like an intuition, a gut check, a conviction, or a knowing or understanding that you trust, even if you cannot put it into words. These thoughts can also generate emotions.
Putting It All Together
The instinctive brain, conscious mind, and spirit can work in harmony.
- The ostrich represents the instinctive brain.
- The rhino represents the conscious mind.
- The spirit rhino represents the human spirit.
What is Your Next Step?
Keep learning about you.
Most people require interaction with a skilled coach to make sense of the patterns in their lives and pinpoint the next steps to create the life they have always desired. Coaching helps you use all the insights you’ve gathered throughout this process efficiently and effectively.
May these tips serve you well in “managing your crazy self,” as you shoot for the stars!