Change your mindset, change your life

People regularly seek therapy to get rid of, stop, or eliminate something in their lives: intrusive thoughts, challenging emotions, and habits/behaviors. Just stop the pain. I get it. When we perceive something is getting in our way from wholehearted living, we want it gone. But if we set out to fight what is there, to banish it, we risk activating the same brain circuitry that causes the dis-ease in the first place. Instead, let me show you the approach I call change your mindset, change your life.

Consider this recent example: a client came to counseling with the goal, “I want to get rid of anxiety.” Throughout our first session he kept making comments such as, “I need to learn how to fight the anxiety,,” and “I hate feeling anxious. I want it to stop for good.” Essentially, he identified anxiety as the root of all his problems. No wonder he wanted to banish anxiety from his life.

Yet this mindset of eliminating, stopping, and fighting anxiety, or whatever challenge arises, kept him stuck. Why? Because anxiety serves an important role in a human being’s life. It serves to warn us of pending danger. And, entering into “combat mode” against anxiety activated the same brain regions that housed the anxiety.

Anxiety, or any strong emotion, results from a shared signal between the brain and body that reaches our minds seeking our skillful attention. If we try to shut down the brain’s system for alerting us to imbalance by dismissing, denying, or distracting ourselves from strong emotions, we risk cutting ourselves off from receiving the important information carried within our emotional landscape. Instead, we want to give that system a tune up, so it isn’t overly reactive while also learning how to respond to the information it gives us from a more evolved part of the nervous system.

Pause here and reflect upon what this means to you.

Instead of reacting, I show clients how to use attuned awareness. Attunement allows them to recognize and relate to the signals from within us, around us, and between us. Not shut them down or avoid them. By activating the brain’s social engagement system, we remain open and receptive to what arises from a place of non-judgment, loving-kindness, and compassion for self and others. A non-combative stance. I teach clients this practice of attending and befriending to help them respond, not react, to life’s challenges.

I know, this sounds counter intuitive. Stay with me.

Emotions, recurring thoughts, and bodily sensations serve as signals that something is either going well, or that something is missing or wrong. Instead of attempting to shut down those signals, I teach clients how to R.S.V.P to the invitations from the body/mind/brain continuum with the attuned engagement of attending and befriending.

How does one attend and befriend when challenges arise? Start by cultivating what Daniel Siegel calls a C.O.A.L state of mind: curious, open, accepting and loving. Not combative.

You apply this C.O.A.L mindset toward yourself first: your thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations, images, and behaviors. They arise to teach you something; not to harm you. It starts with this shift in understanding: moving from shutting down to attending and befriending. Please be clear: this does NOT mean you put a “positive spin” on everything. Not at all. Instead, it means you attend to what “is,” see it all, feel it all. Don’t just focus on the positive. And befriending means you access this C.O.A.L mindset. Even for the hard things!

The goal is to be in-relationship with whatever arises by learning how to identify, understand, express, and eventually manage intrusive or repetitive thoughts, strong emotions, uncomfortable bodily sensations, intense images, and challenging or unhealthy behaviors.

For the client I mentioned with anxiety, instead of perseverating on a partner’s words,  a coworker’s actions, a friend’s inattentiveness, the external triggers, I helped him notice these triggers, then turn inward with openness and receptivity to explore his state of mind and brain. To attend with intrapersonal attunement:

I showed him how to befriend the answers he received to these and other reflective questions by offering himself non-judgment, loving-kindness, and compassion starting with: “No wonder I feel this way.”

A C.O.A.L mindset is linked to a responsive setting in the brain. It helps us remain in the ventral vagal, or social engagement, system of the brain. Without this, we risk activating the reactive settings of the sympathetic (fight/flight) or dorsal vagal parasympathetic (freeze, faint) nervous system. From this responsive place, you can then use your mind to choose the tools to help you manage, not combat/eliminate/stop/get rid of, your thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations, images, and behaviors.

Over time, this C.O.A.L state of mind leads to traits of being a curious, open, accepting, and loving person with a brain wired to respond to challenges from a place of balance rather than reactivity.

Attend and befriend to cultivate lasting change.

Please visit my You Tube Channel for videos on this important topic or visit my Resources page.