The last couple of blogs have helped you understand yourself and what drives you; to become aware of your deepest fears and to discover the patterns and habits that are dominating your life.
This blog will look at how you change those patterns.
As with any habit, it’s almost impossible to just delete it and expect a new and wonderful behavior to replace it instantly!
So I have come up with a formula for changing patterns!
It is: Recognize and replace repeatedly = rewire and reJOYce!
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In neuroscience, they suggest that for a brain to rewire to a new habit, we have to repeat the new pattern 70 times! That’s why the repeating the new pattern or behavior is critical.
When we learn how to do something the first time, a ‘scratch’ is put on the brain. Each time we repeat this thing, the scratch becomes deeper and deeper until it is a groove or trough, and the movement/activity/ behavior becomes automatic.
So your already entrenched patterns are in very deep grooves, they happen with no thought or consciousness. To break that pattern, we need the recognition and awareness and to catch ourselves just before the impulse fires down the groove!
Once you do that, you can CHOOSE to respond another way, a new way, you make a new ‘scratch’! Each time you respond the new way, the scratch becomes deeper and deeper until it becomes deep enough to be the default pattern.
Celebrating and rejoicing when you have made the changes is critical for the brain to cement the changes.
OK...the next step
Imagine what you life would be like if you recognized the real fears that are holding you back, in every area of your life. Defensiveness, anger, jealousy, needing to be right, lack of confidence, needing to control things, unhealthy relationships, fights, stress, anxiety, office paranoia and countless other behaviors would vaporize!
Fear of abandonment, not being lovable, looking stupid, being judged by others, not getting approval, separation or not having a sense of belonging to a family, group or higher power, fear of uncertainty and not being able to control everything, of other people’s moods and fear for our safety, the list could be very long!
The fears underlie and cause most of our negative behaviors.
Select three….
Look at the 3 behavior patterns you would like to stop.
Write them down. Now ask yourself the question “what am I frightened of in this situation? REALLY frightened of?”
Write down the fears you identify (Not worth loving? Not good enough? Unsafe?).
Then ask yourself “When did it start? Is it still relevant? Does this fear play any useful purpose in my life now? Is it helping me achieve what I want in life?’’
Then dwell on your answers. Most of the time, you will be stunned at how deep the fears are and how they are all from your early years in life, usually 0-5!
And you can then become your own ‘perfect’ parent and deal with the issues that may not have been resolved when you were little! Give your inner toddler the adult perspective and truth of what was REALLY happening at the time you established your beliefs and fears.
Now it’s a choice, once you know about fear, you can choose to walk with the fears and let them rule your life, or you can consciously choose the way of joy!
Find the fears that are ruling your life and challenge them. Replace them with understanding and joy instead!
What did you discover about yourself with this exercise or from reflecting on this!!
we need to add to the end of this mel where they can find my other blogs somehow - can you fix that bit? ty!
