Train Yourself to Override Negative Thoughts with One Brain Exercise
There is a section of psychology that focuses on rewards. Most of us are familiar with the process that a psychologist used to train dogs. Pavlov used a treat to reward a dog for accomplishing a task. In the process of giving the dog the treat, he would add some audible command. Eventually the dog would mentally transfer the reward with the command. The end result is the dog responded to the command without the reward. The poor dog would get to the point of drooling at the command yet never get the treat.
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We do the same thing. We quickly mentally associate something with some physical event. As an example, when you throw up after eating some food, next time you see that food, you mentally revert back to the bad experience and refuse the food. It may have been your favorite and the event had nothing to do with the food but you turn it down.
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Here’s the big deal. You can choose to eat the food anyway and continue to enjoy that tasty morsel. After a while, your brain will stop reminding you of the bad deal. You can choose to overwrite a distasteful event with something pleasurable. Or you can yield to what your brain is telling you and miss out on the benefits and mentally reinforce that wrong association.
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Action time.
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You can use this deal to your benefit. Think of one of the most positive experiences you had. For me it is skydiving. Now, associate that with something important to you, some value you want to remember. Work hard to mentally associate these two things together. Next, take this association and connect it to some small physical action. An easy one is to pinch the skin between your thumb and index finger. Mentally keep working these three associations together. Some call this process setting an anchor or cue.
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After you have set this cue, think of something all together different; say the last two numbers of your phone number. Now, quickly do the cue. See if the mental image doesn’t come back and override the distraction. This is a great process.
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Why bother? Well, next time you get into a stressful situation, use the cue to override the stress to get back to where you mentally want to be. Check it out! I would look forward to hearing your cue and how you use it. I would enjoy working with you to use cueing and other mental exercises to help you accelerate you being all you have been created to be.
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