Hey all. Are you ready to grow with me? I want to share some thoughts on how to RETRAIN YOUR BRAIN if you suffer from negative thoughts, feelings of inadequacy, or general unhappiness. I love learning about the brain, and I'm amazed at how malleable it is. Mental health is a daily process, and just like physical health, it takes awareness and diligence. I hope that sharing my journey to better mental health will help you find your way as well.
Step One: Positive Thinking
Your thoughts are everything. What you think will become. If you think life is miserable, it will be. If you think you are a failure, you will thwart your success. Notice I didn't say you will BE a failure, because no one ever is a failure. EVER. God didn't put you on earth to fail.
I've spent the last few years teaching myself to think positively. I got to the point where I'd lost faith in myself. Being in a state of hopelessness is a horrible, bleak place to be. If you are in this state, get help. Medication might be required to help you produce more serotonin, since no amount of positive thinking can pull you out of true depression. But you will also need to retrain your brain. Even if you don't suffer from depression (you lucky dog you!), you can still benefit from immersing yourself in positive thoughts.
Positive thinking enlarges your brain, lets you see new opportunities, and enables you to build the skills and resources that will help you succeed in life.
When something didn't go according to plan, my old self would say, "This is a failure. I failed. I'm a failure." This kind of negative thinking completely crippled me. I can now look at failures unsuccessful ventures as learning experiences. Instead of asking myself, What did I do wrong? or Why can't I do this as well as so and so? I ask: What did I learn? How has this helped me? Am I a better person now than I was before this trial? What can I do differently next time?
Rather than beating myself up and tearing myself down, I am growing and improving. You cannot move forward if you feel like a failure. Just like the stepping stones in the above picture, we have to trust ourselves enough to take that next step. We aren't going to have that personal trust if Negative Nancy lives in your head.
The following quote has been on my mind a lot. Sometimes I spend a lot of time working on a project only to have it not turn out like I wanted. But thankfully I'm old enough to be able to look back on these experiences and see that it wasn't just wasted time: I was learning skills to do something else, or maybe I was helping someone else learn, and they are able to use those skills to bless others. And if I have a day where I don't feel like I accomplished much, it helps to know all those little things I do add up and eventually become something worthwhile.
And finally, if your life isn't what you want it to be, or if you aren't WHO you want to be, don't give up. Take it one step at a time. Things always get better. Have hope. You aren't on this journey alone.<3
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