Joanne Smith argues that tying your well-being to future events like promotions or solved problems trains your brain to believe relief is impossible now. She urges you to tell yourself you can be okay even when life is messy, breaking the cycle of waiting for perfect conditions that may never arrive.
Or when I've got that next promotion, or when I retire, or when this gets sorted, or that gets sorted. But again, that's actually unintentionally creating a dangerous message to yourself that can be interpreted by the amazing processor, the brain, itself that I can't be okay until this happens or that, and it literally does respond to all of our thoughts, everything that we believe and think. The brain goes, got ya, got ya, we can make that happen. So if we're living and believing that until I achieve X or Y or Z, I'm not going to be able to have any respite or relief, then unintentionally we might have ordered that. But if we start giving a better message of, actually, I know things are not perfect, but I can still be okay when chaos is happening all around me,
