Rewire Your Brain to Thrive with Alli Rizacos

My brain's gonna be like, go check the messages immediately. Like, it doesn't want to pause anymore because it has something that's gonna give them dopamine, which it really likes, right? All right.

The thought was there, and you just let it go, whatever, right? But you had to write it down.

You're like, jesus. I say this to myself, whoa, yeah.

Those are just the ones that I capture.

Like, exactly.

So, okay, so we've gone from, you know, okay, surviving versus thriving. We've talked. We kind of get to this place. We've talked about, you know, the judgments now around it. So then what are some of, like, called the small actions that we could be doing daily to keep us there, right? Because we all have ups and downs, right?

It's.

We're going to have bad days. It's got. We're going to have judgments, right? But like, how. What are the things that we can do to try to actually make it real? Because I'm sure some people could listen, like, wait, so is this just affirmations all day? Yeah, I am. I am perfect. I am beautiful. I am. Right? And they're like, no. Like, but I'm not. Like, but I'm not right now. So how do I have that conversation around it?

Yeah. Well, and one thing I just wanted to add to thank you for, you know, sharing what you do with your coach and the fact that it's exactly the same, which is. Which is amazing. You have a great coach, and, you know, it's exactly what I do with my clients as well. Because it is. It's what works, right? It's actually the way to. To heal the problem is, you know, some people are going to hear that and be like, that's so freaking tedious, right? Like, seriously, like, that's how. Right. I can't just, like, make more money and buy more Stu stuff. Like, that seems so much easier. But the problem is, is that is exactly how. How it works and how you will, you know, change your operating system. But we are all addicted to productivity and being busy, right? And being busy and distracting ourselves is exactly that. We're distracting ourselves from the truth of who we are, which is all of these judgments and all of this, you know, negative operating system happening. And we feel it come up, right? We feel a judgment come up, and we feel shitty about it, which creates discomfort in our body. And then instead of doing exactly what you just said, right, you know, like pausing to say, forgive myself and rewriting it, we distract ourselves. So we go on Instagram, right, to get a dopamine hit or we go get a snack, right? To get another, you know, endorphins and dopamine and whatever. Or we go back to work or write an email, whatever. We distract ourselves from the unexpected, comfortable feeling. Right? But the feeling is there. So to your point of, you know, what do we do? Well, start to notice all the distracting that you're doing, right? So so many of my clients, this is like a big topic right now with my clients, like, they got like four screens happening, their cell phones right here, right? Notifications on the whole thing. They got the personal email open. They got the slack, they got the. And I'm like, how many notifications are you get? Like, how plugged in do you need to be? Like, this is insane. So they're creating an environment in which they will stay distracted. Like, that is how much we will run away from doing this work, right? Yeah, we will run away from our actual feelings and the rewriting of our thoughts because it feels. Well, we've never done it, so it feels scary. We think that we're not going to be good at it, and we don't even know how to do it right. So first and foremost is start to take away the distractions, right? Give your. You know, like, create an environment in which you can actually pause. Right? But if I'm pausing and then I get a slack message and a WhatsApp message at the same time, my brain's gonna be like, go check the messages immediately. Like, it doesn't wanna pause anymore because it has something that's gonna give them dopamine, which it really likes, right? So create an environment in which you can thrive, in which you can pause. You know, take an assessment of your judgments coming up and, you know, take the time to rewrite them, right? So distractions is your biggest enemy. And creating an environment in which you have less. So, you know, I've taken social media off my phone completely. I don't have any notifications on my phone other than if it's text and WhatsApp, meaning it's like, people I dearly love, right? Like, if you. People that want to contact me that I dearly love. Perfect. Other people, no offense, I will get to you when I decide I'm ready to bring you into my life, Right?

Yes.

And. And so I don't like. So when I do have judgments, which I still have, obviously, so do you. We've always will. I can notice. I have such clear mind to just notice them, because I'm not. I don't have all these distractions around Me. So I, I was telling, I was telling you before we kind of started to, started to record here. So I, I've always been a work addict, but I only now realize that I am a work addict, right? Like I finally, I'm in acceptance, right? Before I was in denial, and now I'm in acceptance. And once you are aware and you have to go into acceptance, well, now you have to deal with it, right? Which is the hardest part. So this summer I kind of spent some time, you know, dealing with and sitting with my work addiction, right? And I would go for a walk and I'd be walking to the gym and I would have no podcast on, you know, nothing. Just me and my own thoughts again. Take away the distractions and I would just notice the thoughts happening in my head and it was insane, dude. It was like, what are you doing? What are you doing? This is a waste of time. Turn around, turn around, turn around. Why are you doing this? No, no, no, Stop, stop. Why are you walking? Why are you walking? Turn around. There's work to do. There's work to do at home. What do you do? Like the whole time, right? Yes. And I was just like, I kept walking straight. I was just like, this is fascinating. This is fascinating. Wow, right? So again, instead of judging myself for having that thought, I get wildly curious, right? And I say, fascinating. Look at these thoughts happening. Wow, this is really interesting. I wonder, I wonder, has this been going on for a long time? Where did I get this from? Right? Just start getting curious about these automatic thoughts that you have, right? And then say, okay, well, you know, go through the evidence. Is this actually true? Do I need to go back to work? Do I have work to do? Right? So you go through the evidence of it and then you say, okay, so I guess this isn't true. So if it's not true, then what is the new declaration that I want to make, right? That's the new thing that I want to start telling myself when this crazy thing starts to come up, right? And it's, it's like self, self regulating, like you said. It's like self soothing. It's like, okay, that's crazy thing about working came up. What am I now going to tell myself? I'm going to go to the gym because I want to go to the gym. And that is what I choose to do right now. You know, I'm making this conscious choice, right? So, so one distraction so that you can actually start to listen to your thoughts and then two is get curious about them instead of immediately judging Them three, like I said before, is you can also start writing them down so you can become wildly aware of them because you'll also start to see the them in them as well. Right. There's definitely a theme running through most of them.

So mine, I hated that exercise.

Yeah.

Yeah. I hated writing them down because. And I did. I talked about this. My coach, she's like, I feel like that's when it made it real. Whereas, like, you know, all right, the thought was there and you just. I just let it go, like, ah, whatever.

Right.

But you had to write it down.

Like, Jesus. Like, I say this to myself, whoa.

Yeah, those are just the ones that I capture.

Like. Yeah, exactly. And here's the thing. That's why I tell my clients all the time, because we all judge ourselves. So do my clients. Imagine. So now you write them down and you see all these judgments. You're like, oh, this is terrible. Right? Like, I can't believe I'm saying this to myself. So just. And, you know, we all know that the things we say to ourselves, we would never actually say to anyone else. Like, we would never treat other people that way, but yet we somehow think it's a really good way to treat ourselves and that we're. We'll somehow thrive by treating ourselves that way. Right? So it's like, right there is the moment where you're like, you need to upgrade the operating system. Because if. If I said to anyone else, the thoughts that I tell myself, that person would not be a thriving person. That person would be very depressed and they would be very sad and they would not be okay, right? But here we are thinking, oh, I could just shit on myself all day and thrive and do really well at work and, you know, have great. Have a great relationship and be a great parent when I'm shitting on myself all day inside, and it's like, no, you're going to be really exhaustive, actually.