Retrain Your Brain - Your 3-Step Challenge

Hello friends, and welcome to Grief Guts and Green Smoothies. I am your host, Melissa Dugalecki and I am so excited to be here with you all to chat about ways in which we can all get through different adversities, challenges and loss and how getting outside of our comfort zone and maybe having a green smoothie or two can help us do so. We will cover different topics ranging from interviews to recipes to sharing my own stories of my grief journey and the loss of my daughter Layden. Honored to be able to share her light in hopes of helping you spread yours. Now let's dive in. One of my very favorite things to do with people that I work with in both one on one and group coaching is to help them retrain their mind. Truly. Just like you retrain your body to work differently physically, right? To strengthen, to reshape, you can do the same with your mind. And, and just like your body, it's not a one and done, right? You don't go to the gym once and get results. And if you go to the gym consistently, but then you stop doing that. And I actually don't even go to the gym. I work out from home. So I'm saying go to the gym very loosely, right? Just if you follow an exercise routine or plan consistently, we'll say, and then back away from that. Your body's going to change, right? You're going to lose your physical fitness. Well, the same happens with our emotional fitness. When we stop training our mind and working our mindset, we lose our emotional fitness. Most of the work that I do revolves around helping people learn to align their energy to be clear and to really understand how to train their mind, right? It's like I'm a personal trainer for emotional fitness and there are three things that are super effective when we are looking to retrain our mind. And I am so excited to share them with you today. So now begin thinking before we get into how to retrain our mind. What are some of the patterns that we want to fix? What are some of our defaults? And this is where a lot of people struggle because it is kind of like holding up the mirror, right? It is holding up the mirror to things that maybe we are not super proud of. That's where we put ego aside, we put comparison aside, we put competitive aside, we put all those low vibes aside. And we lead with compassion. And we love ourselves and we recognize that even these things we don't love, even these things that aren't super productive, we can love about ourselves because they've gotten us to exactly where we are. But maybe they don't serve us well anymore and we're going to release them. So before we even start retraining our mind, we got to look at things that we're ready to let go of. We're ready to release. This could be making assumptions. This could be talking negatively internally or externally. This could be putting too much pressure on ourselves or on other people. This could be avoidance, denial. There are so many different formats it can take, right? Then these things essentially are going to harm our emotional fitness. But the good news is there's really no crazy secret to changing it. It just takes awareness, action that's in alignment, and then consistency, right? Keeping up with it, knowing we don't do emotional fitness once, we don't set an intention once, and we're good to go, right? We don't do a manifestation one time, and then we're good to go. This is why the most important thing I believe in the work that I do when I coach people is their daily mind work, their daily manifestation. And in the group setting, we have this great template that we use, and it goes through the different phases of our program. When I work with people individually, I actually individualize what I want them to do for mindset work. And it shifts week to week or maybe month to month, depending on what's going on. And it really focuses on echoing what they need to align with at any given time. So when we align our energy, and note, our energy is always aligned somewhere, right? Your energy, energy can't be created or destroyed, so it is always attached to or aligned to something. Now, when it's aligned with places that are consistent with our goals, our needs, our manifestation, what we're trying to achieve, well, now we're really powerful right now. We're super intentional. So before you jump into training your mind, before you go jump into the gym or whatever it might be, we gotta bring awareness to what we want to shift, what we're willing to let go, and how we want to align our energy. Once we've done that, these are three strategies that can absolutely rewire your brain and change your entire life. And the first are affirmations. Now, I get asked all the time, what's the difference between an affirmation, an intention, a manifestation, a mantra, and a goal? They're all super different. So a goal is action oriented. A manifestation is energy oriented. So I work specifically within manifesting. Now, I set goals under a manifestation, but that manifestation is standing your energy or standing with your energy, inviting in exactly what you desire, aligning Your energy in a way that allows it to flow exactly what you want, exactly what you're seeking to achieve. Intention is when you bring mindfulness, when you bring awareness and hopefully, alignment. And you set an intention for what you intend to do, right? A direction in which you want to go. An affirmation is different in the sense that it reinforces, it strengthens certain energies. And so affirmations are really different for everybody, depending on what they're working on. But if an individual is struggling with their sense of self worth, I would encourage them to look themselves in the eye, in the mirror, in their phone, right? Reverse that camera. It's all possible. And to look themselves in the eye and say, I am worthy, I am worthy. I am worthy. I am worthy. And have them say it over and over and over again, at least 10 times, maybe as much as 20 or 30. It can be really emotional when you begin doing this. I know for me, when I first started doing affirmations, it was on my grief journey. And I would tell myself that I am capable of living, I am capable of loving, I'm capable of being happy, unlike a manifestation which speaks in the present. And affirmation is affirming or reinforcing something. And I needed to reinforce and affirm that those things were possible because they felt so desperately impossible for me. I desperately longed to know that I could live, that I could love, and that I could smile again because those things were not happening. And if they were, they were not feeling sincere or I felt tremendously guilty. So when we create our affirmations, we really want to look. Where are those aching, hurting parts of us? For some, it's, I am strong, I am beautiful, I'm intelligent, I am worthy of love, I am important, my voice matters, I belong. I make lives better, I make impact. So I encourage you as you are retraining your brain to think about, what are those achy spots in you emotionally? What are those spots that maybe you seek validation from other people or you are seeking for other people to affirm it for you? And this is where retraining your mind is so powerful, because we become a lot less needy. And when we're not needy, we can meet our own needs. And then we have a heck of a lot more to give to others, right? So instead of turning to somebody else and seeking a compliment for them to tell you that you're, you know, beautiful or that you're strong, or that you're fit, or that you just did an excellent job on a presentation or at a meeting affirming it for yourself. And I'm telling you, I challenge everybody listening to this to try affirmations every day for one week. Look yourself in the eye in a mirror and just see how it changes your energy. See how uncomfortable it is. I guarantee you, if we're super effective in doing so, you're going to begin to cry. But that's okay because you're releasing, you're releasing these beliefs that you hold within that go against that affirmation. So I'll use myself as an example. When I was talking to myself saying I am capable of living, I was going against a belief I had created in myself that I didn't know if I was capable of living. When I said to myself, I am capable of loving, my heart was broken, right? I was reaffirming, I was affirming in myself. I was going against a belief that I felt so deeply that I didn't know if I would ever be able to love again. And I actually get emotional just talking about it. I didn't know if I'd ever be able to love again because I didn't think I could risk being hurt again. I had no more hurt left in me. Using affirmations, it sounds so simple. Yet we'll often find a thousand ways to avoid it, which is indicative of just how powerful it is. So that is step one for retraining your mind. Now remember, before we even take these steps, we gotta look in the mirror, we gotta get clear, we gotta align our energy and we gotta let go of things that we don't need. Step two, we bring in gratitude. Now, energy grows where energy goes. I'd say that again. Energy grows where energy goes again. This is why the daily mindset work is so important in changing your life. It's so interesting to me how many times I see people look for really fancy things or getaways or escapes or massive life changes or doing these crazy ridiculous things to try to change their life or to try to change the energy that they feel. But all they got to do is become more aligned and where their energy goes. And trust, that's where energy is going to grow. So if we're constantly looking at things that we don't like about ourselves or about the world or about our workplace, we're going to constantly see those things. It's in part of the Career Clarity ebook that I created where I talk about, while you're in your current job, until you have another one, you got to change your mindset. If you just look around all day at the things you don't like that's all you're going to see. And the bottom line is like, yeah, maybe those things suck, but there are definitely opportunities every single day for you in your workplace. In that job, you might hate to find growth, maybe to connect with a new human, maybe to learn patience, maybe to learn perseverance, maybe to know that that day is going to make you appreciate your future job that much more. Because that day was pretty darn horrible. But from it being horrible, you're going to have more appreciation in the future. So there's always opportunity. So step two is gratitude. There's always something to be grateful for. Again. This is something that I learned and practiced after losing Leiden because understandably, I wasn't very grateful. I felt as though I had been personally screwed over, right by the universe, for lack of a better term, or by the hospital. Leiden's case was termed a catastrophe. They told us she had a 97% chance of living and that was erring on the side of caution. Things went south and all the wheels fell off and I just watched her die for a month. The gratitude wasn't exactly in my wheelhouse or my vocabulary. And I share that with you because I want you to know if you don't feel grateful right now, it's okay. But that can change. And if you choose to, it will change. I'll be honest. I find myself every single day walking around, going for a run, driving, whatever it might be, even doing work. Luckily, I love my work. But doing work and just thinking, I am so grateful. This city is so beautiful. I stop on my run almost every day because something just makes me lose my breath or watching other humans and I think, wow, I wonder what their life is like. I am so grateful for all that I have. I'm grateful for this experience, to coach this individual in their journey. I love doing that. I'm grateful to be able to share lessons from Layden on this podcast. I'm grateful that my body is able to digest food. Obviously that's more on my mind as a gut health coach and educator. But you know, there are so many things to be grateful for. I'm grateful I can feel oftentimes when I cry. I think I'm grateful that I experience love so deeply that this actually hurts now. It takes a lot to get to that level and I always say I would trade it all to have laid in back. I would trade all of it. Podcast Boston Gratitude. I would trade every single thing to have laden back. But I don't have that choice. So I'm grateful That I get to share the lessons that she taught and hopefully help you in your journey. So as we retrain our mind, gratitude, it eases so much difficulty, it eases so much pain because it just reminds us that this life, it is an opportunity. And sometimes it hurts and sometimes it's overwhelming and scary and confusing, but we get to live it. We get the freedom of choice. We get to design our lives. And I think that's the most important responsibility we have to design our lives. This one precious life we have as this being right in this form. So gratitude, find the power of it. And truth. It's something I incorporate no matter who I'm working with and what their daily mindset work looks like. There is always an element of intentionally acknowledging gratitude and being specific about it, not just saying, oh, I'm thankful for my mom. I'm thankful that I feel my mom's love from miles away, or I'm thankful for the amazing dinner my mom and I had last night, or I'm thankful for the great conversation I had with my mom that's being really present. So in this retrain your brain challenge, on top of doing affirmations every day for the next week, I challenge you to incorporate gratitude each day. Start each day thinking of three things that you're grateful for. Maybe you think of them while you're in bed, while you're in the shower, while you're commuting to work. Whatever it is, think of three things and let those be something that you can revisit. And what you'll notice with all of these mindset shifts, it goes from being really laborious, like maybe you have to write down to do it, or you have to put an alarm in your phone to do affirmations or to be grateful, it will become automatic. I do not plan before I go for a run to stop at some point and notice something. It's that energy grows where energy goes. And I have spent so much energy really working on gratitude that I find myself constantly grateful. And as somebody who stood in the space of being a victim, of being pained, of being angry, I believe that every human, every soul is capable of living with that feeling of gratitude. And the last action step strategy for retraining your brain, right, for refocusing your mind, it draws on one of the four agreements which I reference a lot on here. If you haven't read it, go read it. And it's the agreement of not making assumptions. And what you can do to actually teach yourself to not make assumptions is to create new stories and to Create many stories. And this is an activity I do with myself and with a lot of people. And so it's reminding yourself that in addition to whatever pops into your head when we naturally make an assumption. And I want to preface it, if we find ourselves making assumptions, it's not a weakness. It's the human need, desire and training to categorize, to organize, to understand things. That's why I think we over label and over categorize things, because we want to know, we want to feel a sense of control and we want to know what goes where and where our place in the world is and how we compare and where we fit. We really got to let go of all that. I don't think I'm going to be able to achieve that during my lifetime having this world. Stop doing that and do my best. But in the meantime, recognize when that urge pops up to categorize, label, assign. It's filling that need to have a sense of control, to organize, to make sense of whatever is presenting itself in front of you. And so what I teach and what I coach, to train your brain, train your mind to recognize that a million stories could be true. The one that you're creating in your head could absolutely be true, but so could a million others. And I'll give an example because this is a little bit less tangible, right? Than affirmations or gratitude. This is a little bit higher level, but you're all ready for it. Let's say I saw. This has happened to me many times. I see a mother, you know, walking her daughter to school or getting her daughter off the school bus and, or getting ice cream. Like I see this all the time. And my mind immediately goes to that mother and daughter. They have everything. Like they love each other so much. And I feel this ache, right? I feel this pain. And I envision, you know, what their house looks like and what the bedroom must look like and. And you know, I picture them, you know, laughing and skipping and all the things that I yearned so deeply for laden right to have shared with her. And so as that pops into my head, now I identify it and I recognize and this is true for everybody. Whatever pops into your head is likely, right? Going back to triggers or your teachers, it's likely triggering something that's unfinished or unsettled, you're unhappy with, within yourself. And it's kind of a no brainer for me. Yeah, it's triggering something that's still very painful. Don't need a detective to figure that one out. But then I tell myself a million Other stories could be true. I tell myself, well, that could be an aunt, that could be a babysitter. They could be struggling to make ends meet. That woman could have just gone through a divorce. She could be happily married. Who knows? There are a million other stories that could be true. I tell myself, for all I know, that woman really struggled and fought to have her child. Or even worse, perhaps she's a bereaved mom and has lost a child as well. And all of a sudden it's like I'm kind of putting myself in my place and being like, who, who are you to just make an assumption to decide that this is what must be true? And what happens is when you teach yourself to do that, you begin making a heck of a lot less assumptions. And you teach your mind to now instead of seeing what you're wishing for or wanting to see a million other possibilities again, like I said, this is a process. It's like going to the gym. You're not going to do this one time and your brain is not going to suddenly change the way that it works. But there is science that backs up that we can retrain our thought patterns. If you're curious in learning more about that, I recommend the book the Power of Habit. It's really interesting that they break down how we can retrain our thought patterns to create habits that change our life. So essentially, that's what you're doing here. So in this third step of your challenge, next time you find yourself looking at someone and assigning the story, some of the catch all phrases like must be nice, right? Must be nice that they get to do this. Like, think of a million other stories that can be true. I see it in entrepreneur work all the time. We just see the highlight reels and then what else could be true? That highlight reel might not be so real. Maybe they risked and invested everything and they've been grinding away for years and it's finally paying off. Who knows, maybe they've sacrificed lot of social time or family time or fitness time or whatever it may be to meet their dreams. Maybe they've experienced trauma in their life. Who knows? But part three of your challenge, whenever you find your mind or your brain going to that place of making an assumption of someone else's story, stop, identify it. Don't beat yourself up for it. Recognize, like, this is my human need to organize, categorize, or play out things I'm unhappy with. I'm gonna let that go and I'm gonna think of all the other things that could be true and try and come up with five to 10 stories that could be true. That might be hard at first, but in time, 10 will become very simple. I promise. So as we strive to retrain your brain and shift your mindset, you do so knowing that that's actually going to change your life just a little bit at a time every day. And that's one of the biggest things I think we lose sight of. I was talking with a woman the other day who said, I don't know how I'm going to get through this next year. She's going through something really difficult. And I looked at him and said, you just got to get through the next day. And sometimes, as I experienced in grief, it was just the next hour or the next 10 minutes. But break it down. We don't need to overwhelm ourselves, but just trust if we Keep showing up 10 minutes at a time, or one day at a time, or one week at a time, our life is going to change. And I am so proud of you for choosing Growth. So I hope this Retrain youn Brain Challenge is fun, is helpful, gives you some new tools for that toolbox. As always, thank you for joining me here on the podcast. As you know, this is completely inspired by my daughter. It's a way that I feel connected to her and that I get to be her mother by sharing all that she taught during her time here and continues to teach and present. And I feel as though I have the privilege. I'm grateful to be a vessel to shine her light, and I appreciate every single one of you helping me shine her light, too. So if you like the work that we're doing here, if you like this episode, please rate and review Spotify and itunes. That's what helps us grow. Grow so that we can reach more people and make more positive impact. Thank you for tuning in. Take the challenge. Let me know how it goes, and I will talk to you all so soon.