How to heal your mind, brain & body
In this podcast (episode #574) and blog, I talk about the importance of going beyond awareness. This is a replay of a Neurolive webinar I did on my app. For the full webinar ad-free, please see Neurocycle.app.
It is one thing to know about your issues, and maybe even the roots and causes of your issues, but awareness alone is not enough. It can actually make things worse if we just stop there!
We also cannot just hope that a positive affirmation or two will make the bad go away. We can’t simply replace a negative thought with a positive thought. There is no escaping it: we must go beyond awareness and deal with our issues, or they will deal with us. This takes time and specific steps if we truly want to rewire the mind, brain and body and find true healing.
This is why I created the Neurocycle, a mind management method I have developed and studied over the past three decades that I discuss in detail in my book Cleaning Up Your Mental Mess and my app Neurocycle. It is a way to harness your thinking power over cycles of 63 days through deliberate and intentional mindfulness that activates your self-regulation. The Neurocycle teaches you how to actually build a new thought pattern into your mind, brain and body in little bits, which is the most effective way of achieving a goal. It goes beyond awareness and helps you establish real change and find healing from past wounds and traumas.
The Neurocycle has 5 steps. The first step is to 1. gather awareness of how we feel mentally and physically and our perspective when we are dealing with a past wound or issue. The second step is to 2. reflect on how we feel. This is all about finding the “why” behind step 1, which will help us better understand the root of what we are going through. Then we 3. write down our reflections to help organize our thinking and gain more insight into what we discovered in steps 1 and 2. The fourth step is to 4. recheck: think about what our thoughts and feelings are trying to tell us. What does it say about what happened to us? What is our “antidote”— how will we work through how our thoughts are affecting us? Lastly, do the 5. active reach. This is a thought or action we need to practice daily to help us reconceptualize what we thought about in the previous step. What we are going to do each day to give ourselves the time and mental space needed to deal with what is bothering us and turn our destructive thoughts into a constructive future? The active reach is all about practice, or applying the new way of thinking in your life. It is an action you do as many times as possible during the day to practice the reconceptualized thought from step 4 above. It keeps you anchored and helps you to not fall back into old patterns of thinking, acting and choosing.
Before you start the Neurocycle, I recommend starting with what I call a “brain preparation exercise”, which is a simple, mind-driven action that prepares your mind and optimizes your brain and body, allowing you to calm down enough to react in the most favorable way. This can be anything from breathwork and yoga to a mindfulness or grounding exercise - whatever works for you and helps you feel ready to start changing your thinking!
For more on moving beyond awareness and finding healing, listen to my podcast (episode #574). If you enjoy listening to my podcast, please consider leaving a 5-star review and subscribing. And keep sharing episodes with friends and family and on social media. (Don’t forget to tag me so I can see your posts!).
This podcast is sponsored by:
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Podcast Highlights
0:10 Awareness is not enough
0:51 How to change & heal your mind, brain and body
5:10 Why it takes time to rewire the mind & brain
10:00 The healing journey is not linear!
16:32 Why your mind is like a massive forest
21:35 What a thought is & how to change your thinking
24:03 How every experience we have affects us mentally & physically
28:12 Ways to prepare the mind, brain & body for healing
This podcast and blog are for educational purposes only and are not intended as medical advice. We always encourage each person to make the decision that seems best for their situation with the guidance of a medical professional.