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Which Station Are You Tuned in to?

Do you ever find yourself in the car and halfway through your drive pause to think “What am I listening to?” This happened the other day to me. The last time my son had used the car, he had left the radio on his station. I got halfway to work before I realized I was listening to some crazy, fast music. 

Think of your brain like that car radio. How aware are you of the station you’re tuned in to? How often do you stop to pay attention to which songs are playing?

Most of us can agree music affects our mood – you can play calming music to feel calmer, you can play upbeat music to feel more upbeat etc… 

Take that a step further to understand and accept that the thoughts we have running in our head are like songs that also affect our mood. The thoughts we’re thinking affect the mood we are experiencing. 

If we are thinking about how hard today is going to be, we are going to feel a certain way. If we are thinking about how awesome today is going to be, we are going to feel a different way. This is the power of our own individual super computer: our brain. 

Our Personal Computer

Our brain is the most efficient machine on earth, in fact, they can’t duplicate it. Which is why it is super important for us to tune in to see which programs we have running on it. Which station is your brain tuned in to? Here are some examples of stations that may be playing:

????Is it tuned to the station “everything works out for me” or the station “the world is out to get me”? 
????Is it tuned to the station that “I have so many supportive people in my life” or the station: “I’m all alone, I have no one”? 
????Is it tuned in to the station: “I am so good at making money” or is it tuned in to the station “Making money is hard” or “I’ll never have enough money”. 

Which Programs Is Your Supercomputer Running?

Where have you tuned your brain? 

Do you know one of the things that makes our brain so amazing and efficient?

If we direct it to look for something, it will find it.

It literally looks for what we direct it to look for.

If we’re tuned in to the station “everything is going wrong” our brain will look for evidence that everything is going wrong. It will find all these wonderfully descriptive examples of all the things going wrong in our life. 

If we are tuned in to thinking how life is going really well for us right now, it will look for evidence and find examples of that. If we are tuned in to thinking how life is so awful for us right now, it will look for and find evidence and examples of that. What are you directing your brain to look for?

Which Soundtrack Am I Playing in My Head?

Why not ask my brain how today will be awesome? After all, if I go through my day looking for ways my day is awesome I’m going to feel a lot differently than if I’m going through my day looking for ways my body hurts or that my life is tough or that people let me down or….

Our brain looks for evidence to support where we lead it. It’s a very effective machine. I love paying attention to which soundtracks I am playing over and over and over.

Some Days are for the Rhythm & Blues Music Mix

This is a good place to pause to note that we don’t listen to hip hop music every day. 

Not all days are happy, feel great days, nor should they be. Life is about contrast. I have days when my computer breaks down and my roof leaks. In the moment I don’t think: “How lucky I am to have a computer and a roof”. There are days when our car breaks down and it’s raining. When our kid is sick and our furnace breaks. This post is not about putting a rainbow on everything. On that day I will be playing a different song. Slower, sadder. 

What this post is about is bringing attention to the importance of paying attention to what I’m playing. This is about making sure I’m experiencing what I spoke of in a former post: clean pain instead of dirty pain. I don’t need to play the song “my life sucks” when I could play “today sucks”.  

Life throws us a whole spectrum of experiences and emotions. BIG problems occur when we shove those emotions down with alcohol, shopping, eating, or yelling. Life is all about feeling it all. Happy and sad. Anger and gratitude. The more we allow ourselves to play the soundtracks that are reasonable for that time, the more we stay out of dirty pain.

Our brain is wired to focus on the negative which means our unconscious state is to walk around playing doomsday music. Listen in to yourself and others this week. Are you focused on what you don’t want and what’s not going well? Are you focused on the things you accomplished or how you’ve let yourself down? 

Word of Caution:

When my clients realize the power of their thoughts or the power of choosing the soundtrack we’re listening to, they usually jump to wanting to choose new thoughts or as Ariana Huffington says, to quickly change the channel. This isn’t possible for reasons I discuss in other blog posts and because of cognitive dissonance. At the end of this post I’ve included a free handout I mention in the podcast about bridge thoughts. It helps you find a bridge from the channel you’re tuned in to now and the one you want to be tuned in to. 

Awareness

First step to anything? Awareness. Bringing awareness to the station you’re tuned in to. What are the songs you have on repeat in your head? Where are you directing your brain?

Join me this week in paying attention to the thoughts you have on repeat in your head. The channel you’re tuned in to. The soundtrack you’re playing.

I WANT TO KNOW: WHAT ARE YOUR FAVORITE SONGS?

Speaking of, I want to hear your favorite mood-lifting songs! Here is a link to a mood-lifting playlist I’m putting together for us all called “Warrior Station”.  Share your songs in the comments below (or on my instagram post) and I’ll add them to THIS PLAYLIST!

BRIDGE THOUGHTS FREE RESOURCE