Top 10 Therapy Takeaways- The Brain and the lies it tells

Today I am truly just going to be sharing a tidbit because it's just barely going to scratch the surface. But we are going to divide this into two sessions because there is just so much information on the brain that I wanted to share. ⁓ I love stuff about the brain. ⁓ I truly believe that the brain is so fascinating. It's really complex, but it also is really frustrating sometimes. ⁓ We are learning more and more about it every day, and I think there's so much we still don't even know. ⁓ so the information I'm giving you now is what we have now, right? We've made a lot of improvement, but again there's a long way to go.

I want to talk a little bit about how it works, all the things that can be missed or misunderstood or making incorrect associations. ⁓ Your brain can kind of make you feel a little bit crazy. ⁓ And so there you go, we're all a little bit crazy. ⁓ but you know, what do we have to figure things out? Our brain. ⁓ so even when our brain is trying to help us, sometimes it moves in the wrong direction. Our brain tries to make quick associations, ⁓ and that can cause it to lie to us, which can be very frustrating because, again, the only thing I can combat that with is my brain. ⁓ So we're really using different parts of our brain in those moments. ⁓ The things that are being input, ⁓ whether you're seeing it, hearing it, doing it, however that input is coming into your brain, can make quick associations to try and figure things out. So an example I use a lot with my clients is when you think of kids' riddles that intentionally get you to say the wrong thing, right?

That's kind of leaning into the fact that we know our brain makes those associations. There's one that talks about getting you to say a cow and it gets you to say white and somewhere in there there's something about drink and then they ask you what cows drink and people automatically make the association and say milk. And of course the little kids are like, haha no cows drink water and you're like, I knew that but maybe cows drink milk ⁓ and you try to correct it right we all do. But again our brain associates that white milk or I'm sorry cow white and drink and we come up with milk, which is that automatic association. Another way that I've heard that joke also is you get someone to say silk five times and then you ask them what cows drink and they say milk because that word association is there again it's just that quick response, right?

It happens a million times a day, those quick associations. It's the same thing as we have automatic thoughts, sometimes automatic negative thoughts that we call ants. We'll get into that more later. they pop into our head because of some random association.

We don't think about it, we don't stop to think it through. We live in a very negative culture. So sometimes the input that we're getting into our brain is a lot of negativity, and that can create problems for us. It's a fabulous marketing tool to make you feel not so great without someone's product and get you to believe that you need that product to be good enough, great enough, skinny enough, smart enough, sexy enough, whatever. It plays on our self-worth. And we really have to be on top of those things at catch those little inputs that are not accurate.

The other concept that we're gonna kind of pull in is in regards to our brain ⁓ is our amygdala and how it works. Why it can sometimes make it feel or that feels like it's lying to you as well. And understanding what the amygdala's job is. So the amygdala is where your fight, flight, or freeze part of your brain is. It is our emotional brain, it is the doer, it doesn't think about stuff. We talk a lot in therapy about flipping your lid.

Which is where your upstairs brain or your thinking brain basically disconnects and your amygdala is in charge, which some people call their downstairs brain or their primitive brain, right? The amygdala cannot think, so it's just gonna do. That's why it's our primitive brain. The amygdala is also referred to as our guard dog, and I use this analogy with kids a lot. We have to think about ⁓ what all it's doing. ⁓

Because again, it's not a thinker, it's a doer. ⁓ It doesn't stop to figure stuff out because that's not its job. Just like a guard dog alerts you of something potentially going on, that's what your amygdala is doing. It's designed to flip your lid on purpose. It's designed to shut off the thinking portion of your brain because that helps keep you safe. ⁓ And that's its job ultimately, is to keep you alive. ⁓ One of the best analogies that I use a lot that came from Hey Awesome ⁓ or Hey Warrior, which both are children's books.

That I use quite a bit in my office ⁓ is that our amygdala goes off like a smoke alarm. ⁓ If you think of it, if you've ever burned something in your kitchen like you a burnt piece of toast, right? And it makes it a little smoky, so your smoke alarm goes off. ⁓ Now, if you're like my house, then someone's running over there to fan it to try and make it shut up because you don't want to hear it, it's so loud. ⁓ But there was never a fire. ⁓ Its job wasn't actually telling you there's a fire, its job was to let you know that there's smoke. There might be a fire, you need to check it out, and that's what the amygdala does: ⁓ it's saying, Hey, something's off here, you need to check it out.

It's again those misassociations connected to the wrong thing. It can't tell the difference between the smoke and the burnt item. ⁓ It just knows that something's off. If it believes there's danger, it goes off. And again, we're designed that way on purpose because if there's truly danger, I don't have time to stop and think about it. ⁓ I need to be acting. I don't have time ⁓ to wonder what I need to do next. I need to act to keep myself safe. ⁓ If I'm in a basketball game and there I am on the sideline and the ball is coming fast at my face, ⁓ and I stop to think about it, I'm probably getting hit in the face. ⁓ But if I can dodge it or catch it or bat it away, any of these things, ⁓ those were my fight flight freeze kicking in. So thankfully not freeze, right? ⁓ That we just we're doing, we're not thinking because we're trying to keep ourselves safe. ⁓ If you have experienced a lot of danger, ⁓ your amygdala is probably a little more heightened. ⁓ Again, that guard dog that has had a lot more going on starts barking at every little second.

Sound and going off because it's had so much experience with danger. ⁓ So it's ready to go. ⁓ We've seen that with people who have gone through more trauma. Their response is faster. So we don't actually remember things the way that they happened because this is based on experience and it's coming from your perspective of a situation. ⁓ So sometimes when you're trying to remember all the things, it can be difficult. And your amygdala affects your memory. ⁓ When you're trying to learn something new or you're trying to remember things so if you're in fight, fight or freeze, you're not gonna recall that later. ⁓ And that's when you hear people, you know, interviewed about a traumatic situation or a catastrophe of some sort and there's so many different stories. ⁓ It's not really that people are just clueless or lying. It's really them just trying to figure out what was happening in those moments and filling in the gaps of panic. ⁓ So we have to learn to calm our amygdala and really be able to think something through. ⁓

That's where you'll hear people say, calm down, take a deep breath, which doesn't really work. we're trying to slow down and breathe. We're trying to calm our amygdala, we're trying to get our thinking brain connected. When we're taking those deep breaths, it has to be intentional. ⁓ Obviously, we're breathing, we know how to do that, but I need to be intentionally breathing. ⁓ I need to be maybe counting how long I breathe in and counting how long I breathe out, ⁓ because that counting is also going to kick in my thinking brain. some redundancy you're gonna hear now has to do with what our brains need all the time, right? Last week we talked about self-care because all those things ⁓ are also good for our brain. ⁓ We talked about water being good for our brain, exercise, movement. Our brains love movement, they love rhythm. It is fueling for our brain just as much as your body. ⁓ We talked last time with the exercise your brain needs & your brain needs sleep. ⁓

Good sleep. we joke around about this right now with having a nine-month-old who's not particularly in tune with my opinion on sleep. But we've got to get the sleep. If you you can deal with almost anything if you can get sleep. And there's so much truth there. ⁓ It's so important. ⁓ Mindfulness. Mindfulness is kind of a buzzword. or it was, it's not as much right now. ⁓ and I don't think everyone really understood what it meant, but it really has to do with being in.

here and now being present just for a few minutes being able to see what you see ⁓ hear what you hear taste what you taste stop and just be in the moment we tend to be going ⁓ all the time ⁓ and in this culture we're always working towards what's next what's next what's next ⁓ and so we're in that future mindset and future mindset can create a lot of anxiety ⁓ and we also ⁓ you know look backwards and we get into that past which we can't change and that can create depression so

So being mindful is like exercise for your brain. It helps strengthen the brain. ⁓ And our brains function better ⁓ in the here and now. ⁓ Eating healthy, also an important one up there. Yes, we love our yummy foods, but there are foods we know help our brain, eating things like salmon and berries and leafy greens. ⁓

Those are important. We've talked about creativity. Creativity is really important for our brain. ⁓ Remember that anxiety and creativity both come from your imagination. So ⁓ if my imagination is working towards the creativity, I'm in a lot better space than if my imagination is leading me towards anxiety. ⁓ So again, those are part of our self-care as well. ⁓ We tend to think of something and decide it's true because it was a thought, and well, if I thought it or I felt it, it's true. That's also not accurate. It was just a thought, just a feeling. ⁓ We have a lot of those all the time. Automatic ones. They don't, and that doesn't mean they're true. It just popped into our head and I have to be careful about those inputs. All right. So this is our first part of Brain Stuff. And like I said, we just scratched the service. Episode four will be part two of the brain.

I felt like it was not fair to you to try and jump into all that other stuff anyway and try and see how fast I could actually talk. I'm pretty sure I've flown through this one. ⁓ So just let me remind you that ⁓ all this is a great educational tool, a little bit of coaching help. ⁓ It is not going to replace therapy. If you are truly struggling with someone, please reach out to a therapist and get some of the help you need. ⁓ If you are in crisis, please reach out to a crisis line or 911. ⁓ If you're not in a safe place, get help. ⁓ This is purely that educational.