Mindset Reset: Take Back Control of Your Mind
Do you feel like you’ve lost control of your mind lately?
Like you can’t seem to help yourself from spiraling into negativity or fear or worry?
Like your thoughts and feelings just keep circling around and recycling themselves, keeping you in a pattern of feeling stuck?
If you’ve felt that way, you’re not alone.
And you don’t have to stay there.
You have more control than you think and have the power to reset your mindset.
I’ve written about how to manage your mindset, give yourself permission to feel and be more resilient in previous blog posts, but today’s post is focused on taking back control of your mind when you feel like you’ve lost it.
Reframe Stress
When too many demands - cognitive, emotional, psychological, physical, professional - are placed on us and exceed the internal and external resources we have to respond, we tend to cave under pressure.
We fall apart. We break down. We feel like we can’t handle one more thing.
That’s why most of us tell ourselves we need to get rid of stress.
What if, instead of trying to get rid of it, we reframed it?
I love what Stanford professor, Kelly McGonigal says about how to reframe stress in her book, The Upside of Stress:
“Stress is what arises when something we care about is at stake.”
It’s not a sign to run away; it’s a sign to lean in and step forward.
The only way to not experience stress is to be indifferent and apathetic - to not care. But if we don’t care, we also deprive ourselves of the experience of joy and elation and contentment.
One of the ways we can help ourselves better respond to stressful situations is to build up our resources and become more resource-FULL, so that we can rise to the demands and challenges we face.
Pause, Breathe, Notice + Choose
I’ve had the opportunity to learn first-hand from some of the most brilliant minds in the field of psychology and mindfulness, notably Dr. Rick Hanson and Dr. Daniel Friedland. Both of them have taught me about the power of the pause and the power of breathing as a way to reset our mindset.
Our brain has a built-in negativity bias, which leads us to over learn from negative experiences and under learn from beneficial experiences. We have a bias to be on alert to anything that might harm us or that our brain perceives as a threat, which makes us primed to get sucked into the negativity and fear around us in the midst of something like a global pandemic.
We have two branches of the nervous system - the sympathetic system, which is what is activated when we’re in fight-or-flight mode. Think of it as your foot on the gas pedal, full speed ahead. We’re meant to activate that state when we’re truly under threat and need to fight back or escape, but many of us have been in that state chronically and taxed our nervous system as a result. It’s exhausting to stay in that mode.
We have the ability to activate the other branch of our nervous system at will - the parasympathetic system, which is activated when we are resting and digesting. It’s sometimes called the “rest and relax” state. Think of it as having your foot on the brake, slowing things down and grounding and centering your body. When that state is active, we feel safe and can then access our higher level thinking, problem-solving and empathetic skills.
In the midst of all that we can’t change, reminding ourselves of what we CAN change is empowering. We have the power to reset our mindset. When we change our physiology, we change our psychology. In other words, we can move the body to move the brain.
Here’s a simple way to start.
4-7-8 Breathing
When we breathe, especially when we take a long s l o w exhale, we activate the rest-and-digest branch of the nervous system and turn on the brake. As we calm down the body, we calm down the mind.
Outlined in the video below is a simple breathing practice I like to use with my clients and the companies I work with to help people reset their body and their mind. As you go through the practice, notice what changes in your body, what you become aware of and how you feel.
If you have trouble falling asleep as night, use this practice 4-5 times before you go to bed to lower your heart rate and calm your body down enough to fall asleep. A lot of people find that it works wonders for them, so give it a try!
Name It to Tame It
When we are caught up in a reactive state of being, we tend to become consumed by and over-identify with our feelings. We say things like, “I’m so ANGRY!” or “I’m sad” or “I’m frustrated.”
As a result, we start to become our emotions. When we claim emotions as our identity (“I am fill-in-the-blank”), we feel stuck.
Another technique I like to use to reset our mindset when it comes to our emotions is what Dr. Dan Siegel calls “Name it to tame it.” The act of naming an emotion gives us more power and control over it and moves us into our higher brain, out of that fear-driven, reactive state.
Simply shifting our language to, “I’m noticing anger” or “I’m feeling sad” separates you from BEING that emotion and becoming so consumed by it. Some people suggest imagining your emotions as clouds in the sky passing over you rather than emotions BEING the sky, something you’re stuck in and can’t escape from.
An app I recommend using to more effectively identify specific emotions is called the Mood Meter app. It’s only $1 on the app store. It splits up emotions into two characteristics - energy and pleasantness.
High energy, unpleasant emotions would include things like anger, fury and irritation.
Low energy, unpleasant emotions would include feelings like despair and sadness.
Low energy, pleasant emotions include feelings that have been elusive to many of us like calm, contentment and peace.
High energy, pleasant emotions include feelings like elation, joy, curiosity, and excitement.
When we can language our feelings, we feel more empowered and in control.
Be On Your Own Team
Have you ever been watching Netflix and seen the “Are you still watching?” screen pop up?
I can’t think of anything that makes me feel more guilty…or judged…in a moment like that screen does. YES, Netflix, I realize it’s been a few hours…and, yes, I’m still watching.
I’ve watched more TV over the past 16 months than I had in the three years prior.
But I’ve also been recovering from a fractured back after getting hit by a pickup truck in May of 2020.
My point in sharing all of this is that we have a tendency to be harder on ourselves than anyone else is. We beat ourselves up (relentlessly) and wonder why we don’t feel all that great or can’t seem to get motivated.
When we choose to be on our own team, we show ourselves the same kind of compassion we would show someone else.
Included below is something called a Thought Chart that I created to capture many of the feelings you might be experiencing. If you’re not in that space right now, you’ve likely had one of the thoughts in the middle column in the midst of a time of unexpected change in your life.
We get “triggered” by an event, thought or experience and then go into a series of automatic negative thoughts (ANTs as I’ve heard Dr. Daniel Amen call them). Those initial thoughts are AUTOMATIC, which means we don’t control them.
The good news is that we control how we respond to those ANTs. Check out the third column below for a response rooted in self-compassion.
By being on our own team and being “for” ourselves, we reset our mindset and help ourselves better navigated difficult situations. Give it a try for yourself and see what comes up as you choose to be kind to yourself rather than beat yourself up. Another reason to use a tool like this is that when we see ourselves connected to others through our shared experiences, we feel less alone and less isolated. That feeling of being part of a greater whole helps us rise up with resilience when we get knocked down.
Look for the Good
I’d be remiss to talk about resetting mindset without mentioning the importance of taking in the good and focusing on what you are grateful for and what’s working. What we focus on expands, and the more we intentionally shift our focus to notice the goodness in our lives (no matter how seemingly small that goodness might be), we rewire our brain. I’ve written about the importance of taking in the good more extensively in this blog post about resilience and this one about managing your mindset.
This is my favorite practice of looking for good and noticing what I’m grateful for.
Final Thoughts
We will not be able to control everything that happens around us. (It’s an exercise of futility to try to do that, by the way. Trust me, I’ve tried!) But we CAN control how we respond to what happens around us.
I hope the insights in this blog post help you reset your mindset and minimize your reactivity, so you can be more responsive and feel more empowered.
I’d love to hear from you in the comments below! What from this post did you find most helpful? What lingering questions do you still have?
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