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5 Simple Steps to Getting CLEAR (during the Corona pandemic)

(This blog post was taken from The Living Deliberately podcast which you can tune into here.)

Many people around the world are feeling stuck, now more than ever, during the Corona (COVID19) pandemic. Many people around the world are in lock-down in their home and some are in self-quarantine. The world as we know it has turned on its head and many of us are little an entirely new reality than we’ve ever experienced before.

Getting unstuck is great. It’s awesome, in fact. It takes you from feeling like you’re stuck at the bottom of a whole to feeling like you’ve figured out how to climb out of that hole. It’s a great feeling. It’s a freeing feeling. It’s very empowering to get yourself unstuck.

And while living deliberately includes getting unstuck, it’s not just about getting unstuck. In other words, it’s not just about getting out of the whole, but it’s about anticipating the hole in the first and then preparing yourself if it should come.

I woke up this morning asking myself, what is it that I want to create today? Well, to be honest, I had a lot of answers – from self-care, to schedule for me and the kids, to creating music, to reading, to offering a yoga class, to creating joy for me and my kids, and more.

And so I thought about yesterday and how one of my kids complained that our exercise routine (jogging around the block for 30 minutes) isn’t fun. My son had a real sour face on and I have to be honest, I’m sometimes finding myself losing patience with my kids during this time. It’s not easy. On any of us. And I really don’t think I’m creating too many demands for my kids. They don’t really have school work and I am giving them screen time each day, but what’s really important to me, for their physical health, is that they do some sort of physical activity for 30 minutes every day.

If they were in school, they’d have gym class. OR if it was a normal day, they’d have baseball, or jujitsu, or they’d be playing outside and exercising naturally by just running around. But we don’t have that opportunity now. And yesterday I was really upset about one of my kids who just complained about having to exercise. It really just bothered me, and I kind of lost it.

So, today I recognizing I don’t want to create that situation again with my kids. I want to create joyful exercise. So, this is my starting point with living deliberately, knowing what it is I want to create.

I knew I had to get CLEAR because I anticipated a negative response from my kids.

5 Simple Steps to Getting CLEAR:

  1. C= CALM. Similar to the “stop” in The unSTUCK Method, this is an opportunity to get present – to redirect your attention away from the future moment that you are anticipating and return it back to the present moment so that you can prepare properly for it.

2. L=LIGHTEN. In this step we uncover our “heavy” thoughts and lighten them by changing our language. For example:

“I know I’m going to get push-back from my kids.”

I changed my thought to:

“I have a feeling I’m going to get push-back from my kids.”

By changing my language from “I know” to “I have a feeling,” I lighten the anticipated future moment.

3. E=EXPECT. This is where we dig up our hidden expectations and express our wishes and desires. It’s always our expectations that get us stuck in the first place, but most of the time we aren’t even aware of what we are expecting. So in this step, we take the time to notice and honestly acknowledge what our wishes or hopes are. For example:

I hope we can come up with an exercise idea that we can all agree upon.

I hope my kids have good attitudes this morning.

I hope they participate fully!

4. A=ACCEPT. This is the step where we radically accept, in advance, the opposite of what we’re expecting! It’s not that we want the opposite of our wishes and desires to happen, but we’re accepting them in advance, so that if the opposite happens, we won’t get stuck! So, for example:

I can radically accept that my kids and I won’t come up with an exercise idea that we’ll all agree upon.

I can radically accept my kids don’t have good attitudes this morning.

I can radically accept my kids won’t participate fully with me today.

5. R=RESPONSIBILITY – This is where we take responsibility for who we are “being.” This is not a step about doing. This is not about making a schedule or a plan or objectives towards reaching a goal. This is about beingness. Who do I want to be when I have this conversation with my kids? Because that way of being will dictate what I do, and not the other way around. For example:

I am committed to being open-minded, supportive, and patient.

These are not necessarily my natural ways of being. These are ways of being I want to be when I have this conversation with my kids.

An open-minded mom would listen to her kids’ ideas.

A supportive mom would try out those ideas.

A supportive mom would give her kids time to brainstorm. This isn’t easy. They are used to a gym teacher or coach telling them what to do. They usually don’t have to think of things on their own.

Around 8 this morning I invited the kids to the living room. I admitted to feeling stuck in the past week and how hard this new job is for me: of homeschooling them, and that it’s going to take some trials and errors to figure this out as a family so that we all feel successful and happy during this time. I explained to them that I do believe the best thing for us is to create some sort of routine, even if it’s not strict, but something in general, and that the first thing each day should be exercise.

I asked them to brainstorm with me ideas of what would be fun. I reminded them of things we’ve done so far including jogging/walking while playing word games like I spy, or ghost or guess who, I reminded them of the dance parties we did in the living room, or the improvisational exercise we’ve done in the yoga studio.

My sons sat and stared at me like I had two heads. They couldn’t think of anything.

Then, my youngest son said, “I know! Let’s make an obstacle course. We’ll run around the paths in our neighborhood, then run down to the pull up bar that we have under the house, then we’ll go into the yoga studio, then we’ll run up the steps, and start all over again.”

Great idea, I said! I’m game. What about you? (I asked my other son).

He didn’t like the idea. He just sat there with a droopy face and without any ideas.

So, my youngest son and I started this new exercise routine which was great. It was really fun actually. And the weather was beautiful. We played a Rocky playlist and it was really fun. I would totally do this each day and I’m glad he recommended it.

I accepted my other son didn’t join us. I already accepted that earlier, so I wasn’t stuck. I would just have a conversation with him later to talk about what happened and talk about what the rest of the day would look like as he understands that exercising has to be a part of this day in some form or another.

But, I have to say I was super surprised when I saw my older son running past us while my younger son and I were doing our exercises on the porch. I didn’t ask what happened. I assumed he just realized either he wanted to exercise, or he wanted to do it his way, or he didn’t want to deal with the consequences.

My friends, I can’t think of a better time than now than to be using both of these tools, The unSTUCK method, and The CLEAR way. Both tools are incredibly helpful at this time, and always, to help you cope during these difficult times, to get you step-by-step actions on how to get yourself unstuck if you’re feeling stuck, or how to get clear for the day or for anything else you are anticipating during the day.

So many people are feeling stuck these days. Each of us is experiencing this pandemic in different ways. What is important is that we practice getting unSTUCK and getting CLEAR, both as individuals and collectively as a humanity. It serves no one when you stay stuck. If anything, it only hurts you, and then it impacts those around you. Learn to get yourself unSTUCK, for your sake and for the sake of the world.

To learn more about The Living Deliberately Blueprint, click here.

5 Simple Steps to Getting unSTUCK (during Corona times)

(This blog post was taken from The Living Deliberately podcast which you can tune into here.)

Many people around the world are feeling stuck, now more than ever, during the Corona (COVID19) pandemic. And many people want to get unstuck, but don’t know how.

The first place to identify your stuck situation.

There are people who are stuck on:

Fear of getting sick.

Anxiety with their young kids being home with them 24/7.

Apprehension about being pregnant at this time.

Despair that life continuing on.

Distress financially.

Doubt if a vaccine will be created in time.

Embarrassment about their gray hair coming in.

Insecurity that they are a good enough parent.

Nervousness about if their children will get through this.

Panic about leaving their house.

Shock in that their wedding plans, or other family events have to get canceled.

Uncertainty whether they will see their loved ones again.

Worry about if they have enough food in their homes.

Anger they don’t get to have the senior high school or college experience everyone else does.

Aggravation that certain stores, hair salons, or gyms closed down.

Agitation their doctor appointments and surgeries have now been cancelled.

Bitterness they don’t have enough laptops in their house for the distance learning for their children.

Aversion that their spouse gets to work, but they can’t because they need to now be on full time parent duty.

Annoyance with their adult children who just came back home to live with them.

Resentment towards stores who ran out of basic supplies, like toilet paper.

Frustration they aren’t allowed in to see their elderly parents in the nursing home.

Alienation from their community.

Depletion from working now two full time jobs.

Discouragement from the news.

Exhaustion physically, emotionally, and mentally.

Grief over the loss of loved ones who happened to have passed away during this time, unrelated to the Corona virus.

Guilt about being away from their spouse while they are taking care of their elderly parent.

Hopelessness with whether this virus will ever go away.

Hurt by friends who didn’t include them in new on-line groups that have formed.

Isolation for literally being physically alone.

Loneliness for feeling alone.

Longing for loved ones.

Loss of work.

Overwhelm with having to take care of their elderly parents and their children at the same time.

Powerlessness over their unruly kids.

Regret they didn’t take that trip or go on vacation when they could have.

Sadness there won’t be a family holiday meal any time soon.

Shame on their past recent behavior.

The list can go on and on. And the first place to get unstuck is to identify your situation and get as specific as possible.

Then, go through the 5 Simple Steps of The unSTUCK Method:

  1. S = STOP. Take a moment and redirect your attention to the present moment. When you are in a stuck story, your mind is either focused on the past or it’s focused on the future. Being stuck in either of those dimensions will not serve you in getting unstuck. The only thing that will serve you is to get present. Take a moment to pause. Listen to your breath. Breathe deeply.
  2. T = TELL. Identify the emotion(s) you are stuck on. I know this may sound very touchy feely, but please know this is one of the most important parts of this process. Do you know why? Because most people don’t give themselves permission to feel the emotions, or vibrations, that are going through their body. And then you know what happens? They either resist them (and they just keep popping back), or they turn to something else that will give them pleasure in that moment so that they don’t have to feel the emotion (like turning to eating, or drinking, for example). The problem with that is that giving yourself a pleasurable solution is not long-term, and your emotion will still last. The only way to get through an emotion is to let yourself feel it. That’s it. There is no other way.

How do you do this? You simply sit with it. You observe it in your body. You get curious about it. You don’t react on it. You just be with it. If you are feeling stressed, sit if you can sit with that stress instead of running to the refrigerator or going for a drink. Don’t repress your emotions. Just the opposite! Acknowledge them, feel them, and stay with them. When you do this, what will happen just by the power of awareness, is that your emotions will begin to dissipate over time. It always does because emotions are temporary. Don’t take my word for this. Try it. Notice where you are feeling stuck and allow yourself to feel it.

3. U=UNCOVER. Identify your thoughts and then investigate the truthfulness of them. Keep in mind my definition of truth is not what you believe, but what can be proven in a court of law. Just because you believe something doesn’t necessarily make it true. So, for example, I look ugly with my gray hair coming in, or I’m never going to be able to regain my business again, or my kids are going to fall so far behind in school, or whatever your main stuck spot is.  Ask yourself if you could prove your thoughts in a court of all. If not, it’s not true. It’s just your perspective of the situation. All circumstances that happen outside of us are neutral. They are not good or bad. They only get charged when you put your thinking on top of it. So, just to offer an example of this, I know a lot of women are upset now about their gray hair coming in and that with the salons closed, there’s really nothing to do. At the same time, there are women who are experiencing the same thing, but they are seeing it as an opportunity to embrace their gray. Same circumstance, two different responses. And that’s the same for any situation you may be going through, someone else in the world may be going through the same exact thing, but thinking about it differently. You always have the choice of how you want to perceive something.

4. C=CONSIDER. Once you recognize that at least one of your thoughts is not 100% true, recognize what else is in the realm of possibility that you can consider. (By the way, if you’re still stuck on being right about your thought, I encourage you to reach out to a friend or to me, to get some coaching because you won’t be able to get unstuck if you are stuck on your thoughts. It just won’t happen). What else can you consider? Below are some generic considerations for you here, but I encourage you to try to come up with some on your own:

This is temporary.

You are safe.

You are ok.

This is all for the good.

Everything will work out ok as it always does.

You are not alone.

You are loved.

Faith.

Whatever it is, you have to choose a consideration because it’s the taking on of a new consideration that will get you unSTUCK!

5. K=KINDNESS. Place your hands over your heart right now and hold yourself in self-compassion. We all get stuck. Every single human on this earth gets stuck. It’s normal and natural. Remind yourself that you are only human and that getting stuck is a part of life. Hold yourself in self-kindness.

So many people are feeling stuck these days. Each of us is experiencing this pandemic in different ways. What is important is that we practice getting unstuck, both as individuals and collectively as a humanity. It serves no one when you stay stuck. If anything, it only hurts you, and then it impacts those around you. Learn to get yourself unSTUCK, for your sake and for the sake of the world.

To learn more about The Living Deliberately Blueprint, click here.

 

You are the Creator of Your Life

(This blog post was taken from The Living Deliberately podcast which you can tune into here.)

Living Deliberately means living on purpose. It means creating your future ahead of time by using your mind. It means creating possibilities of what the future may hold even if your past doesn’t prove that possibly. It’s about creating new thoughts and showing up in ways that you may have never dreamed possible.

In other words, Living Deliberately is about creating. It’s about not being passive, but rather taking an active role in life to create whatever it is you want. It’s about being a creator – and if you don’t like that term because you believe in a “Creator,” then it’s about being a mini-creator or a co-creator. However you want to look at it, it’s recognizing the power you have to create, because you do have that power whether you access it or not is another thing entirely. With Living Deliberately, you access that power on a regular basis.

Now, all of that may sound abstract or even philosophical to you, but actually what Living Deliberately is the complete opposite of abstract or philosophical. The work of Living Deliberately is actually very real, it’s actually quite simple, it’s very concrete, and it’s very, very doable. It takes work, but if you are committed to doing this work, it’s all possible.

The very first thing you do when living deliberately is notice your starting place. Before going anywhere or before making any decisions, know where you are. And that starting place is noticing what’s going on in your life now that you want to change or improve or create something that doesn’t exist. You must know where you are beginning. When you turn on your Waze or Google maps in order to guide you to your destination, it knows where you are starting. It has to. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be able to take you anywhere, right? It’s the same thing with your life. You may know where you want to get to, but you first MUST know where you are starting.

Now, there may be a lot of places in your life you’d like to make improvements on. Maybe where you’re starting is that you are overweight or you are not sleeping well, or your work/life balance is out of balance, or you don’t feel happy, or you’re in a relationship that you’re less than satisfied with, or you’re not taking care of yourself, physically/emotionally that way you want to. See if you can notice where you are starting – what it is that you are not so pleased or satisfied with in your life. Awareness is really half the battle when it comes to living a deliberate life.

See if you can pinpoint the one area that you are the least satisfied with. Like, if you could snap your fingers and change this thing right now, what would it be? What would you want to create?

Now….that question I just asked you may seem like a very innocent and easy question, “what do you want to create?”, but it’s actually not as simple and intuitive as it may seem.

The question I asked was not, what do you want to have. The question we are beginning with is what do you want to create?

The way we use language is so important and so affects the way we look at our lives and how we act. If I were to ask you, look at your life – what do you want? By asking you a question in that way, I would be removing the power that you have within yourself and placing the power in someone or something else.

For example, if your answer to that question was: I want my husband to be kinder, or I want more people to like me, or I want better neighbors. By stating what you want to have, you unconsciously putting yourself in a victim state – and when you’re in a victim state you basically relinquish your power to things outside of you that you have zero control over. You can’t change the people or circumstances outside of you and by saying, “I would be happy if I could just have “x”, you’re creating an impossible possibility. You’ll never be able to get happy, for example, if you’re constantly trying to change something that’s out of your power.

The way other people show up in the world is not your business. It’s theirs. And if you try to keep showing up and changing the way they are, you are  only going to drill a big, deep hole for yourself to get stuck in. If you want to live deliberately, you cannot start your life with what you want to have, you must start with asking yourself, “What do you want to create?”

This question is an entirely different question. This question puts you back in the driver’s seat as the one in control and the one deciding ahead of time what you want your life to look like. Right? So, for instance, instead of wanting people to like you, what you may want to create is friendships. Right? Now, it may seem like semantics: one the one hand I want people to like me, on the other hand I’m saying I want to create friendships. But, isn’t that the same thing? And it’s not. Wanting to people to like me is putting the control in someone else’s hands. Creating friendships is in your hands.

It’s the same thing regarding wanting a kinder husband or creating an improved marriage. Or wanting better neighbors or creating a relationship you do want to have with your neighbors.

So, take a moment now and identify what in your life do you want to create?

Now, the examples I offered so far had to do with other people. You certainly can also work on creating things that involve only yourself. Maybe you want to create a more physically fit body or maybe you want to create weight loss or maybe you want to create more self-confidence. There are endless avenues to what you can create in your life.

What do you want to create in your life?

Now, I have lots of things I want to create in my life, some of them are big things – like improving relationships and other times they are short-term things – like creating a delicious and nutritious dinner. It doesn’t matter what you are working on, the starting point is always the same. It always starts out with what do you want to create? And remember the answer to your question cannot be changing something or someone outside of you.

I start each and every day like this. What do I want to create today? I look at my day ahead, see what’s on the calendar, what my work looks like, and decide ahead of time what I want to create for myself. I’m constantly creating throughout my day, as I interact with people and sometimes come into situations that were unexpected, I ask myself, what do I want to create in this situation?

That being said, I also have one main overall thing that I am currently working on long-term. And the reason I say long-term is because when you are looking to create a big change in your life, whether that’s breaking a habit or creating a new version of yourself, it takes time. And if you know anything about creating change, it doesn’t come over night, but rather comes with time and a lot of patience and a lot of consistent showing up and taking action. And it takes a willingness to show up, and a willingness to fail, and a willingness to keep taking action despite anything that’s happening around you.

What is the one most important thing you want to create in your life today?

Maybe you want to break a habit, maybe you want to create a better relationship with yourself or with someone else, maybe you want to create a successful business. What is the one thing, the most pressing or the most important thing in your life that you want to create or change?

To learn more about The Living Deliberately Blueprint, click here.

How the Brain Works (the Upper Brain)

(This blog post was taken from The Living Deliberately podcast which you can tune into here.)

Understanding how your brain works can help you learn how to manage your mind. When you know how to manage your mind, you can learn how to feel better in any moment, improve our relationships, and you can live the life you want to live. If you have yet to read about the lower brain, please read that post first.

In a nutshell, the lower brain is responsible for unconscious actions and pretty much anything you have learned (physically like walking or driving or eating) or anything you have learned mentally (like thoughts about yourself, about others, about the world) – anything that you have learned and thought enough times, it is stored in the lower brain for your own survival. Your lower brain is there to protect you and so anytime you are faced with something that feels like a real threat, whether that’s a hungry lion coming at you, or it’s someone saying things about you or you saying things about yourself, your lower brain is going to efficiently remind you of what you already know. The problem is, your lower brain doesn’t evolve you. It doesn’t bring you forward in life. In fact, if you are only depending on your lower brain for life, you will end of dying exactly the way your life looks like today.

And for some people, maybe for many people, that’s how they want to die. They don’t want to change. They don’t want to go through the effort and difficult emotions that one needs to go through when you grow – because that’s what happens, my friends, growing isn’t always easy. Right? Just ask any teenager on the block. Growing comes with fear and pain and some people just want to avoid that completely. And that is there choice and their right and I am not here to tell anyone what to do with their lives.

But, if you’re reading this blog post, my guess is that you are not one of those people. And my guess is that you are one of those people who actually want to create change in your life, but you’re not finding success or you don’t know how. And if you stay with me and you implement what I’m going to teach you, I can almost guarantee you, you can achieve any result you are looking to create in your life.

The forebrain or the upper brain is the most highly developed part of the human brain. It consists primarily of the cerebrum and structures underneath it. When you look at a picture of the brain, you are usually looking at the upper brain as it sits at the topmost part of the brain. This part of our brain is the source of intellectual activities. It enables you to plan and imagine and think among other things.  The pre-frontal cortex (PFC) is the cerebral cortex that covers the front part of the frontal lobe of your brain. It is this part of the upper brain that is involved with the planning of complex cognitive behavior and decision making and moderating social behavior.

The basic activity of the PFC is orchestration of thoughts and actions in accordance with internal goals. This is really important to understand. You have one part of your brain, the PFC, that is what is responsible for your ability to decide what you want to create in your life and going from that place of deciding to the place of results.

OK, so you want to lose 20 pounds? You need your PFC.

You want to become a successful in your line of work? You need your PFC.

You want to create an extraordinary relationship with your spouse? You need your PFC.

You want to create an awesome relationship with your kids?

You want to start taking better caring of your body?

Make more money?

Work less?

All of can happen thanks to your PRC.

This part of the brain, in psychology, is known as the executive function and it is this part of the brain that is essential if you want to live a deliberate life, because living deliberately starts with making a decision of what you want and making a plan for that decision and creating new thoughts that you believe that will help you reach your goal. Without the PFC, you will stay exactly where you are right now for the rest of your life, thinking the same thoughts about yourself and thinking the same thoughts about others and about your body and about your work and about your family members, forever.

And as I mentioned before, for many people, that is ok. And all that means is they don’t need to work that area of the brain too much. And for many people that works for them.

For me, living the way I’ve always lived is not acceptable to me. While I know I’m a good person, I also know I can evolve into something better and I also believe that I was meant to use this part of my brain to the best of my ability.

Doing the work of living deliberately, which includes getting unstuck and getting clear can enhance prefrontal activation because studies have shown that practicing mindfulness enhances this area of the brain, and because the work of Living Deliberately is based on mindfulness it will do the same. And mindfulness, of course, is associated with increased well-being and reduced anxiety.

Now, the question is, why when I set out a goal to lose weight or I dream big about my work or I try to improve my relationship with my spouse or I try to quit any bad habit I’ve noticed I’ve picked up along the way – why don’t I succeed if I have a PVC? If my PVC is responsible for deciding what I want and creating plans to move that plan forward, why do I get stuck? Why do you get stuck?

It’s because of the older brother. Your older brother, your lazy older brother, a.k.a. your lower brain, has a world of thoughts for you that are going to do everything it can to prevent you from achieving your goal.

Why? This doesn’t make sense, right? If your brain wants to move forward with a new idea, why would your same brain work against you? I mean, it makes sense if another person’s brain works again you – right? Like your spouse or your boss or your child – they make go against you, but your own brain? That doesn’t sense?

But, if you stop to think about it for a moment, it actually does. Because remember, your lower brain is there to protect you. By sending you warning signs of, “That’s going to be difficult,” or “You’re going to have to work really hard at that,” or “Not many people have done that before, you sure you want to try that?” your lower brain is helping you – maybe not in the way you want, but it’s helping you prevent getting into an uncomfortable place that could lead to embarrassment or failure.

So when you set out to lose weight or stop smoking or start exercising or talking better words about yourself, and you last for like two days, there’s nothing wrong with you. In fact, there’s everything right with you. Your lower brain is doing exactly it’s job and in many ways we should be grateful that our brains are working as they should.

But, of course, if you want to move forward and you want to live deliberately, you need to differentiate between your thoughts that you are creating in the upper brain to move you forward and the thoughts you created already in the past that exist in your lower brain.

Let me give you an example. I am committed to becoming a mindful eater, among other things in my life that I’m working on. As someone who is committed to being a mindful eater, one realistic doable, that’s basically my way of saying what my plan of action is for the week, is to not eat past 6 pm. I go to bed early and my body doesn’t do well when I eat within a 3 hour time frame before going to bed. On most nights, this isn’t so hard. But, last night, my kids ordered a pizza.

And they ordered it for 7 PM.

And my lower brain was like, “PIZZA!” YUMMY PIZZA, smell that bubbly melted cheese. Yum!

My lower brain was doing its job. It was seeking pleasure and avoiding pain.

Pleasure = eating pizza.

Pain would be the suffering I would feel if I didn’t eat the pizza.

And my lower brain doesn’t want to suffer so it was shouting EAT THE PIZZA.

But, I am living deliberately and I know how to get unstuck and I can differentiate what’s going on in my head from the upper brain with its plans and goals and my lower brain with its old thoughts and pattern and unconscious habits. I stopped and said, “Hey lower brain, thanks for doing your job. I hear you, but I’m not gonna listen to you right now. Don’t get upset about that, it’s just that I have other plans. Thanks for watching out for me.?

And that was it.

I didn’t eat the pizza, I didn’t eat anything actually. And I felt great on so many levels – great that I could manange my mind and I felt great going to sleep not heavy and I felt great this morning waking up, feel light and ready to start my day.

And I was able to do all of this because I understood what was going on in my brain.

And this is what the living deliberately is all about. It’s about identifying what you want and how you’re going to get there – and using your tools to cope with all the wonderfulness and challenges in between.

To learn more about The Living Deliberately Blueprint, click here.

 

How the Brain Works (the Lower Brain)

(This blog post was taken from The Living Deliberately podcast which you can tune into here.)

Understanding how your brain works can help you learn how to manage your mind. When you know how to manage your mind, you can learn how to feel better in any moment, improve our relationships, and you can live the life you want to live.

The brain is comprised of two parts: the lower and the upper brain. They are connected – the upper brain is literally on top of the lower brain. The lower brain is located on the bottom part of the brain, hence the name the lower brain, starting with the spinal cord. Evolution wise, it’s considered the oldest part of the brain. The upper brain (also known as the forebrain) is located above the lower brain and these two different parts of the brain have different functions – really, really distinct differences. We need both of them to live deliberately.

In a nutshell, the lower brain is responsible for unconscious living. The lower brain regulates our blood pressure, our breathing, it’s involved with sensory information and sleep, and motor function. The lower brain controls hormone secretions that govern sexual reproduction and eating and drinking and physical growth and our biological clock. So, as the oldest structure of the brain, the lower brain is basically geared towards basic bodily processes and survival.

It’s when a tiger comes at you and you run that the lower brain is working.

Or, in more realistic terms, it’s when your boss yells at you and you go running into the bathroom to cry.

Or, when your spouse doesn’t acknowledge you and you put up a fight.

Or when you feel really stressed in life and you numb you feelings with food or drinking or smoking or social media or shopping or whatever it is that you personally do to numb your feelings.

This is the lower brain in action. It’s job is to seek out pleasure and avoid pain. That’s pretty much it. It exists to protect you. Thank God we all have a lower brain. If we didn’t have this lower brain, we would not be able to live. We need this lower brain to survive.

Our lower brain works very, very efficiently. It doesn’t need to think much at all. It reacts very quickly to any stimulus or any trigger in a way to protect you. Remember, your older brain is like your older brother. It will do whatever it needs to do to keep you safe.

Here are some other ways the lower brain works in action:

You plan to go on Facebook for 3 minutes, but you stay on for an hour.

Or you’re trying to lose weight but you keep eating more than your body needs.

Or you’re checking your phone every other minute of the day.

Or any other thing that brings you pleasure, but you find hard to do in moderation.

This is part of the lower brain’s job – to seek out pleasure. And if it finds it, it will seek out more and more because there are chemical reactions happening inside the brain when you seek and find pleasure.

It’s not doing anything wrong – in fact, it’s doing exactly what it’s supposed to do. That is the job of the lower brain. And in many ways we need to be very grateful for this lower brain because without it, we just wouldn’t function.

The lower brain is responsible for all of things that have come second nature to us. For example, when we were about a year old or so and we were learning how to walk, we need to really focus on that new task, right? Like how to balance, how to lift one foot and how to place it down without losing your balance. It took many many trials and falling down until you got it. But now, as an adult, you don’t need to think about any of that, and that’s thanks to the lower brain who stores all of that old learning, which is wonderful because it keeps things efficient. Right? Can you imagine having to put all that energy into walking everyday?

So everything that is second nature, walking, eating, driving, how you speak, how you show up to people are thanks to the lower brain – those are the obvious ones.

But, even less obvious things that have become second nature and are stored in the lower brain so that we don’t have to worry thinking about them – are old thoughts, and by old thoughts I mean thoughts that you’ve thought so many times they have become your beliefs- whether they are true with a capital “T” or not.

And all of these thoughts, which I call old thoughts, you created whether you are aware of that happening or not.

You created them in either of two ways:

  • You heard them and learned them and internalized them – with or without knowing.
  • Or, you created your own thought about something and thought it enough times that it became secondnature to you.

Let’s look at some examples:.

What kinds of thoughts could you have heard or picked up, either as children or even as adults? Well anything relating to morality, anything related to culture or other kinds of people, or what is good and what is bad, or who is a good person and who is not, or anything else that you learned when you were a child (or even as an adult) and may not have even realized it. Thoughts turn into thought habits.

The purpose of explaining this is not to blame anyone. Please understand this. Blaming others never gets you ahead in life. Ever. Blaming others only forces you to give up your own power. But my purpose here is just for you to take a moment and think about beliefs that you have as an adult that you may have picked up from your parents or from society.

These beliefs are often what get us stuck.

Remember we get stuck when we hold onto a belief that is not 100% true, although our lower mind that is doing its job to defend itself is trying to convince you that it is true.

Let me give you a brief example. I picked up the belief, somewhere along the way, that chiropractors are people who couldn’t get into medical school? I don’t know where I heard that, but I heard that at some point in my early life and it’s a belief that got planed into my lower brain.

I recently hurt my back pretty badly. My husband kept telling me I need help and my lower brain kept telling me that chiropractors are people who can’t get into medical school. Honestly. That’s what my brain was telling me, even though logically it seems that that was the kind of person who should be helping me in that moment. My lower brain was being really efficient. It didn’t have to think much at all. It didn’t have to do any work. It already knew the answer. I had a thought habit, that I picked up along the way. The answer was no and because it’s the older brother, that’s what we listen to.

That’s an example of learning something along the way from someone else, but don’t forget you can also create your own thoughts and if you think them enough times they will also head over to the lower brain so that when you need to protect yourself, the thought will already be there.

An example? I’m never going to be a good guitar player. That’s a silly example, but it’s true. I think it. And you know what I think it? Because my past has proven this to me. I’ve tried and I’m not great at it and I don’t have the time or energy to become better and so I won’t. And so that’s what my lower brain tells me. Now, how does this look in my life? Well, I don’t pick up the guitar much. I haven’t found a teacher. And I’m not good enough to play in any real public environment.

I don’t blame my brain. It’s doing its job. It’s protecting me. It’s helping me avoid pain, right? Because becoming better means practicing a lot and messing up a lot and arranging my schedule to include practice, and maybe playing in front of others and getting embarrassed, right? All of that is uncomfortable and my lower brain does not want to be uncomfortable at all. So, it goes to the path of least resistance, which is a thought it already knows pretty well, and I think it and that’s my reality.

My reality is always a reflection of my thoughts. Always.

I think something about myself, that’s who I am.

I think something of others, that’s who they are.

It’s a very simple equation actually.

So, this is the lower brain.

It’s the most primitive part of our brain and its purpose is survival. We need our lower brains to survive, but if we only live on the lower brain we would never move ourselves forward or evolve into the people we want to become.

We need to be aware of what’s going on in the lower brain if we want to learn how to manage our minds.

We need to be aware of what’s going on unconsciously in the lower brain if we want to change – it’s as easy as that – if you are looking to make any changes in your life, if you want to become happier, if you want to lose weight, if you want to have a better marriage, if you want to become more successful, you must start recognizing what are the thoughts that are keeping you exactly where you are in this moment because that’s where everything starts.

It is our thoughts that keep us stuck and nothing else.

It is not people or the weather or anything else that’s going on outside of us that gets us stuck – it is always, always, always how you are thinking about something.

And the lower brain is going to make decisions for you, it does make decisions for you all of the time – and some of the time it’s great because it protects you. But much of the time it’s actually really not. It’s letting you off the hook, it’s keeping you from moving forward, it’s telling you there’s no value in trying to change it’s only going to be difficult. If you want to live deliberately, you must first start to recognize what your mind is telling you.

But, the real power of doing this work is when you commit to create a specific change and then you come face to face with recognizing the thoughts that are holding you back. And that’s something that you do over time, not just by taking a few moments to think about this.

So, just to take a moment to summarize. We have two parts of the brain. The lower brain exists to protect you. It wants to be in control and it will stay in control unless you become aware of it and take actions that will create change. The lower brain does not want to use any energy. It’s not only like an older brother, it’s like a lazy older brother. It just wants to sit on the couch and think the same thoughts it thought yesterday.

Any transformation that you are looking to make in your life will only come when you become aware of your lower brain and when you can reprogram that lower brain by using your upper brain.

To learn more about The Living Deliberately Blueprint, click here.