Have you ever consciously considered the way you speak to yourself?
Did you know that the average person has nearly 50 thoughts per minute*. That’s around 70,000 thoughts per day!
Have you ever wondered what those thoughts might be?
The majority of these thoughts go on subconsciously, meaning that we aren’t even aware of them e.g. you don’t think about making your heart beat every minute do you? Similarly, many of our thoughts and beliefs are inbuilt, we’re not consciously aware of them ticking away in the background.
As tribes people (or cavemen) our brains were wired to keep us safe. After all eating and staying safe kept us alive back then. But much has changed, Netflix iphones and supermarkets to name just a few! Part of our brain however, The Reptilian Brain, works just the same as it did all those years ago, and if we can understand how this affects us when it comes to body image, food and confidence it can be transformative.
Our minds are actually wired to be on the negative and cautious side, in order to keep us safe. That’s why it’s so common to be scared of heights, our mind is warning us ‘you might fall’, to keep us safe.
Sugar addiction or overeating isn’t actually always your fault either. Back in the cave man days, we wouldn’t have sugar every day, so if you found a bees hive you would eat honey until every last bit was finished, not knowing when the next time you would have the luxury of eating sugar again.
Thinking about it that way, you can see that it’s totally normal to continue to eat when we’re already full, what’s changed is being able to get food 7 days a week, 24hrs a day.
The other thing that’s changed is the unrealistic expectations we put on ourselves due to what we see on social media, magazines and movies. But why do we try to be like these photo shopped, filtered stars?
Well, going back to the tribes; we want to fit in. If we didn’t look similar (fit in), we would have been outcasts, expelled from the tribe and expected to fend for ourselves, as we would have been considered a threat.
All humans crave connection, even introvert’s need connection. That connection is linked to fitting in and because we spend so much time seeing “perfect” models, actresses and singers etc. we want to fit in with them! According to 2021 statistics, the average person spends about 145 minutes on social media and 160mins on Netflix every day.** That’s nearly 4hrs a day! Add to this, images in magazines, on posters billboards and signs - you can see how we may feel we have to fit in!
But at the end of the day photo shopped models are not real, out thoughts and feelings are. So let’s work on our strength, confidence and self-belief rather than falling for the way the outdated part of our brain and modern day technology can make us feel.
Once we begin to understand the mind it can become an amazingly powerful asset. Becoming more aware of entrenched beliefs and negative self-talk, therefore giving yourself the option to tune in (to the negative self critic) or switch channel and reprogram your mind with more positive and empowering thoughts, behaviours and narrative is transformative – it will take a bit of practice, but you won’t look back.
Venessa Nickless
*According to the Laboratory of Neuro Imaging at the University of Southern California
** www.wearesocial.com
