06 Feb YOUR AMAZING MIND: WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN YOUR BRAIN AND YOUR MIND?
YOUR AMAZING MIND: become the boss of your mind. Remember your amazing in many ways but lets not discount the way your mind operates.
What is the difference between your brain and your mind?
Your brain and your mind are not the same. Your brain is an organ and your mind is the part that ‘thinks’. They are and both necessary for our unique existence. YOUR AMAZING MIND: what is the difference between your brain and mind?
You can see what a brain looks like but not your mind. The brain is the organ that lives in our head inside our skill, and the mind is the thinking part of the brain. While can see what a brain looks like, we have to imagine what our mind looks like.
The brain and the mind have their own functions but both need each other to operate. Obviously if you have no brain then you can’t have a mind and you can’t have a mind without a brain that operates it. I wonder if that confuses you and also makes sense for you.
What makes your mind amazing?
No one has the exact mind as you. Your are totally uniquely crazy and sensible and at times, mindful and mindless. You’re unique. You are you. You have a duty of care to look after your mind as best as you can, and this book helps you do this.
Your mind has gives you lots of ideas. Without your amazing mind you would not always be able to fall back on plan B, or to even create plan A. You may not know, know how your amazing mind works, but its amazing and it can help you be more amazing as you travel on in life.
Your mind gives you lots of solutions. One day, for example my flight was cancelled. A one hour flight. My amazing mind did not create panic. It guided me to try book another flight. Then I realised that there were no other flights. I felt some panic, and then my amazing mind came up with other solutions and decisions. It took 2 hours to sort out. All worked out in the end, as it often does.
How can you make your mind more amazing?
You can deliberately do more creative things for yourself. Believe it or not its the creative things that you have done in the past that helps you be more creative in the present moment. Trust me on that.
I have seen a young boy who loves to paint, tell me he can’t decorate a cake. So I told him not to decorate it. I told him to paint it with colourful icing. He did a great job.
A young girl who struggled to speak out loud, I invited her to write down what she wanted to say, then I got her to read it. She practiced it a couple of times and then improved speaking out aloud. Small creative steps of course.
teach your mind
You can teach your mind to be kinder. Like teaching younger kids manners, and the way you were taught manners, you can teach your mind to have manners. Speak nice, be patient, wait your turn, and all that stuff.
Show your mind new ways of thinking. Your mind is just way more amazing than you think. Imagine someone standing in a park. You may think he is waiting for someone, stalking someone, training his dog, about to do Tai chi, cooling down from an argument, or anything your creative mind comes up with.
Guess what? Unless it’s totally obvious what he is doing in the park, you will never know. Pretending you do can get you into your own trouble, So remember you can’t read minds. Stick to obvious facts.
BEING THE BOSS OF YOUR MIND
Why does your mind need to be bossed around?
Sometimes your mind gets cheeky, and you need to take charge. Hence YOUR AMAZING MIND: what is the difference between your brain and mind?
There is a little cheekiness in everybody and this can be a fun thing, except when it’s not a fun thing. So if you feel your cheeky mind try to make someone else feel bad, or to ruin something of theirs, then stand up and pull your brain right back in line. For instance, you can use a bag to store your things or you can use it to throw it at someone. So wisen up and use your mind for the right reasons like you use your bag for the right reasons.
A little structure can be useful
Structure and planning can be useful. Just like your schedule tells you what time to start, when to eat your meals and so on. Structure and planning is done to keep everyone and everything working smoothly. Imagine no rules or structures. Maybe, you might have some joyful moments, but I’m sure you will see it turn into lots of chaos in no time.
Be in charge of your mind. You can’t have your angry bird telling you what to do. Just like you should not have a sad cloud hanging over you trying to make you cry over something for too long. So take charge and be the best boss that you can. You should be able to look after all your little emotions like your workers. Let them do their job but you can give your amazing mind a job description to follow, just to keep things in line.
How bossy should you be?
You should be bossy enough to maintain a feeling of wellness. This means you will feel mostly comfortable and capable of facing challenges. You may use some prep talk and say something like “right, I have a big day ahead and I will plan each moment with my logical brain. I don’t need to plan the whole day right now, I’m just going to tackle each event as it has its turn”. This is a great instruction for your amazing brain. YOUR AMAZING MIND: what is the difference between your brain and mind?
challenge thoughts
Be bossy enough to challenge thoughts that are not useful. That’s right, stand there with the rubbish bin. Wait for the party crashers which happen to be the unhelpful thoughts and guide them right into the bin. Keep in mind, these thoughts may be useful elsewhere, but not for that moment. So be the good security guard that you know you can be and get rid of rubbish.
Have enough control over your mind to feel comfortable that you are only thinking of what you need to at any given time. Think of what your favourite compartment can be. For me, I started off using imaginary jars. A friend of mine uses shoe boxes, and another uses tool boxes. So think of your favourite compartment that you want to use.
I use jars. What can you use?
Now let’s work on this together and your job is to make it work for you by personalising it. I’ll use jars and you use anything that suits you. I have a jar for work, a jar for my family, a jar for my worries, a jar for my free time, a jar for sleep time and so on. I bet you are finding this interesting. Basically if I am with my family having dinner, and all of a sudden my mind starts going crazy about work, I calm myself down, I access my jar for work, I visualise opening the lid and putting the worry in there.
Then I continue having dinner with my family because there is a time and place to sort this jar out. What I have done is I put it in the right compartment so I can deal with it at the right time. After dinner I can go to my room and say “right I’ll open the jar so I can deal with my ‘work’ worry right now since I give myself an hour of work time in the evening”. Also don’t forget the dinner jar, this can be used at dinner to bring up anything I wanted to with my family. It’s a great skill to learn.
How can you be a good boss?
You can be a good boss by making good decisions, that consider other people and their feelings. This means if you make a decision that suits you, yet upsets your brother or sister, then you should have another think about it, and see what you can change. Sometimes this is not possible, but if you are aware of your impact on others, then you also have a certain responsibly. Your words /actions can be very helpful when dealing with sticky situations
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Make sure you don’t intentionally hurt others or yourself. This is very important. Key word here is ‘intentional’. Mums, dads, brothers and sisters are people too. They have feelings just like the rest of us. It’s not ok to think that it’s ok to hurt or harm them at all. In fact if you have been doing this regularly up till now, you can change your ways. Would you stick up for your brother or sister if someone was bullying them at school? I imagine most of you would say “yes”. Then why at home would you want to stick a bird through their brain to hurt them?. I don’t get it. If you are guilty of that sort of behaviour, snap out of it. Be that better version of yourself.
on making decisions
Demonstrate how good you can be by taking your time to think about and make important decisions. I, myself have made so many wrong decisions because I never stopped to think about consequences or if it was the right decision or not. There are so many things to consider of course. Surely you want to make sure you are not hurting someone else for your own gain. Take your time and look at all aspects. Ask yourself questions to help you work it out. What will happen if I do, what will happen if I don’t, etc.
MAKING THE MOST OF YOUR MIND
How can you turn your mind into your best resource?
YOUR AMAZING MIND: what is the difference between your brain and mind?
Turn your mind into your best resource by accepting and being friends with it. I bet you never thought of it like that. Aim to trust yourself. Get to know right from wrong. Get to know your ideal self. After all, you want to be the best version of yourself. The most helpful thing to get you there is ‘yourself’.
If you want to play your best tennis, you will do it by encouraging and believing in yourself. You will be the one visualising your best performance, and you will be the one setting your alarm to get up early for practice. You will also be the one that includes tennis into your schedule so that you can fit it in. So whilst you can rely on others for direction and advice, you get on the same team and create a great supportive friendship with yourself.
RESPECT
Help your mind be your best resource by respecting what it does for you. That’s right your mind is so amazing it has already been trained by you over the years to work for you. Sometimes it needs to get put into line because it gets cheeky and becomes an attention seeker. Don’t ignore all the ideas and solutions it gives you, and don’t forget to be grateful. All the skills you will learn, and expand on, you have your mind to thank for that.
Direct your mind to better ways of being, and form a partnership with it. Your little mind sometimes wants to assume it knows what other people are thinking. However you cannot read other peoples minds, so please stop pretending that you can.
How can your mind help guide you?
Your amazing mind can help you make decisions. So many times you may not know what to decide. But your logical brain can help you. So find yourself a set of questions that you can answer to lead you in the right direction. Trust yourself. Remember YOUR AMAZING MIND: what is the difference between your brain and mind?
Your creative mind can help with remembering, and luckily it can help you to forget. It’s so strange when you can’t remember something and then your amazing mind starts throwing clues at you, and you soon remember. It just pops up, and you get the answer. Sometimes I think the amazing mind does it deliberately for a little chuckle. Chuckle brain!
Your mind can help with letting go of things. Its like the real nice, mature part that helps you let go and move on. Letting things go doesn’t have to be a difficult thing to do. Sometimes it’s easier so just go with it. If you gobbled down my last chip, I may look at you as if “how could you” and then you can let go of it by having your own chuckle. Whatever works!
How can you look after your mind?
YOUR AMAZING MIND: what is the difference between your brain and mind
You can look after your mind by getting good sleep. But does the mind really sleep? Or does it go off to play and dream and be cheeky? Well that’s not for us to figure out right now. The point is, we are human and we need to recharge our batteries. So we lay down, plug into our pillows and let the resting body do all it’s repairing, rebooting and recharging.
Look after your mind by eating good food and drinking plenty of water. This is a golden rule. All successful athletes for example eat good food and drink plenty of water. I’m not saying you have to act like one, but I’m just giving you a tip. Food is your medicine. You get one body and one body only. So look after it. Then it will use all its coping skills to fight diseases and repair all your cuts and bruises.
EXERCISE
Doing some exercise is great for the healthy mind. Doctors agree! Let’s say you feel angry or sad, a little walk or a small jog can really help get rid of some of that feeling or unwanted energy. You can even dance on your own private stage (your room) and you will feel great. Give it a try. You don’t have to wait to need to it to feel better. You can make it part of your healthy routine or wellness plan. I do it almost every day to keep my mind and body feeling good. YOUR AMAZING MIND: what is the difference between your brain and mind
C.O.P.E. FORMULA: I will use the 4 initials for any relevant word in a short paragraph.
Challenge the thoughts from your busy mind by opening up the window in your mind and letting the unnecessary ones float out. Not all thoughts are necessary, so you can let them go.
Observe and notice when your mind gets too busy. What time of the day does it happen? Is there a pattern? Become your own detective.
Plan ways to calm your mind. Look at your own strengths and the things you like to do. Do you like to write, draw, imagine? You can plan when to think of things and when not to. Thats right, make a schedule to keep unnecessary thoughts under control.
Explore your new way of operating your busy mind by changing your old pattern of doing what your busy mind use to do. Start today. Make some rules, your mind loves rules, so its ok to make some. Now have a think of YOUR AMAZING MIND: what is the difference between your brain and mind?
THANK YOU
Amanda Dounis
Positive Thinking Clinic
1/7 Magdalene Terrace
Wolli Creek, 2205
0458 850 850
amanda@positivethinkingclinic.com.au
www.positivethinkingclinic.com.au
It is important to know that resources are available if you are experiencing anxiety , and exploring other websites, such as mindaustralia, and headspace.
I welcome you to visit my podcast to learn about anxiety basics.
In any emergency you can always reach out to lifeline.
Help is also available for kids, and support for families too.
You may find my Coping Skills Handbook a great resource. It teaches kids how to cope with everyday challenges using a simple C.O.P.E. formula.
You can find out more about me on natural therapy pages or psychology today
I am a level 3 member of the Australian Counselling Association and am a member of the Hypnotherapy Council of Australia
Here is a short clip on FAQ at Positive Thinking Clinic https://youtu.be/GNWaRVsC-OU
Ways that Positive Thinking Clinic can help you https://youtu.be/m0z-f0PSQNM