Coaching with LDS values

Episode 58 Be the Boss of Your Brain Welcome to the podcast, loving On Purpose. I'm your host, Bonnie Lyman. If you're having trouble navigating through your relationships with your adult children, if you are struggling to connect with them or having specific challenges, you're in the right place. I am Bonnie Lyman, and this is episode 58. Be the boss of your brain. Welcome back, my friends. I'm just hearing from more and more of you. If you're not on my email list, you need to get on that. I'm just finding all sorts of things to share with you. And the reason I like to share 'em with you is because some of you enjoy having me share them with you. Most of the people in my family, I love them dearly. I know they love me, but they don't seem very interested in some of the things that get me real excited. Or things that I feel are great ideas or things that make me feel kind of tender, but that's okay. I think you'll come to find out everybody is really most interested in themselves and probably me included. And so that's why I always wanna share something with someone where in my emails or. Podcast, I can't ask you questions. I can't have an interactive conversation, so I get to do all the sharing. So probably if I went into my relationship with those family members that need the best, with that mean the best to me, mean the most to me. I would be thinking not what I wanted to share with them, but be curious about their life. , but I've got some thoughts on that that maybe we'll talk about on another podcast about just how we communicate. And all I can say about that, regarding that is we. We are not at the forefront of their lives. If something were to happen to us, I think we would be, but they've got so many other things on their mind, so many other things they're trying to figure out. So many things interested in that. I'm really not interested in that. It often appears. That they're not interested in us at all. But that's really not the case because every once in a while I'll get a question from one of 'em and I think, oh, that was so nice, and I just savor it. I don't go down the road of, they should. Be more interested more often, but that's a whole different topic. But it does relate to our brain and being the boss of our brain. I. Because when I have those thoughts that I'm not getting enough attention, that I'm being mistreated, disrespected, it's because of a runaway brain, but we tend to hang out. in that area, in our relationships, that it is maybe unequal in the amount of attention and love we get from them. And sometimes we feel stifled that we can't even give the. Attention and love to them because it feels like it's annoying them, but then our brain thinks that's what we want and our brain just wants to help us. So it finds more and more evidence. As to why they're disinterested in us, that causes us to continue to feel pain. So today, We're gonna talk about being the boss of your brain and how you do that and how it benefits you to live the life you want to live. When you are the boss of your brain, you tell it what you wanna. You come up with deliberate thoughts, you start focusing on good things deliberately, and then your brain says, oh, I see you want to feel better, and then it goes to work to find you more and more evidence that will help you feel better. So, . I haven't even begun my podcast yet. You guys. Those were just thoughts that were roaming around my head. I asked my husband today, I said, Jeff, I wanna interview you. about your thoughts about having three daughters and a wife that are all in the coaching business and your thoughts about it. And he said, no, I don't think you wanna do that. Don't get me started. So, . He is a good supporter of all this, but I, I think he thinks we give too much attention to it, but that's okay because the wonderful thing about my husband is he, he lets me do pretty much anything I wanna do except spend a lot of money on him. He doesn't like that, but what a kind thing that is. So let's talk about the human brain a little bit. The human brain has a hundred billion neurons and each neuron is connected to 10,000 other neurons. . So this brain we have is very complicated. Sitting on your shoulders is the most complicated object in the known universe, and that statement was said by a name of Machio Kaku. M I C H I O and then K A K U. But we have one of those, so we have something very valuable and that's one of the reasons why we don't wanna get hooked on drugs. It just really messes with this wonderful. Object that we have that can service, but our brain likes to solve problems. And so it's trying to figure out, do you see the glass half empty or do you see it half full? And whichever way you tend to gravitate toward. It's going to help you find more evidence to view the world in that way. And I think most of us know, most of us want to view the world through a lens of seeing the glass half full. When you meet someone new, do you see something positive about them? Or is your first impression something negative? We lived in Colorado Springs for a time in our life, and we were mostly unhappy there. We didn't like the bishop of our ward because he seemed cold and standoffish. He was a retired military colonel. We didn't like the weather. It was very erratic. If you wanted to have a picnic, you had to have it before 2:00 PM because you didn't know if there was gonna be not only a thunderstorm, but an electrical thunder storm that set off the smoke detectors in our house. When it snowed, it was blowing snow. We had just come from Utah. , and I still call it Utah Snow, where the snow just falls in these beautiful chunks to the ground. When we were in colos, Colorado Springs, there would be no snow in the backyard because of the wind blowing it to a different place, and there would be an eight foot drift caused by the wind in front of our garage. We also missed our old friends in Utah and since there were lots of military people there in Colorado Springs, there was the Naval Academy and there was um, And or Air Force where they had something to do in this mountain where they kept track of everything that was out there in our atmosphere. And then on one end of town we had an Army military base. And from the conversation that went on our. View was they were always trying to prove why their branch of the military was the best defense for our country, but this was our story that we were telling us. Did we ever like living there? I would have to answer. No. We so wanted to move. To Utah where we had friends and snow that just fell lightly, maybe for a long time to the ground, and we kept thinking the same. Thoughts over and over. We kept telling ourself the same story about this place where we lived. We kept finding more and more evidence of what we didn't like about it. So the result was we kept feeling unhappy. I didn't know that the most powerful. Valuable part of our body was my brain. When I understood just what a magnificent asset it is to me, my whole outlook on life changed. I became the force. Behind my destiny of living the life I wanted to live no matter where I was living, and no matter what was happening around me, my brain tells me when I'm hungry, it tells me when I'm sad. It tells me when I've broken a bone. It tells me when I'm in danger. It tells me when I'm excited. it even tells me when to breathe. So we need to have respect for this magnificent, um, part of ourselves that we were given some parts of our brain we have control over. And some parts we don't. I don't have any control over my brain, which I'm so glad because I'd probably screw it all up of when to breathe. Of my heart beating, of my digestive system, of my spleen working, whatever that does, I haven't figured that one out nor my appendix, and to keep my kidneys functioning, all those things that automatically does. I don't have any control over that. And like I said, I'm glad cause I'd probably mess it all up. But we do have power over our brain to guide it to feel what we want to feel. We tell our brain what we want to feel. , then we decide which thoughts will allow us to feel that way. And so because we do have control over choosing our thoughts, that also means we have control over choosing the way we want to. The result is we can choose to feel more of the feelings we want to feel, and less of the ones we don't want to feel. Just by the thoughts that we choose and we choose to believe in our thoughts always cause our feelings. Always. Now, I'm not talking about being tired or hungry. Those we refer to not as emotions, but as sensations, and those are not caused by our thoughts. Even though you could control. , you could probably diminish that some. If you were in a place that, um, where you couldn't get food. I think I could go longer without food than I could without sleep. I, I think if I had gone two days without sleep and I was driving, I'm sure I would just fall asleep at the wheel. There's just some things we can't. But we have been pro, we have programmed our brain from childhood to think we had no choice in feeling how we want to feel. We have been conditioned to think that it's everything that's happening to us or what someone says to us or what the weather is that makes us feel a certain way, but it's not true. It's how we view. This situation, it's what we focus on what's happening or what we make this situation mean. That triggers thoughts about that happening, that circumstance that causes us to feel a certain way. Whatever thoughts we choose to think determines if we experience a positive emotion. Or a negative emotion because we are human, we don't consciously make a deliberate choice all the time about what thought to think that will cause us to feel a positive emotion. There are no bad emotions. Even negative emotions can serve us as in being sad when somebody close to us dies. But if we want to feel less negative emotions, then we have to think less negative thoughts. Now we know life is 50 50. I think life works out a little better than those odds. When we become the boss of our brain, I believe that we can get to a point that we can have. Live a 70 30 life where 30% of the feelings we feel are negative and 70% are positive, but that doesn't necessarily mean. that we only had 30% negative circumstances happenings in our life, but when we become the boss of our brain rain, even those negative things. , like if it was to snow every single day here, I, I wouldn't like that. I would have negative thoughts that would cause me to have negative feelings, but if I decided. that I wasn't gonna change the circumstance. In other words, I wasn't gonna move in time if I chose to. I could focus on something different about this circumstance of it's snowing every day because the circumstance is neutral. It has no power over me. , whether I like it that it's snowing or not is all in my control by my thoughts and my brain is going to help me if it sees that I want to start viewing. Let's just say that it snowed 365 days that I wanted to. A more positive outlook on it so that I could feel more positive feeling by choosing to focus what good it might be providing this earth. The good news is then we can reprogram our. We can become the boss of our thoughts. I can't reprogram it to make my heart slow down or speed up by my thoughts, but I can reprogram it to think thoughts that will cause me to be happier, but it takes. Practice. Our brain is like a computer when we Google something. and I love that Google is now a verb. A dropdown menu appears of suggestions of what we might be looking for. And this is a side note. Do you know that if I Googled in something and you Googled in the exact same thing that that dropdown menu. would have different suggestions for you than for me. When we always focus on the negative and it can just be a little thing, maybe think everything is going right, but then we say, oh, but so and so again didn't come. To our family dinner and we have told our brain that that is what we're searching for. We have given our brain to look for the negative brains thrive on assignments and problems to solve. It goes to work to find all the evidence it can. To give you the thoughts to keep feeling negative, and I kind of had a caustic tone in my voice, but our brain is doing that out of kindness. Because your brain thinks that's what you wanna focus on. It thinks that you want to feel negative, so it's just going to help you. It's going to give you that dropdown menu of several negative thoughts to think that would be useful to you. In maintaining your negative focus. So if I had the thought, I don't like living in Colorado Springs yet, then that opens up some wiggle room there and my brain goes, What did you just say? You're thinking you might learn to like it here, and the more we can kind of think thoughts in that direction or start focusing on. Maybe give yourself the assignment. I'm going to find three things today that I like about living in Colorado Springs. As in, because we moved to Colorado Springs, it afforded the opportunity to push us into buying a house instead of renting. My brain will pick up that I have given it a new assignment. Oh, so now she thinks that maybe it was a good thing to move here. I think she wants to feel happy. Here. I'll start looking for evidence. To help her find reasons to be happy. So we gotta kind of talk to our brain. This is how we give our brains assignments that will help us be more positive. That will help us to see the glass half full instead of half empty. We take responsibility for our feelings, but you have to decide to do that, and we don't blame the circumstance. We take responsibility for choosing thoughts. That will help us to view the world in a more positive way or the circumstance or what's happening, whether it's the weather, whether it's a difficult daughter-in-law. Number two is we tell our brain how we want to feel. That is so powerful. That is my most favorite tool to teach my client. You can decide ahead of time how you are going to feel. My daughter, Jodi, uses the example. She's already decided that she's going to love the people that her children marry. She's already decided that, and so. That's kind of being the boss of her brain. So it hasn't come yet. They haven't even really started dating, but she's gonna be looking for things that she likes about 'em. She said, I am going to love Oliver, that's her son wife, even if she is a pole dancer in a strip club, because I have decided. That I want to love her. So she has told her brain how she wants to feel. Number three is we focus on some positive perspective of every situation that difficult daughter-in-law that complained. About the food, about the noisy kids, about the small house. Just find something about her that you can focus on that is positive. Is she well groomed? Do you like her hair? Does she have beautiful teeth? I know those are kind of external things, but just practicing this helps you become the boss of your brain when you start focusing on the positive. Number four is your brain has now been given the cue that you have given at a new. And when it gets that new assignment, it wants to help you find evidence of why your new thought is true. Your brain number five, helps you see the evidence by helping you choose. More positive thoughts about the situation. Remember, our brains love solving problems. They thrive on it. And so this is a new assignment, a new, we wouldn't say a problem, but it's a good problem. It's something to solve, and that's what I mean by a problem. And then number six. When we take responsibility for our feelings and we don't blame outside circumstances, and we start focusing on things that are positive, you start feeling more positive about the circumstance. Easy to say. Harder to do. The key is how willing are you wanting to practice thinking that positive thought. You want to feel, love and connect. With your adult children. That's what we all are craving. Most of you that listen to this podcast. . So if you want to feel more love and more connection, you're gonna have to be the boss of your brain and tell it and reprogram it to focus on the positive. I believe this is how we open our mind. To receiving inspiration from the Holy Ghost. When we think negative thoughts about someone, we shut our minds and our hearts from feeling love. I feel you can't hear or. What the spirit is trying to say that will help you unconditionally love your adult children when all you focus on is what's not going right. Love is always an option. It always wins. It's always available. It doesn't need permission, and so in order to love another person, . We have to have loving thoughts about them and we can change from having judgemental thoughts by focusing on. Something that we like about them. If you struggle with this, I would love to help you. Instead of calling them consult calls, I now call them a relationship strategy call and in the show notes. or if you just go to bonnie lyman.com, you, you can click on there. You first, you wanna get on my email list where I'm giving you little bits of help all week long, but you can book a call with me and I'm, I'm gonna ask you some questions about your situation. And then I'm gonna give you a little bit of help, and then I'm gonna help you decide with clarity. Where do you wanna go from here? What do you wanna do next? I thank you for listening. If you wanna give me a review, just go down there and Mark A. Little star or write up a review. If you wanna email me at Bonnie bonnie bonnie lyman.com of a topic you would like me to cover, I would love to hear from you. I wish you all a very good week, and I'm very excited to talk to you next week. Because I will be in Hawaii and I will be, um, airing my podcast from there. I wish you all could join me. Love to all this Valentine's Day. Don't focus on who's not showing you. Just focus. How many people can I tell today that I love 'em? All right guys. See you next week if you like this bit. This episode and you felt it was of benefit to you, I ask you to share it with somebody that perhaps it could also benefit, but if you're still feeling kind of stuck in that you don't know how to apply what was talked about or where to start. On, on changing your thoughts, on changing your perspective, on bettering your relationship. Get on a call with me and we can have a discussion and I can tell you how to apply it and where we start, and then you get to decide what you want to do. About this relationship that maybe you're struggling with with your adult children. There is no reason to go on the rest of our lives struggling with our relationships with our adult children. Let's assume the best. Let's assume that we all love each other and we're just trying to figure out how to maintain our own boundaries. And respect another ones, but I can help you with everything. So just go to bonnie lyman.com and book a call. I can't wait to hear from you. .