#97 Relaxation Hypnosis for Stress, Anxiety & Panic Attacks - QUESTION AUTOMATIC THINKING - (Jason Newland) (15th February 2020)

Hello and welcome to jasonnewland.com. My name is Jason Newland. This is Relaxation Hypnosis for Stress, Anxiety and Panic Attacks. Please only listen when you can safely close your eyes.

Now, I suppose I should mention something that probably doesn't need to be mentioned to regular listeners. But this podcast is more than the title. Even though the title is pretty damn long.

You know, Relaxation for Hypnosis for Stress. There's quite a lot of things in the title. But there's more to the podcast than that.

More to the recordings than that. It could really be titled, Mental Health, you know, kind of covering all aspects of a mental, emotional and wellbeing, or ill ease, or you know, problems, issues and stuff. So it kind of, it does overlap into other things.

Just thought I'd mention that. For those that listen regularly, you kind of know that anyway. Because I do talk about different things.

I also do talk about myself as well. Because it is my favourite subject. I'm very self-obsessed.

Obsessed? Obsessed. Not really, more kind of. But, you know, I thought I'd just mention that for the new people that are listening for the first time.

And I try to give my own personal experiences. I also try to maybe introduce some different ways of thinking, possibly. It's really just kind of my opinion.

Or my, not even so much opinion, my thinking around a specific subject. Just what I think about it. What thoughts come into my mind, what ideas come into my mind.

And that's kind of what this is. It's a mishmash of different things. And yeah, so I'd like to thank everyone for listening.

Those that listen regularly. The audience is growing continuously. So thank you.

You're the reason I do it. If there was no audience, I wouldn't do this. And there's lots to watch on Netflix.

So yeah, I've, there are other things to do, but I choose to do this because I'm hopefully helping people. Hopefully. Also, please subscribe to the podcast if it's useful, if you like it.

Also, it lets you know when the new recording's coming out. So if you're listening on Spotify or Stitcher or iTunes, CastBox, you just press the subscribe button, maybe even leave a review, a little comment, something nice. That'd be lovely.

And if you'd like to support this free service to help cover costs, you can send me a PayPal gift at paypal.me forward slash Jason Newland. The link's on my website. Well, that's all the boring stuff out of the way.

No, it's not. It's loads more coming. Yeah.

I thought I'd talk about worries and worrying. Because I get a little bit, sometimes get a little bit, a bit aggy about this, the idea because with stress and anxiety, the amount of times that I've been asked, what are you worried about? What are you stressed about? And sometimes I can answer that question. Right now I'm stressed about you asking me that question.

That's annoying me. That gets getting me stressed. Sometimes there's nothing obvious obvious that feel that I feel like I'm worrying about or I'm stressed about.

Yet, I have the physical symptoms of stress, my personal physical symptoms, and it could be different for everyone. For me, I get heart palpitations. Sometimes I get headaches.

I get very tired. And sometimes it's hard to differentiate. My words aren't really working today.

But you know what I mean, differentiate between what is the stress? What is the bipolar? What is the you know, what was kind of going on there? But part of the bipolar is my stress levels kind of fluctuating quite rapidly at times. And I am able to control them in various degrees of success. But sometimes, I'll be honest, I don't want to control them.

But sometimes I want to experience it. Because it's almost like observing a play. Just observing it.

So I've got these symptoms, I've got the physical symptoms, I can change the physical symptoms. Using hypnosis, using relaxation techniques, meditation, mindfulness, there's ways to reduce it. Sometimes I like to kind of just observe it.

Okay, so you know, maybe I've got a twitching finger, or I used to get twitching muscles, like proper like my arm, my chest, my stomach sometimes. And that was due to stress. There's no other possible reason for it.

I was physically, I've been having medicals for years, checking me out, because I've been going to the doctors, and they've been checking to see if it's physically, you know, a physical issue, and it never has been. Although I personally believe that depression, anxiety is a physical thing. You know, it's not, it's our brain, isn't it? As I say that, my right ear started ringing, which is quite weird, that's a bit strange.

I almost feel like I'm a dog, and someone's blowing one of those weird whistles. So our brain affects our moods. And the brain is an actual organ, it's a physical thing, isn't it? Just like a heart, just like your foot, just like, you know, your bum, your hands, it's a physical thing.

It's part of your body. And we kind of get, I think, with the mental health side of things, and get a little bit caught up in the mind, when actually the brain, it's the brain that affects the mind. And if the brain heals, or changes, I say heals, because sometimes brains, there's things they can do, scientists now, where they can retrain the brain, where they can kind of reactivate parts of the brain that maybe have been a bit dormant, or maybe been injured, heal parts of the brain that have been injured by strokes, by brain injury.

And the behaviour in the person changes, the moods in the person changes. So I'm quite a strong believer, or I'm open minded to the idea that mental illness, or ill ease, stress, anxiety, mental health, whatever you want to call it, whatever the condition may be, whatever the diagnosis is, it's a physical thing. Yes, it's an emotional thing, and it's a painful thing at times.

And it could disrupt your life. I know mine disrupts my life, bipolar has disrupted my life since I was a child, in a huge way, massive way. You know, if I just had a, what I would in my brain, in my life would have called a normal brain, I would have had a steady job, had a wife, had kids, had a house, had a, you know, probably grandchildren by now.

I'd have had a normal, in my, you know, my perception of what I was brought up to believe was normal, a normal life. But I haven't, because I've had a chaotic mind, kind of, a bit of a chaotic life at times. So I actually said to my psychologist, a couple of, about a year ago, I said, if you ever get a chance, and you need people, patients, to do brain studies, where you, you know, do the, you know, they put the electronic things onto your head and scan your brain for activity, not for activity, but to see what's going on inside.

I said, I nominate myself to be part of that study, because I truly believe that my brain is, there's damage there, there's damage. Everybody's got damage in their brain, everyone's got brain damage, but not, not in the way that perhaps we brought up to believe what brain damage is. Brain damage doesn't mean you're in a coma, or that you're unable to do anything.

Brain damage is just banging your head quite hard when you're four years old, falling down some steps, or playing football, and hitting the ball. Every single person has bashed their head quite a few times over their lifespan. You know, even someone with the bestest childhood in the world, where no one's ever, you know, no one's ever hit them, they've never been bullied at school, nothing like that.

They still would have bashed their head, falling over, been skating and falling over. So we've all got damage to our brains. So maybe you shouldn't use the word brain damaged, but we've got, because that is a very, it's an emotive term, isn't it? So we all have parts of our brain that has been damaged.

But it doesn't mean, and this isn't me talking, well it is me talking, but this is, this is studies. I'm talking from the scientific studies that have been done. So basically, the way the brain is structured, there's no way that it can't be damaged by the way we live our lives.

The only way is if we walked around with big crash helmets the whole time from being born, because kids are always falling over and bashing and getting, you know, knocking into things. But it doesn't affect us in such a huge way as obviously something like a car accident or someone being injured in the boxing ring or, you know, sort of like a blood clot or those kind of things.

I mean, that's on a different level.

Or someone with a stroke where part of the brain may die, you know, just due to lacks of oxygen or whatever during that period when they're waiting to be treated. Or a seizure, a really bad seizure could have an effect to the brain. Dementia, of course, Alzheimer's, those things where the brain starts to die, starts to basically deteriorate.

And the expert, the leading people in this, the leading scientific minds, actually say that dementia and Alzheimer's starts 30 years before the effects are even start to show, before you even get the symptoms. It starts a long time before. So then it kind of makes me think, well, it's about maintenance of the brain.

What can we do to protect the brain, to make sure that no more damage occurs? What can we do to help the brain to repair itself, to start activating other parts of the brain? And listening to this is helping. Listening to music helps. Doing things with both your hands or both your legs helps because you're activating both parts of your brain.

Reading, doing something new, learning new information, all those things help to create new neurological networks and connections and stuff like that. Diet. I can't give any dietary advice.

Well, I can't give any advice on anything, but dietary, no. I eat too much chocolate, drink too much Coke. I'm like five minutes away from diabetes, but that's my choice because I like drinking Coke and eating chocolate.

So I'm not doing anything dietary to help my brain. As I say that out loud, perhaps I feel I should, to be fair. It sounds a bit pathetic, actually, when I'm almost proud that I eat unhealthily.

I don't always eat unhealthily. I don't actually eat that much, really. Anyway, so the brain, the theory with, you probably know this, but you might not know, the theory with mental illness.

Let's call it illness, not mental health. We can call it mental health issues, but it's an illness. Physical, you know what I mean? I know I've said this before, but people keep still using the term, so I feel like I should embrace it because that's what everyone's using.

They're talking about mental health. And I think the reason why it's being encouraged is because it's a positive statement. Mental health, focusing on the health aspect, the positive rather than mental illness.

But the mental health isn't the problem. Because if everyone had mental health, well, I wouldn't need to do this. In fact, I wouldn't be doing it because I wouldn't have any issues myself, because I'd have mental health and I'd be fine.

So I suppose we could add the word issues, mental health issues, which almost sounds a bit psychotherapy, doesn't it? I got issues, man. You got issues? So, the aspects, the way the psychiatrists look at it, or psychotherapists, psychologists look at it, would be you've got an environment that can affect someone's mental health. You've got genetics or DNA, you know, inherited from your family.

And then there's kind of brain trauma, head trauma, or a brain injury that's not really been noticed. So, like, there's something physically wrong with the brain. In the same way that some people, some people are born with three toes.

The difference is you can't see the brain. And that's the, that's one of the jokes with the specialists in brain exploration and the fact that psychology, psychotherapy, has been around for over 100 years. Yet, it's the only science, it's the only medical science that treats the organ that it doesn't even look at.

It doesn't even look at the brain, yet it treats the brain. The only time the brain is looked at is when it's like a surgical thing. Someone's got a tumour, or there's something, brain damage, or a brain clot, or something like that, then they look at the brain.

Or if it's, someone's having seizures, then they'll put you in a machine and then look at the brain to see what's going on. If you've got bipolar or schizophrenia, depression, stress, anxiety, don't look at the brain. Personality disorders, don't look at the brain.

They guess. That's what they do. They guess, educated guess, based on sharing a group of symptoms with millions of other people, forgetting that we're all different, very different people.

And also, basing that diagnosis on the person in front of them actually being honest, because, you know, I could go into a doctor's or a hospital. I go to the doctors and say, yeah, my hand's hurting. And the doctor could say, oh, it's broken.

I'd say, no, it's not broken. It doesn't hurt enough to be broken. It's just, it's a mild discomfort.

Can you move your fingers? Yeah, I can move them a little bit. It's not broken, don't worry. It's just, it hurts.

And they can x-ray it and see that it's broken. They don't have to take my word for it. And if a doctor's any, well, anyone can see a broken hand anyway.

You can see someone's broken a hand. But you can't see inside the brain. So, the psychologists, psychiatrists, they're guessing.

And then they give medication, and then based upon the results of that medication, that kind of gives them a second guess. Well, we must have guessed right, because you're no longer going really high or really low, or you no longer hear voices, or your stress levels have reduced, whatever it might be. And, you know, I suppose from some perspective, it's pretty impressive that they can do it from guesswork.

But, you know, if you got into an Uber and Stevie Wonder was at the driving wheel, you'd get out again, wouldn't you? You might ask him for his autograph and ask him to sing a song. But you need someone that can see what's going on. That's how I feel.

I want my brain to be looked at by a specialist. But not when I'm dead. I want it so that I can gain something from it.

Because if they say, oh, there's part of your brain that's deteriorated, and maybe you were born like that. But we can stimulate that part of the brain with electronic therapy, because they've got this stuff that they can do. And then it can change the way you feel and behave.

I know there's an example where this specialist said that his nephew was really, really dark, like in his mind, really planned to do horrible things. He was only a kid, he was like seven or eight. But he wanted to get a gun.

This is in America, and he wanted to he had fantasies about doing horrible things. It was violent and everything. And the specialist wanted to put him into a care home to basically lock him up for the safety of society.

But this doctor, who happened to be a brain specialist, said, well, before you do that, let me get him checked out. So they checked his brain, they did a scan. And he had a tumour in his brain, a benign tumour that he was born with, but he had it in his brain, removed it.

Behaviour changed instantly. I've just seen the irony, I'm talking about, I've started just talking about worrying. Now I'm talking about tumours in brains.

And that's not where I was going with this at all. So please forgive me. I was just talking about the smallest change in the way your brain operates can affect your behaviour.

And by behaviour, you're thinking. Because behaviour before that is your thoughts, isn't it? We don't just do something, we think about doing it, even if it's a million miles an hour, it's still a thought first, then behaviour. It might be thought, emotion, then behaviour, but it's thought first.

It's just so quick, sometimes. And that thought comes from your brain. So a small change.

And it doesn't have to be brain surgery, it doesn't have to be anything massive like that. It can be meditation, it could be sitting down for 10 minutes and observing how you feel. Observing those worries, because I want to come back to the word worrying, because that's what I started with, and I keep going off track when I make recordings.

That changes your brain, though. Listen to these recordings. It might seem a bit all over the place when I make these recordings.

Talk about one thing, end up talking about another thing. But there is a point to it. It could be a bit vague sometimes, but there is a point to it because changes can occur.

And I've been told by people that changes do occur. People have told me who listen to this podcast. And it could be quite annoying, especially if you find me a bit annoying because I'm rabbing on and maybe I talk about myself too much.

And then, you know, you're listening to it. And maybe you listen for a few days, and you start to notice that you're feeling more relaxed. And you can also, you can feel relaxed, but also be a bit annoyed because this weird man who makes a podcast, who owns a ferret, has helped you to feel relaxed.

But that's okay. Because you don't have to be in love with me, or even like me, in order for changes to occur. Because it's not really about me, it's about you.

My life is all about me. Your life is all about you. So, small changes change everything.

If you think, what's that game? The game where you pile all those things on top of each other? I mean, it's a game of cards, obviously, is that one. But not, you've got a Kaplunk, that's one. And I don't remember the name of it, but you probably think, know what I'm talking about.

They're kind of like bits of wood. And I've only ever seen it played in a pub. Years ago, I played on one.

It's big, but you could have like five, it's infinite amount of pieces you could have. Or it could be dominoes, stacking dominoes on top of each other, you know, in a kind of the shape of a house or whatever. But you take one out, and it can make no difference at all.

And some nobody, this is a weird thing. Nobody, I don't think in the world would think, well, that's it. I've taken one domino out, or I've taken one card out of this big, big balance stack of cards, I've taken one out, it's not falling over.

Nothing's going to make it fall over. Who in the world would think that? Be honest. You wouldn't, would you? I don't think even a small child would believe that.

Mind you, I think a small child would just knock it over. They wouldn't bother with taking one bit out. I know I'd just knock it over, probably.

I know my brothers would, if I'd been building it when I was a kid. I really should let go of that. So you know that even though you might take one domino out, that big pack, that big stacked pack of dominoes, it might be matchsticks, it might be playing cards, whatever it is, take one card out.

And the stack is still there. You got 51 cards still all stacked on one, you know, all placed intricately, perfectly balanced. You don't walk away, do you, and think, that's it.

I'm not going to try anymore. Given it a go. Ain't worked.

Give up. You wouldn't do it. No one would, would they? But isn't that what maybe sometimes we do with this kind of stuff? When we try maybe to help ourselves, reading a self-help book, trying a technique, a relaxation technique, maybe trying a therapeutic technique where, you know, someone might have tried acupuncture.

Didn't work, therefore, first of all, never do acupuncture again because it doesn't work. And secondly, there's no point trying everything else because nothing else will work if acupuncture doesn't work. That can be the mindset of some people.

And I've been there as well. I've had those thoughts. Like, what's the point? This doesn't work.

Nothing else is going to work. And I was wrong every time I thought that. So the fact, or the possibility is that although the acupuncture might didn't feel like it might work on that occasion, maybe you needed more sessions.

Generally, acupuncture isn't a one-off thing. I've had acupuncture many times over the years, mainly for stress and anxiety. I've tried so many different things and everything I think has been beneficial.

I've had Chinese herbal, Chinese massage. I've had Reiki. I learned to do Reiki.

In fact, I got a certificate in it. I've had massage. I learned to do massage at college.

Reflexology I've had. I did two courses in reflexology. You know, counselling.

I did a degree in counselling. I go a little bit overboard sometimes with not happy just to have it done. I want to learn how to do it as well.

That's just me. And it's a bit overkill really, isn't it? Imagine me going out for a meal. I've had this lovely meal.

Now I've got to learn how to cook this meal. No. I've got to open my own restaurant.

No, that's ridiculous. But everything has its merit. That's kind of what I'm saying.

Everything has its merit. But you don't give up just because one thing doesn't work. Or if you do, why? That's the question.

Why? Are you not worth more than that? The answer is yes, you are. You're worth way more than that. And if you flip it, you flip it.

I'm telling you off now. Sorry. If you flip it, I like to flip things.

I'm a constant pancake flipper. Shrove Tuesday is actually coming up. It was pancake day in England.

I don't know if you have it in other countries. I say that because most people listen to this. So in America, Australia, Canada, Netherlands, Norway, and England as well.

Even, I don't know, various different places. So if you flipped it, and someone you cared about, and this might be annoying to hear this every time I talk, because I do keep mentioning, think about someone you care about, and what would you say to them? This isn't my idea. This is just a standard thing that I think anyone would think about, isn't it? What would you say to that person?

Your grandmother, your daughter.

If they said, oh, no, I tried that. It didn't work. You say, oh, okay then.

You wouldn't, would you? Why wouldn't? In fact, I'd hound them until they tried something else. In fact, part of the reason I did reflexology is because I wanted to help my nan with her pain, because she had chronic pain. I did hypnosis with her, helped her with her shoulder, because she had crumbling bones, osteoporosis.

But you wouldn't just say, okay, don't worry. You tried that. Honestly, just stay in pain then, whether physical or emotional.

Yeah, okay. You wouldn't do that, would you? I wouldn't. I wouldn't even do it with people that I didn't really care about, because that part of me would kick in.

I'd say, well, have you tried this? And then I'd flip it again, because when I'm on the other side of that, I find it annoying when people offer advice. I do. I'm aware of that.

And people ask that I've got a lower back pain. Oh, have you tried this? I've heard myself saying, I've tried everything, which is a lie. And they'll swear by something, saying, well, this osteopath is phenomenal.

I had chronic pain ever since I gave birth to my 17 children all at one time. I've had problems with my pelvis. But I went to this chiropodist or whatever, and he just helped my whole pelvis now feels like it was when I was three months old.

And I stopped listening. To be fair, I probably stopped listening to that story, but I'd set it up. And there's a little bit of rejection straight away, rebellion.

It's almost like I want to think for myself. I want to come up with a solution myself. Now, I can reduce chronic pain with hypnosis.

It can be done with meditation and mindfulness. So I know how to do that with myself. I know how to reduce pain for other people as well.

And I say for, maybe not everyone, but for a lot of people I have over the years. But does that mean that someone's going to take that? I could say to you, I've got, there's 54 chronic pain relief sessions on a podcast, and you might have chronic pain. You might not listen to that podcast, because you want to think for yourself.

But the point is, as long as you do think about other alternatives, then that's okay, I think. But if you get set in your mind saying, nope, that didn't work, nothing else will, what's the point in that? Who's that helping? I mean, imagine if we did that, we started doing that all the time with food. Didn't like that, I'm not eating, didn't like that bit of food, never going to eat again.

That kind of wouldn't work, would it? I had a date, didn't like that man, didn't get on. No, no more men for me, thanks. To be fair, I have heard people say that.

And I think it's just so sad that people would limit themselves in that way. I've done it myself, so I'm not judging anyone. We've all messed up in some ways, haven't we, with relationships, I suppose.

It's hard to know, isn't it? It's hard to know what to do right in that stuff. Didn't learn much at school when it came to the opposite sex or any kind of relationships, statuses and activities and behavior. So again, I've gone off, I've gone off target, now I'm back, I'm back.

So your brain affects, your physical brain, the organ, your brain is what affects your mind, what affects your mood. And the brain is affected by the environment you're in, the environment you're in now, potentially. And by the environment you're in now, I don't necessarily mean, well, in that case, you need to move, you need to get out of where you are straight away.

However, and you have to take responsibility for what you do when you listen to me, I'm not responsible for what anyone does. I'm just going to put that straight there. However, if somebody is living in an abusive environment, so I won't go into any further details, I'll leave you to figure out what that means to you.

If someone's living in a very harmful environment to their well-being, mentally, physically, emotionally, or to be fair, emotional abuse is classed as, and it's a weird way to put it, but sort of from a psychiatric point of view, or from a counseling perspective, emotional abuse is kind of the top of the list of the worst, because every type of abuse involves emotional abuse, because it leads to emotional trauma.

Someone emotionally abusing someone, even if they don't touch them physically, or hurt them, or any of that stuff, it messes with the brain in a way that, you can recover from it, but it's very, very, I don't know, it's like a worm, you know, it's like some kind of germ, virus kind of thing going on, and it's not always easy to find it.

It can be found, and it can, you don't have to find it to heal it, you know, you don't have to, if you drop something on the floor, like a little needle, or a little pin, you don't have to find the pin in order to make the floor safe, you just get a vacuum cleaner, and you just basically clean the entire room with that vacuum cleaner, and you'll get that pin.

So sometimes it takes, you know, you have to do a lot more work, but it's worth it, because at least then you know it's done, you know that that pin is found, so you don't have to necessarily focus on one small thing, you focus on the whole thing, and just like when you look at the, you know, that big stack of cards, playing cards, 51 left because one's been taken out, didn't topple the cards, might have weakened it, probably has weakened it, but it doesn't show, because you can't see something that's weak necessarily,

just like a tree, trees blow down when it's really windy, always, there's always some trees blow down, but they're not always obviously weak, they're clearly weak if they get blown down, because trees, they last for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years, don't they?

So for a tree to get blown down by the wind, even really strong wind, and I say, I'm not talking about like typhoons, I'm talking, you know, 60 miles an hour, like extra strong, but not like crazy strong wind, it means this tree was weakened previously, but no one knew, you know, it wasn't visible, if you'd be able to see underneath, maybe the roots were broken, rotting away perhaps, so I kind of think of the stress, anxiety, as being like that tree, and I'm kind of getting in there,

listening to this is rotting away those roots, breaking a few of the roots, and then something will happen, maybe you'll listen to a recording that'll really, like, oh, okay, that makes sense, I might actually make sense one day, trust me, if you listen enough, you might hear something that makes sense, and it pushes the tree over like a big gust of wind, and the tree falls over, and then you might think, well, how did that push the tree over, it's just a bit of wind, it wouldn't do that to a healthy tree,

not realizing that actually, all the other recordings you've been listening to, and all the other things that you do to help yourself, being kind to yourself, giving yourself a break, noticing the negative things that you say to yourself, and ask, check in, is that true, am I really useless, am I really ugly, am I really no good, well, no, actually, I'm no Brad Pitt, but not many people are, in fact, only one person is, so, I'm more like a coal pit, rather than Brad Pitt, I'm like a coal pit, oh,

I like that, and so, those roots have been broken and destroyed already, so ultimately, a really strong person might have been able to push that tree over, but would never attempt it, because he'd never think it would be possible, so someone could come along and push the tree over, and it would look like some kind of miracle, like something out of a superhero film, but actually, the whole thing's rotten, and they may already know that, or they may have been digging underneath and cutting all the roots, and then put the mud back on,

put the dust, and knew that it was ready to fall, I'd be surprised if anyone actually went to that much trouble, but I guess it would be possible, I mean, when I was a kid, we used to chop a few trees down in the garden, and that's what we used to do, we'd get to the roots, you have to cut the roots first, before the tree, you could cut the tree down, but you still can't get the stump out, unless you cut at the roots, I'm an expert on trees now,

I never realized, so that's partly what this happens, what's going on here, is all the other recordings you may listen to, and all the other things that you do, noticing the things you say to yourself, and correcting it, saying, you know what, no, that's not right, any horrible things you might, you know, any put-downs, any just nasty things that you might say to yourself, and we all do it, and no one on the planet doesn't, I'm sure, I'm sure even the Dalai Lama does it, sometimes finds himself saying negative things to himself, you know, perhaps caught, so I'm too damn happy, I smile too much, I don't know, whatever it would be, and then finally catching himself, it's like, oh, is that true?

So all the little things start to actually send a healthy virus into that tree, that tree of negativity, that tree of stress, that tree of anxiety, that tree of depression, it's a little virus, but it's a healthy virus, in a sense of, it's unhealthy to the negativity, it's unhealthy to the anxiety, it's unhealthy to the stress, but it's damn healthy for us, and as that happens, your brain starts to change, because that's another thing, plasticity is the term, which basically means the brain can heal, the brain can change,

it doesn't stop growing, and I don't mean growing as in size, and suddenly you have a massive head, I'm talking about it doesn't stop growing, the cells can still grow, the brain can still repair itself and heal, we never stop learning, so if there's a part of your brain, but we've all probably got a part of our brain that isn't as, not working as well as maybe it could, I think the part of my brain for mathematics, for, you know, anything out of, other than adding and subtracting,

a bit of times table, anything other than that, that part of my brain, for some reason, is very idle, but the part of my brain which just yabbers on and on about nothing, it's very active, which isn't always a good thing, I suppose, but it could be, I don't know, so the brain can heal, or we could change that to the brain, your brain does heal, continuously, it's healing and changing, and those little holes in your brain that show up on a brain scan can fill in, so deterioration can reverse by the way you think,

so if you live a positive or a more positive life, your brain will change, you meditate every day, your brain will change, just in the same way as if you feel negative every day, your brain will change, just not in the direction that you want it to, so the brain is always changing depending on what you're thinking, so the brain affects what you're thinking, the automatic thoughts, so the purposeful thoughts affect your brain, which means we can't just rely on automatic thinking, we need to take control,

we need to sit in the driver's seat ourselves, not be on automatic, autopilot, whatever, or basically, it's just removing the bus driver from the bus, not hot yet, I say, please, I'll take over, and you decide where you want to go, you decide why I don't want to stop at that bus stop, because there's not enough room on this bus for that pram, so you keep driving, so you're in control, and then that changes the way your brain is, changes the growth of your brain, the pattern in your brain,

the neural connections, which then affects your automatic thoughts, I should be a doctor, shouldn't I, I think I explained that quite well, so this part is the taking control of the conscious thinking, the purposeful thinking, so the automatic thinking would be that stuff, I'm fat, I'm this, the negative thoughts, that's not conscious, that's automatic thinking, so we have to catch it and say, I'm taking, I'm getting back in this seat, getting back in the driver's seat here, Mr.

Bus driver, you're not driving in the right direction, and you take back and say, no, that's not true, those things I was thinking is not true, I need to correct it, so basically, if you were to send a text, I like these analogies, if you're going to send a text to someone, and like a lot of phones, they have auto correct, or whatever it is, you know, spell, auto spell, it's not a good idea to just send it without checking, because quite a lot of the time, the sentence won't even make sense, or it will

say the wrong thing, and I've actually done that a few times and had a few responses, one from my stepmom saying, I don't think you meant to send that to me, did you?

I said, yeah, I did, but it was just wrong, it wasn't supposed to say that word in it, I just misspelled it, sorry. So, if you think of it in that way, the automatic mind is the automatic spelling on a text, on a phone as you're texting, and what you do is say, oh, I'm overriding that, that's not correct. Now, with the AI technology, and with phones, smartphones, and tablets, so even, I think, things like Alexa, they can learn from those corrections, and that's what we can do ourself.

We can learn from our own corrections, so we correct the automatic thinking. I suppose this is cognitive behavioral therapy, because if you go to things, what you think affects how you feel, which affects what you do, behavior. So, if we're on automatic the whole time, our behavior is going to be affected by our automatic thoughts, which affects an automatic response, an emotional response, which then causes us to behave in a certain way automatically.

Now, if you're going to do that, it might as well be robots, or do you want to be a human being? You know, an adult, not a small child, that's what a three-year-old does, that's what a four-year-old does. It's not what adults do. Well, it is what adults do, but it doesn't have to be what adults do.

It's a choice. It might sound harsh, but it's true, and I don't mean all the time. I'm not dismissing mental illness, I'm not at all, because, you know, I have to deal with it myself.

So, it's not something that perhaps you can do all the time, and there's no reason why you should, but it's something that you can start to do a bit of, that can improve your life, can improve your brain, can improve your experience. So, when you get the automatic thoughts, notice them, correct them. That way, that thought doesn't lead, you block it before it gets to the point if you're feeling this emotion, which leads to this action, which might be an argument, might be harmful to yourself or others, even in a mild way.

So, that thought is blocked. You can question it. Is it true? It might be true.

That's the point. It might be true. It might not be true.

Can it be proved? You know, I think this person thinks this. Well, can you prove that? Can you read their mind? No, you can't. That's the answer to that one.

There's a lot of mind reading goes on in human behavior, and we cannot read each other's minds. Regardless of how well you know someone, you cannot read their mind. All you can ever do is guess.

It's much easier to ask, and even then, they might not tell the truth. So, you can ask someone, were you upset by what I said? When I said that you're way much fatter than you were last year? That person might, they probably are upset, and it's an upsetting thing to say, isn't it? But if that person said to you, no, it doesn't mean they weren't upset. It doesn't mean you have to assume that they were upset.

Because if someone says something about it, saying I'm fat or whatever, I've got a belly. I joke about it. So, there's a good chance I'm not going to be that bothered.

But don't assume it. So, it's kind of that situation, I think, with mind reading. But I would say it's probably more important to focus on our own minds.

Before we start dealing with other people's brains, let's deal with our own first. And I was going to talk about worrying, but I'll do that on another day. I'll do that another day.

And it was going to be kind of a technique, a little exercise to do, but that will be another day. I've got that in my mind now. So, I'll do that.

And I ended up talking about this instead. So, to cap it off, automatic thoughts. Notice them.

What are you thinking? Question it. I don't mean question everything, because that would be so tedious. That would be like listening to me for 24 hours a day.

I couldn't even handle that. You know, you don't want to be doing it all the time, because you also want to spend time being kind to yourself. You want to spend time doing things that you enjoy.

Maybe spend time relaxing. You know, doing relaxation exercises, meditating, yoga, or reading a book. Also, you know, going to work, spending time with your loved ones, watching telly, whatever things you enjoy doing.

And other things that maybe you have commitments to do. But when you can, try and notice the thinking, the thoughts you have, and question it. Don't question the nice thoughts, though.

So, if you're thinking, I look pretty today. Don't question that. I'm clever.

Don't question that. Don't question the nice things, because that's nearly as annoying as Andre deciding to make loads of noise as I'm doing a recording. Just question the stuff that's potentially harmful or negative.

And it blocks it from becoming an automatic emotion, which leads to an automatic behavior. It's kind of stopping the automatic start part of it. I suppose it's almost like, I've worked in a lot of factories over the years.

And the best example would be when I worked in a bakery. And there'd be all these conveyor belts moving from one part of the factory to the next. So there'd be the part which I'd put the dough into each individual cut it the dough into each individual portion, put it into the baking tray on the baking tray or into the loaf baking loaf tray thing.

And then it move automatically to another section. And then maybe have egg sprayed onto the top of it. And then it'd be moved to another part and you know, to go through the whole process.

And the baking tray probably be greased beforehand on another part of the automation. And then it goes through the oven. If you hold which does happen or did happen quite a lot.

One part of that production line, that automated or automatic production line, one part that gets stopped, the whole system stops. Even if it carries on, it doesn't work. Just like when you pull that last that next card out of that 51 pack of playing cards are stacked.

There might be 50 there. And it's still standing up. But you know, eventually you're going to take one out and the whole lot is just going to fall down.

Just like that tree falls down in the wind, even a weak wind could blow down a weak tree. Because that positive virus has gotten into that tree and just got rid of those, those roots. And that big pile of dominoes again, take a few out and eventually they'll fall over and land on the floor as well, which is annoying.

So I'm going to go now because Andre's been very, very active for some reason. So plus it's time isn't it? I've been talking for over an hour. Wow.

So what it is just try and catch the thoughts, the automatic thoughts, catch them. And then just get into the driver's seat of that bus. And you choose where you're going to go.

In fact, you could even go in a different direction. You pull up, you can be in that bus. And then you can decide what thoughts to let onto the bus.

So you get to the bus stop, open the doors. A thought comes in, stands there saying, yeah, no, I don't think this is going to go anywhere. I don't think I'm ever going to be able to, never going to be a success.

It's just pointless. You can say, no, you're not coming on. See ya, get out, bye.

Then the next passenger gets on saying, yeah, I might be good at this. Well, I'm good. I'll make a nice cup of tea.

It might be the most smallest thing. It's like, yeah, come in, positive. And you decide what you allow.

So it's no longer just automatic. And of course, we need to be able to operate automatic a lot of the time. Otherwise, we wouldn't be able to function if we did this all the time.

But do it when you can, because it changes. And also, it starts to be like that virus that's in the tree underneath, getting rid of those roots, working away when you're not even thinking about it. That positive virus that gets rid of the negativity.

And then the tree falls, and it's like, wow, didn't see that coming. And you feel different, even more positive than you did before. And things that used to bother you seems to kind of, it's almost like they disappear.

It can almost feel like, where are they gone? Or you can remember them, but why did that bother me? I used to have a terrible fear of spiders. Now, nothing. Zero.

I'm not a big fan of massive ones, like tarantulas, but just generally, you know, but normal spiders don't care. And I can't even imagine why it would bother me. And that can change in an instant.

Something that used to affect us just goes. Just goes. And the energy behind it just zaps.

It's literally like, you know, it needs the wind, because it's operating by sail. You're operating with an engine. You can use the sail, but you don't need the sail.

You've got an engine. All these little things, these thoughts, these negativities, they're all operating by sail. They need that energy.

That wind in order to operate. You take that wind away, or if you just break off the old sail, it ain't going nowhere. We'd drill a hole in a few of the bottoms of those little boats and let them sink.

It's up to you. So thank you for listening. Remember to be kind to yourself, because you deserve to be happy.

And what can you do to be kind to yourself? Do something nice. Doesn't matter what it is. Just do something nice.

Something you enjoy. So thanks for listening. Take care.

Speak to you next time. Lots of love. Bye.