Unlearn the Negative from Your Past

SUMMARY

In your life's experience, you’ve stored many things in your brain. You have memories that are pleasant — memories you’ve enjoyed — and, there are some memories that you did not enjoy that much. And it is those negative experiences that often hold you back from moving forward to where you need to go.

There's this wonderful thing that neuroscientists do know about the brain, and it's called neuroplasticity.

Neuroplasticity is the ability of the brain to rewire itself. So, even though those previous neural circuits are still there, what you can do is you can get a new set of conditioning by doing some certain behaviours, thinking a different way to the way you used to, and then building those new circuits. When those circuits are stronger than the other ones, then you operate out of positive.

This week, I will teach you a three-step process to go from those negative thoughts and beliefs into a positive dialogue and a foundation for you to be able to be who you need to be in every area of your life so that you can have what it is that you want to have.

1. Unlearn the things from the past

2. Relearn

3. Repeat

TRANSCRIPT

Do you have a mind like a sieve when it comes to remembering things that happened yesterday, but you’ve got a mind like an elephant when you are remembering things that didn't go well in your life in those times where you failed?

Well, stick with me because this week I want to help you to shift that — to remove it away — so that you can remember the times that you did.

Hi this is Grant Herbert, VUCA Leadership and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today I want to continue our conversation around building up your identity by helping you to unlearn the negative from the past.

We all have this amazing thing called the brain. Even though we know a lot more about the brain now than we did years ago, it still has a lot of mystery involved. Neuroscientists work tirelessly looking at new ways of interpreting what goes on in the brain. However, what we do know is that the brain is the most powerful supercomputer on the planet.

As we look at this topic this week, what I want to do is for you to think of a computer, something that we can relate to.

In your life's experience, you’ve stored many things in your brain. You have memories that are pleasant — memories you’ve enjoyed — and, there are some memories that you did not enjoy that much. And it is those negative experiences that often hold you back from moving forward to where you need to go.

Inside your brain you have an intricate circuitry of neurons wiring and firing together. You also have neural pathways that help you to go from an initial thought to a learned response in 1 to 250000th of a second or thereabouts.

What you need to do is make sure that those neural pathways are feeding you, and those thoughts are coming from “positive” and not the negative.

To do that, you need to change the conditioning.

Over many years, things have been said to you and about you and situations have occurred, and it's not those situations that were the problem, it's what you made them mean; particularly, what you made them mean about you.

As I've told the story before, when I was 15 I found out that I had been abandoned as a child on a doorstep by my mum.

Now, the good side of the story (if you have not heard it before, or for those of you who have) is that they went and got me. And it was because of mum's health at that point that led her to do that.

However, what I made that mean was that my mother didn't love me and therefore, I am unlovable.

Those “I am” statements are talking about your identity: Who you believe you are, and who you believe you are not.

Now, the real story, that was empowering, is that my mother loved me so much that she was willing to give me up so that I can have a life that she didn't think she could give me.

Yet, for years, I nursed and rehearsed this meaning, and inside my neural pathways I was building a framework around it. Everything that I thought, did, and every interaction that I had, was based on me feeling not good enough, not worthy, and not loved.

So, whenever I am in a situation where there was a possibility of me feeling rejected or feeling like the other person was against me (and all those different things that go on in our mind) my default was to go from that meaning and conditioning that I'd put together. My mini me (that small, sometimes not so quiet inner voice) would remind me that: “Hey Grant, you’re not good enough. Remember, your mum put you on a doorstep when you are a child.”

If we bring this back to a computer, it's like the cache in your computer. You've got the overall operating system and memory, and then you've got a cache that stores things that you use regularly so that when you want to use that again (within that same process) it can bring it up quickly.

And that's exactly what happens in your brain. Those things that are hardwired, that are rehearsed and repeated are there. That's why it only takes 1 - 250000th of a second for it to go from that initial thought to that learned behaviour.

As, I'm telling my story, I want you to think about you.

What are the beliefs, thoughts, and mindsets that you have hardwired in your brain that come up out of your “cache” when you are operating in your day-to-day?

Once you have discovered those, and have awareness around them, you can change them.

There's this wonderful thing that neuroscientists do know about the brain, and it's called neuroplasticity.

Neuroplasticity is the ability of the brain to rewire itself. So, even though those previous neural circuits are still there, what you can do is you can get a new set of conditioning by doing some certain behaviours, thinking a different way to the way you used to, and then building those new circuits. When those circuits are stronger than the other ones, then you operate out of positive.

That's the explanation of the “why”, and now we need to get into “how”.

The first thing that you need to do so that you can move forward and build these new neural pathways and therefore, have a new set of conditioning to operate from, is to unlearn the meanings and beliefs from the experiences in the past.

It's like closing a tab in your computer so that it's no longer there, so it's not visible and it's not drawing from that information.

To do that, as you build up this identity that we've been talking about, you firstly need to work out why are you still holding on to that belief, meaning and experience. Because that can be part of your sabotage strategy — your safety net — that you and your inner dialogue have created so that you don't do crazy things and step outside of what's comfortable.

So, step one in building a new positive conditioning is to unlearn the things from the past.

Let them go, and give them a different meaning, so that it empowers you rather than holds you back.

In the situation with my mum, what I did is I finally reconciled what happened in the real way, in the meaning that was empowering. To do that, I had to let go of what the pity party story was giving me. Ruminating on the fact that my mum loved me so much, helped me to go from “you are unlovable” to "you are very lovable.” Because of this, my behaviour changed.

So, what is it that you need to unlearn right now? What are you holding on to that is keeping you stuck — a roadblock that stops you from going from where you are now to where you truly can go?

The second thing to do then, once we have unlearned, is to relearn.

Now that you've let go, and you’ve unlearned and debunked the things that you’ve believed in, you now have a new learning. This new learning is the truth which is empowering and helps you to move forward.

Then the third thing to do is to repeat the process over and over again.

This is why I know this works:

You and I did that with the negative conditioning. You started with a thought and a meaning. Then you repeated it, rehearsed it and nursed it. You kept it there and gave it validity. Then, over a period of time, it built those neural circuits so that it went from that to the behaviour in 1 - 250000th of a second of a second or thereabouts.

Knowing that, we know that the brain can (using repetition of the same thought and the same behaviour) create new neural pathways.

There you have it, a three-step process to go from those negative thoughts and beliefs into a positive dialogue and a foundation for you to be able to be who you need to be in every area of your life so that you can have what it is that you want to have.

Unlearn, Relearn, and Repeat so that you rewire your brain.

Well, that's it from me for another week. Join me again next week when we continue this conversation around building up your identity, the foundation of everything that you do, by helping you to set no limits.

I'll see you then.