Neurotherapy of Colorado Springs

30/09/2022

Our biases can trick the mind. These thought patterns can impact our ability to mindfully attend to actual evidence and facts.
Substituting the polarizing and assumptive language that we use in our self-talk with more neutral and balanced words, can help to soften the impact of distorted thought
patterns. Asking more questions, doing your own research can be a valuable tool in replacing cognitive distortions with more accurate thinking for ourselves, of the world around us, and our relationships. Simply identifying the distortions in our thinking is how we can retrain the mind.

You Can Train Yourself to Keep an Open Mind!

Work to keep an open mind. Allow yourself to learn new things. Search out perspectives from multiple sides of an issue. Try to form, and modify, your opinions based on evidence that is accurate, objective and verified.
Don’t let yourself be swayed by outliers. Be discerning and aware of your shortcuts.
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30/09/2022

Our biases can trick the mind. These thought patterns can impact our ability to mindfully attend to actual evidence and facts.
Substituting the polarizing and assumptive language that we use in our self-talk with more neutral and balanced words, can help to soften the impact of distorted thought
patterns. Asking more questions, doing your own research can be a valuable tool in replacing cognitive distortions with more accurate thinking for ourselves, of the world around us, and our relationships. Simply identifying the distortions in our thinking is how we can retrain the mind.

You Can Train Yourself to Keep an Open Mind!

Work to keep an open mind. Allow yourself to learn new things. Search out perspectives from multiple sides of an issue. Try to form, and modify, your opinions based on evidence that is accurate, objective and verified.
Don’t let yourself be swayed by outliers. Be discerning and aware of your shortcuts.

24/09/2022

Heuristics are all in your mind! They are mental shortcuts that can help us or trick us.

They are efficient ways of responding when we are faced with situations or decisions.

These mental shortcuts can facilitate problem-solving and probability judgments. These strategies are generalizations, or “rules-of-thumb”, reduce cognitive load, and can be effective for making immediate judgments. HOWEVER, they often result in irrational or inaccurate conclusions.

There are specific types of heuristics that can occur in different contexts and range from social interactions to ads that pull us in, political mudslinging and other information from the media.

Remember, not everything is as it seems — your brain is trying to operate as efficiently as possible . Heuristics are all in your mind… they can be very helpful and sometimes dangerous. True mental freedom means understanding your heuristics!!

24/09/2022

Heuristics are all in your mind!
They are mental shortcuts that can help us or trick us.

They are efficient ways of responding when we are faced with situations or decisions.

These mental shortcuts can facilitate problem-solving and probability judgments. These strategies are generalizations, or “rules-of-thumb”, reduce cognitive load, and can be effective for making immediate judgments. HOWEVER, they often result in irrational or inaccurate conclusions.

There are specific types of heuristics that can occur in different contexts and range from social interactions to ads that pull us in, political mudslinging and other information from the media.

Remember, not everything is as it seems — your brain is trying to operate as efficiently as possible . Heuristics are all in your mind… they can be very helpful and sometimes dangerous. True mental freedom means understanding your heuristics!!

15/09/2022

"We cannot change what we are not aware of, and once we are aware, we cannot help but change." - Sheryl Sanberg

Our knowledge and beliefs create the mental maps we use to navigate though life.  But what happens when those maps are wrong, leading us astray?  How do our cognitive biases limit us or even do us harm?  

Sometimes believing something that isn't true is relatively harmless. However, at times our false beliefs and blind spots can limit our growth, the quality of our relationships, and cause us pain.  What's worse is that our biases blind us to the fact that the root cause of our suffering is in fact our biases.  Leaving us stuck.  

In future posts we will dissect what heuristics are - the shortcuts to decision/judgment making and the wide rage of biases that we develop through conditioning.

Remember, our brain’s autopilot is only trying to keep us safe — that doesn’t mean it’s always reliable.

Let’s change your brain to change your life!

06/09/2022

Knee-jerk reactions? Quick temper? Easily triggered? These are all reactions. These are not responses. Responses are what you choose and reactions are what are programmed through past repetition. Reactions are part of your subconscious auto pilot. If you find that you are moving through your day, and reacting to situations, people, problems, and issues in ways that you wish you hadn’t, then you will have to consciously choose them. are reacting.
Instead of responding.
Designing a new response pattern requires some deliberate thought. This is where techniques like mindfulness, meditation, HeartMath, and Neurofeedback are VERY helpful. You will have to spend some time sitting, and quietly thinking about the person you would like to be and the responses you would like to be having. You have to Take the time to design a new way to be. Otherwise, you are 95% auto pilot will take over every time!

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30/08/2022

Hey you! We talk about Mindfulness a lot, but do you really know what it means?

I invite you to bring attention to your breath right now as you’re reading this.
Is your breath short, shallow and quick?

Did you only open Instagram to keep your mind stimulated or distracted ?

What if I told you that if you want to find more stillness, it’s not going to be through scrolling on your phone?

Mindfulness is focusing your attention on your state of being. It’s easy for us to lose grip on our presence when we’re occupying our minds & bodies with distractions.

We own our mind, our mind doesn’t own us.

Tell anxiety to sit in the back, you’re taking over the driver seat now.

Allow your breath to ground you into the present moment — take a moment to take 3 deep breaths. Don’t rush them. Take this time to slow down and anchor into the present moment.
Become aware of your body internally and externally. Get still & notice your heart rate.
Find clarity and pause.
Welcome to Mindfulness 🧘‍♂️

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25/08/2022

Mindfulness is simply the awareness of the present moment. Often we are on autopilot, living out habitual thoughts, feelings and behaviours. Mindfulness provides space to experience life for exactly how it is, not how our programmed minds have interpreted it to be. Move out of unpresence by
non-judgmentally observing your thoughts and emotions objectively, without “good" or "bad". Then focus your attention, the opposite of muti-tasking, this means to slow down and do just one thing at a time. By becoming more aware of the spaces between our thoughts and our actions, we can give ourselves a newfound ability to reduce unwanted thoughts and patterns and target (subconscious) autopilot patterns we are wishing to rewrite. It’s hard to change what we aren’t aware of. You’ll be surprised with what shows up- when you slow down.⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣

23/08/2022

15/08/2022

When trying to change anything in your life and establish a new habit, this concept is one of the most important things to understand.
I have patients come in often expressing their frustration with the resistance they feel towards the things they know they need to do to move forward.
The question I ask them is, “What things are imperative for your next steps in life and why haven’t you been doing them?”

Often, there’s a lot of shame about the repeated starts and failures for all the things to be done and the failure to commit.

The things you need the most are the biggest changes you need to make. And surprise surprise, your brain will panic and resist that!

When you understand this, you can offer yourself grace and stop feeling guilt or shame for trying and not seeing the results you wish for.

It makes it a lot easier for the “doing” when you fully understand this concept.

We have an internal chemistry built around the old ways.
Change is inherently uncomfortable because we are having to rebuild a new chemistry through repeated action.
We are cultivating a new homeostasis.
Continue showing up, you got this!

06/07/2022

Frequency increases
familiarity and familiarity breeds fearlessness.

This is a big concept and I can’t stress the importance enough.

When you are leaning into self improvement you are leaning into change. When you are leaning into change your brain is going to raise a cautionary flag — it’s supposed to.

What your brain is really doing in those moments is asking the question, “Is this the good kind of uncomfortable or the bad kind?”

The bad kind, for example, is the sliver that you have in your finger. You go to grab something and it hurts. You look at it and realize you have a sliver. Remove the sliver, that’s not an uncomfortable you want to get used to.

The good kind is change. The changes we all need to be making for self improvement. For example, when we start an exercise routine we can become uncomfortable. It’s new. It’s challenging your body. It’s new sensations and a disruption to old routine. It’s ok. Keep working out. As your becomes more familiar with the sensations and new routine the less it raises the cautionary flag.

This is why frequency is so important in the beginning stages of healthy change. It allows your brain to become familiar, which then allows your brain to drop the fear reaction.

This goes for emotions too. Lean into your feelings. Stop running from them. Get familiar with ALL of your emotions and you will soon find that you now walk into new things in your life with the confidence that you can handle whatever emotions show up. Anxiety no longer causes you to avoid. Fear of being hurt no longer causes you to avoid new relationships.

Frequency - Familiarity - Fearless

28/06/2022

Get comfortable with being uncomfortable: If you are not outside of your comfort zone, you are not learning. Change (even for the better) can feel uncomfortable because it forces us to change our homeostasis. The brain is designed to use discomfort as a cautionary flag- “Is this something I need to get away from or not?”
Some types of discomfort are not good and need to be stopped immediately. BUT, certain types of discomfort are necessary for growth.

We need to learn to discern between the two.

To master the “good” kind of discomfort, it’s a mindset shift— embrace impermanence, lean into the discomfort and self regulate to rewrite the nervous system’s response to change. By doing this, comfort with discomfort is your new state of being and what was once challenging becomes easier to navigate.

23/06/2022

Download pages are an amazing tool and first step towards “non-time” (see previous post). Our brains have become way too used to the busy pace and the constant stimulation that are now a western societal norm. We are in constant go mode, work, kids, relationships, vacation, activities, shopping, …. go, Go, GO!!! Then when we have a break, even a brief one, what do we do…. we pick up our phone, tablet, laptop and maintain the busy pace internally. Make no mistake, just because you are sitting, you are still in GO mode, it’s just more internal.

If you don’t create time and space for your brain to “download”, process, and wander, it WILL take it. It typically does this when you lay down to sleep, or meditate, or even read. Basically as you slow down it starts addressing all of the other mental balls you’ve had in the air that you haven’t had time to deal with because your focus is constantly on something and in “go mode”. It’s often called “monkey mind”.

My favorite first step towards non time is download pages. Sit quietly for 5 minutes. Let your brain go anywhere it wants. After 5 minutes just start writing all of the things that are coming up. The act of writing them down helps your brain feel like it doesn’t need to keep juggling them. Do this for 15 minutes sometime before bed. Watch what happens

Get into the habit of doing this and you are well on your way to creating the habit of non-time. Decluttering first . Then watch it evolve. It’ll become the place where your new “aha moments” show up. Where creative ideas come from. Where insight forms. Commit to a two week trial of this. I guarantee you’ll notice a positive change.

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23/06/2022

Download pages are an amazing tool and first step towards “non-time” (see previous post). Our brains have become way too used to the busy pace and the constant stimulation that are now a western societal norm. We are in constant GO mode: work, kids, relationships, vacation, activities, shopping, …. go, Go, GO!!! Then when we have a break, even a brief one, what do we do…. we pick up our phone, tablet, laptop and maintain the busy pace internally. Make no mistake, just because you are sitting, you are still in GO mode, it’s just more internal.

If you don’t create time and space for your brain to “download”, process, and wander, it WILL take it.

It typically does this when you lay down to sleep, or meditate, or even read. Basically as you slow down it starts addressing all of the other mental balls you’ve had in the air that you haven’t had time to deal with because your focus is constantly on something and in ‘Go’ mode.
This is often called the “monkey mind”.

My favorite first step towards non time is download pages. Sit quietly for 5 minutes. Let your brain go anywhere it wants. After 5 minutes just start writing all of the things that are coming up. The act of writing them down helps your brain feel like it doesn’t need to keep juggling them. Do this for 15 minutes sometime before bed. Watch what happens

Get into the habit of doing this and you are well on your way to creating the habit of non-time. Decluttering first . Then watch it evolve. It’ll become the place where your new “aha moments” show up. Where creative ideas come from. Where insight forms. Commit to a two week trial of this. I guarantee you’ll notice a positive change.

14/06/2022

Non-time, what is it why is it so important?

Non-time is a chance to sit in silence without the expectation of performance. This is where we pause to spend more time being instead of doing.

This can look like waking up in the morning and easing into the day with an intentional and slowed down presence.

Instead of starting your day with urgency of getting things done, practice cultivating moments of just sitting with yourself, your breath and your thoughts.

Giving your brain brief moments of non-time allows ideas to flow that would otherwise go unexplored.
Taking the time to ground yourself can radically change your headspace and physical/emotional energy.

Steven Kotler described non-time as “The vast stretch of emptiness that belongs to no one but me. It is a period of taking a break from the sensory bombardment of the world, it is time for daydreaming and psychological distancing”

Practice blocking out moments to just think and be.
What does a non-time practice look like?
An example of how we can utilize this space is through what we call “Download pages”
Here, you don’t worry too much about working out your feelings or revelations as you would with journaling. Whatever is spinning around in your head, just write it out. Get it out and down on paper so you don’t have to hold it in your mind.
Our brains need the space to just sit still.
Non time can be when you wake up, before bed or even throughout the day.

How will you show up for yourself and honor the moments of non-time?

14/06/2022

Non-time, what is it why is it so important?

Non-time is a chance to sit in silence without the expectation of performance. This is where we pause to spend more time being instead of doing.

This can look like waking up in the morning and easing into the day with an intentional and slowed down presence.

Instead of starting your day with urgency of getting things done, practice cultivating moments of just sitting with yourself, your breath and your thoughts.

Giving your brain brief moments of non-time allows ideas to flow that would otherwise go unexplored.
Taking the time to ground yourself can radically change your headspace and physical/emotional energy.

Steven Kotler described non-time as “The vast stretch of emptiness that belongs to no one but me. It is a period of taking a break from the sensory bombardment of the world, it is time for daydreaming and psychological distancing”

Practice blocking out moments to just think and be.
What does a non-time practice look like?
An example of how we can utilize this space is through what we call “Download pages”
Here, you don’t worry too much about working out your feelings or revelations as you would with journaling. Whatever is spinning around in your head, just write it out. Get it out and down on paper so you don’t have to hold it in your mind.
Our brains need the space to just sit still.
Non time can be when you wake up, before bed or even throughout the day.

How will you show up for yourself and honor the moments of non-time ?

06/06/2022

I have always loved this lyric.
What a great metaphor. So simple and so beautiful and says SO MUCH.

The “rain” is coming for all of us. It can’t be avoided. And it turns out… IT IS VITAL FOR GROWTH. We need it like we need oxygen, food and sleep.

Challenges are where we learn everything.

We really have to embrace this.

I see so many people trying to lead “sunny day only” lives as if the “rain” is something to be avoided.

In fact it seems to be one of the issues with social media- we only see the snippets of someone’s “sunny” moments. Which frankly, is a load of BS.

It’s not real folks.
Upon us all a little rain must fall.

If you really want to show us something… show us your rain storm. Tell us what you learned.
Tell us what it felt like?
How did you grow afterwards?

Maybe I can learn from your storm.

That’s life. That’s real. Rainy days are normal and necessary for growth . That’s the rain song we all must be apart of.