It’s very easy to get into a negative relationship with your own brain. Here’s this lump of cells, collected together to create the biological heart of your very existence, but because this very same organ produces thought, we can become the victim of our own minds.

The Computer

Your brain is like a computer. A computer doesn’t just appear out of thin air. It is created by shaping and programming matter to direct energy. How the heck humans figured out how to do this is beyond me, but I do know where they got the idea from… their own brains.

Like a computer, your brain accepts energy as information, runs it through the program, and creates a result by expelling energy as an output. What this looks like for a human is your sensory factors picking up energy from your environment, delivering that energy to the programmed neurons of your brain to create thoughts, which then triggers the chemicals of emotion to be released so that the body will take action (the output of energy). 

Your brain has only one primary directive: to make sure you survive to see the next moment. 

The Programming

Your life experience depends on your programming. We commonly think our life experience depends on the environment we are subject to, but I’d challenge that. I’d suggest that a person is programmed to accept their environment, and find that environment most comfortable. 

Take for example the person that is used to living at a lower income, because it’s what their parents did, perhaps their grandparents did, and what the social circle they grew up in did. Then one day they win the lottery, and are suddenly thrust into a lifestyle with a lot of money. It’s not uncommon for a person like this to spend all that money, and even over extend themselves, and end up back in a low income situation. Why? Their programming makes the low income existence more comfortable than the higher income possibility. Intellectually they want the higher income option, but from an efficiency standpoint, the programmed brain opts for the low income scenario.

If the computer wasn’t built with the programming to support having a large pot of money, it won’t. It will default to the programming that exists, and create behaviors (energy output) that will get reality lined back up with the programming. 

Friend or Foe?

You might be thinking right now that in a case like that, it sure doesn’t sound like that person’s brain is being their friend. But on the contrary, the programmed mind is just trying to get the person back into the space where they know how to survive most efficiently.

As far as the brain is concerned, it’s saving that person’s life. That’s a pretty friendly thing to do!

The issue comes into play when your intellectual, conscious mind has one opinion, and your programmed mind has another. And guess who wins out 99.9% of the time? Yep, your programmed mind, because it was designed to keep you alive.

Not to be your cheerleader. Not to make everything rainbows and daisies. Not to tell you everything’s going to be OK, and that you’re the best human on the planet. 

It’s there to keep you alive. 

The bottom line

Your brain is ALWAYS trying to do you a solid by keeping you alive. But it is a programmed machine that can only do this the way it learned how. And the way it learned how was the way it was taught by the humans that came before you. 

And it also has to contend with the chemical manipulating substances and inventions we smarty pants figured out. Addictive substances (drugs, alcohol, sugar, processed food) and behaviors (shopping, social media, binge viewing, porn) short circuit the programming of the brain, creating a loop that the subconscious mind has a very hard time getting out of.

Your brain doesn’t do this because it has it out for you. Your brain does this because your programmed mind is working under the assumptions that both nature and nurturing has worked in there. If something feels good, it should be good for your survival. Period. That is what your programmed mind, the machinery of it, thinks.

It’s not being your enemy. On the contrary, it’s just trying to help you survive one moment longer on a planet that could kill you pretty quickly.

At the end of the day, whether it feels like it or not, your brain is trying to protect you. But if you consciously know that programmed machine is caught up in an error, it’s your job to recognize this and do the work to straighten things back out. 

Your friend helps you, now help your friend.

Work with me

Do you want to develop a better relationship with your own mind? That’s what I did, and I can show you how.

Book a complimentary consultation with me to start exploring the possibilities.

Or, sign up for my email list for twice weekly coaching straight to your inbox.

Or heck, do both!