Written by: Dr. Erika Montgomery, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
One of the most important things that you can learn in order to have mental wellness is how to master your mind. According to neuroscientists and cognitive-behavioral practitioners, your thoughts are the building blocks for your experience. What this means is that what you think about all day, eventually becomes what you experience in your life. The problem is that not many people have been taught how the mind works and thus, don't know how to control their thinking. You have the power within you to change, simply by mastering the thoughts of your mind. Here are 4 rules of the mind that facilitate change and support your mental well-being.
Rule No.1 ‒ Your mind's job is to keep you safe.
By remembering what caused you pain and avoiding it, your mind keeps you safe. When you express negative words or feelings about a situation, thing, or person, your mind works to avoid the pain of that experience. The problem with avoiding the pain is that you will allow fear to paralyze you. Avoidance will limit you to only doing the things you are unafraid of doing. The key is to tell your mind, that even though you may be afraid of a new experience or it may cause you feelings of anxiety, you are still choosing to have the new experience, you will trust your mind to keep you safe, and your mind will gradually and ultimately dissipate your fear.
Rule No.2 ‒ Your mind does what it thinks you want.
It doesn't know the difference between what is real versus what is imagined. Your mind must believe that this is what you truly want. Knowing exactly what you want and creating a powerful image in your mind makes you feel the experience. The key is to decide what you want and make a daily practice of writing, visualizing, and speaking it into your life. When choosing your words, use words that are powerful, commanding, and provoke strong positive emotions. Use highly descriptive words that create a detailed picture you can see with your mind's eye. When the experience becomes real in your mind, the energy of your mind and body begins to attract the experience to you.
Rule No.3 ‒ Once the subconscious mind accepts an idea or a thought that you habitually entertain as true, whether true or not, it responds according to your belief.
When you give your mind a command, you will get a reaction or response from the subconscious mind according to what you believe. The subconscious mind is irrational; it perceives the world intuitively, it is the seat of emotion, the storehouse of memory, and does not reason. It's amenable to suggestions. The subconscious mind is most receptive to suggestions in the morning when you awake and right before you go to bed. The key is to impress upon your mind at these times, what you desire in words, prayer, gratitude, images, song or meditation. The use of repetitive and habitual affirmations or affirming statements spoken with strong emotion or written daily, helps to strengthen your belief.
Rule No.4 ‒ The conscious mind reasons, evaluates, decides, and perceives the objective world through the senses.
It is the watchmen at the gate, making sure your life is predictable and safe. It assumes past experiences will become future experiences, it likes what is familiar in order to avoid unpleasant experiences. The key to mastering the conscious mind is to become aware of your habitual thoughts. Awakening to your habitual patterns of thinking, feeling, and acting, you can decide if your current beliefs serve you in a psychologically or emotionally health way. The key is to understand that your thoughts are simply ideas, suggestions of the conscious mind, they are not true, and they have no power over you. You ultimately have control over your conscious mind because you choose what idea you give your attention to and what thought you focus on habitually. Where you place your focused attention, your energy will follow to intensify your experience. The key is to only give your focused attention to an idea or a thought that supports your emotional and mental wellbeing. Remember, you are what you think.
Here is a powerful analogy.
Your mind is like a garden of soil that is fertile for growing seeds. Your thoughts are seeds that become beliefs planted into the soil of your mind when focused on habitually. And overtime the fruits of your beliefs are harvested as experiences in your life. So when you have repeated experiences, good or bad, question what seed or belief have you planted in your mind? Remember, you have the power to change within you. The key to mastering your mind is planting seeds that will harvest your desires and not your fears.
Dr. Erika Montgomery, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Dr. Erika Montgomery is a Clinical Psychologist and Life Coach with 25 years of experience providing mental health treatment. Dr. Montgomery owns an online CBD dispensary with Wakanna, a Female Black-Owned CBD Company, and advocates for the daily use of CBD for mental and physical health. Dr. Montgomery is a Mental Health consultant with the Social Security Administration for the past 11 years. Dr. Montgomery hosts a weekly podcast called, "Master Your Mind with Dr. Erika," on the Law of Attraction Radio Network. Dr. Montgomery believes every human is worthy of unconditional love and has the power within to change. My motto: "Mental Health Is Human Health."
References
Murphy, J. (11/5/19). The power of your subconscious mind.
Dispenza, J. (3/26/20). Breaking the habit of being yourself.
