S3 E27 - Your brain is lying to you (and it’s not your fault)

Have you ever sent a text, watched someone leave you on read, or waited for an answer, and your brain immediately jumped to the worst-case scenario?

In this episode of Your Favorite Self, Sophia breaks down one of the most important mindset shifts you can make: when the brain doesn’t have information, it fills in the blank with something negative.

It’s not because you’re dramatic, broken, or “too sensitive.” It’s because the human brain is wired for protection, and uncertainty feels unsafe. When there’s a void, your brain tries to regain control by creating a story, and that story is almost always fear-based.

Sophia introduces the concept of ANTS (Automatic Negative Thoughts) and explains why they happen, how they show up in everyday life, and why the goal is not to eliminate negative thoughts forever. Instead, the real power is learning how to notice them, question them, and consciously choose a different story.

Using relatable examples—from unanswered texts, to business milestones, to social interactions—Sophia teaches you how to separate facts vs. the stories you attach to them, and how rewriting your internal narrative can completely change your emotions, behaviors, and results.

This episode is a reminder that your thoughts are not truth—they are flexible, moldable, and often completely made up. And when you learn to sit in uncertainty without spiraling, you gain a level of emotional freedom that changes everything.

If you’ve been feeling anxious, insecure, or mentally exhausted from overthinking, this episode will help you.

Purchase your copy of Unleash Your Favorite Self book and the corresponding journal.

Interested in one-on-one coaching? Click here to schedule a Roadmap session with Sophia.

Download the Favorite Self app in the Apple Store or Google Play.

Connect with Sophia on Facebook, Instagram or YouTube 

Have a topic you would love to hear Sophia address on the podcast? Send your ideas to hello@sophiahyde.com 

Transcript

Sophia Hyde (00:01.944)
Hi, welcome back to the Your Favorite Self podcast. I'm so grateful to be here with you guys today. I was talking to somebody recently on a coaching call about how our brains are wired to default to the negative and realized that, I don't think I've done a podcast episode on this and this is huge. If you've read my book, I talk about this. I introduced the concept of ants, we'll talk about that. But for those who haven't,

This may not be something that you know and or you may just need a reminder of like you've heard it before but then you forget to apply it. So we're going to talk about the concept that our brains every all because we're human when the human brain does not have information if there's a hole if there is a void if there is an unknown our brains default to the negative.

and it takes a conscious effort for you to choose a different story. Well, let's talk about what I by this. The easiest example is how if let's say I text my husband, he doesn't text me back. We're in communication usually a few times throughout the day, right? But let's say I don't hear back from him for hours. The human brain's default will be like, my goodness, I hope he's okay, there's something wrong.

has there been a car accident? You know, whatever the thing is, we start making up these stories and almost always the stories we go to are negative. But we can choose to write a different one. And it's like, maybe his phone died. Maybe he's in a meeting. Maybe he's, I know like when Brandon is shooting, he's not looking at his phone, right? And so I will be like, man, he hasn't texted me back. And then I just tell myself,

he'll text me back when he gets a moment. Like I know I'll hear from him eventually, right? But that takes an effort to not attach stories. I used to be the worst with friends. Like if they don't text me back, I used to think like they were mad at me or I had done something wrong or how did I offend or upset them? And it's none of that, right? It's almost always that they were busy. They never read it because they have like 300 unread messages. They never even saw it or they opened it, meant to reply, didn't reply.

Sophia Hyde (02:26.483)
It's usually nothing to do with us and everything to do with the fact that all of us are juggling so much information, right? But that is a great example of how it doesn't matter what the situation is. When we don't know the answer, our brain tends to go negative. So what do we do with this? There is a concept I teach all the time, comes up a lot, called ANTS, A-N-T-S, automatic negative thoughts. And this is the brain's protective mechanism.

So our brains are designed to protect us, right? That's like their whole job to keep us safe. And the reason that the ants happen is because if the brain is perceiving a risk, it's going to come up, it's gonna give, start giving you information to be like, are we sure this is okay? Are we sure we're safe? Are we sure everything's all right? Right, so it's gonna start throwing these thoughts at you, these automatic negative thoughts.

and you get to decide if you believe them or not. The reason this comes up a lot with my clients is because what I see, first of all, is sometimes I just hear an ant and then I'll call it out and we might reframe it. But I also hear people being unnecessarily hard on themselves. Like, I just wish I wasn't so negative or these thoughts I have, like this thing happened and I immediately attached a bad story to it. The power is not in like,

The power is in your ability to rewrite them, okay? It's in your ability to acknowledge them and choose a new and different story. But what I discourage people from doing is setting a goal or setting an expectation for themselves that one day they are magically gonna just like start being somebody who doesn't have negative thoughts, okay? So if something occurs in your life,

and your first thought is something negative. Rather than being hard on yourself that your brain went there, I want you to applaud yourself that you caught it right away and just choose a new story. Because you are not your thoughts. You are the being who can observe your thoughts. And so just because some weird thing crossed your mind, it doesn't mean that it's true. I want you to think of your thoughts as like clay or Play-Doh. They're these...

Sophia Hyde (04:50.571)
It's imagine the most tangible things that you can pick up and you can mold and you can shape and you can adjust and you can sculpt. There are things you can mess around with. You're not stuck with them as they are. And so let's go back to this text message example because it's relatable. I've just chosen over the last several years. I have just chosen to not be offended by people not texting me back. I just tell myself a story.

When I don't hear back from somebody, I just tell myself always, it's them, not me. It's them, not me. Maybe they were busy. Maybe they never saw it. I give everybody the benefit of the doubt. I just assume that they had the best of intentions. Maybe they glanced at it. Maybe they thought that they already replied. If it's something really important, then I'll circle back in a day or two or however long I've even been known to send some friends a message if something.

did have some sort of urgency to it, I'll say poke, poke. Did you see the message? yeah, my God, I saw that and I was at work and I didn't reply again. I've been meaning to get back to you. That is almost always what it is, right? So I just assume this is a them problem, not a me problem, right? But now take this and extrapolate it across your life. Where else are you attaching negative stories? Because this is what is really, really, really important.

for you to recognize is that part of being human is we tend to attach stories to like everything that's happening, everything. Think about how, I mean, I know this is where my brain went and fortunately it's negative. But like if somebody dies, what is the first thing that everybody wants to know? They wanna know the story. How? can't just be, I heard somebody talk about this there.

They had lost a sibling in a teenage car wreck and everybody in the town made that death be about drunk driving and advocacy and all this stuff. And they were like, can we not, can we just acknowledge that this sucks and she's gone? Like I don't want all this other fanfare. I just want it to be okay that I...

Sophia Hyde (07:14.965)
I just want to grieve my sister. I don't want all the stories and the extras and the people, all people ever want to talk about is like the advocacy side of it. And I just, I just want it to be, I just want to be allowed to just sit in the screif, right? But this is how humans are. We're just like, what happened? What's the story? Humans crave and want stories. And then we will also attach stories to things. And this is where your power comes in. The thought wheel I teach it's,

You can download it for free from my app. It's a tool in my book, it's in my workbook, but the thought wheel is so important because it teaches you how to reframe those thoughts. And one of those first steps is to actually look at what your thoughts are in your brain and then ask yourself, what is a fact and what are just stories about the facts, right? So let's use another example. The example that came up on a coaching call I did today.

was she was talking to me about her. Her brain went negative where she's been focusing on website growth. She hit a new milestone of the, it's the most number of views that she has. She got the newest report like emailed to her right from the Google analytics. She had reached a milestone where she had hit a new number of hits to her website that she had never hit before. And she said, why couldn't I,

congratulate myself or celebrate the fact that I had this new number I hadn't seen before. Instead, my brain immediately went to, well, it's not that number. I'm gonna make up these numbers. Let's just say like, I'm just gonna use some easy math here, rather than telling her exact situation. Let's just say that somebody's website gets a thousand views. And instead of being like, my gosh, a thousand people visited my website and celebrating that, you have a story where you're like, well,

you know, it doesn't really matter until it's 5,000, because that's the number I need to be at to convert or like you make up some number, well, it's still not good enough. It's still not big enough, right? This is where the thoughts versus like the facts versus stories matters because you have to decide the what is, so the fact is, the fact is this month my website had 1,000 views.

Sophia Hyde (09:38.158)
thousand people visit my website through Google. And that's the fact we all can agree on that. You get to decide the stories you attach that information. Your brain will probably impulse reaction give you something. It's likely it's gonna be negative unless you've done a lot of work to train it. It is likely that your automatic thought is going to be negative, because that's just what our brains do is trying to protect you. And so...

You get to decide though, if you're going to internalize that and accept that story. So my website got a thousand views. What does that mean? Is that good? Is that bad? Do we celebrate that? Do we feel defeated? Are we discouraged? From there, you get to decide. And this is really where you get to take back so much control over your life and over your brain is when you can recognize that everything that's happening to you throughout the day, your brain is

almost always attaching stories to it. And you want to, you're never gonna be such an enlightened person that the thoughts are not ever negative. But can you become a person who observes the thought and watches it pass by like a cloud in the sky and like, that's interesting brain that you would attach that. Like I hit a new milestone and you're gonna say that it's still not good enough. I'm gonna ignore that. I'm gonna let it pass it by like it's a cloud in the sky. And I'm going to actively choose.

what story I want to attach. And I'm going to choose the story of, this is amazing. Imagine if I could have had a billboard in front of a room of 600 people that saw my business. And now what I want to do with that. Now we can start getting curious. What's, how is it converting? Where else did they click around? Did, did that lead to any increase to my website? Like how can I optimize this? I had 600 people visit. Do I like the results of that?

What else? You we can get curious with it, but that's where your power is at. You consciously deciding with intention what stories you want to attach.

Sophia Hyde (11:48.352)
Now, you might also notice this. I'm talking in like these examples are really small, right? Like little moments, but you will also see people do this at a macro level. If let's say like a large business or the government does something people were not expecting.

until they give an explanation of why if something occurs, people will just make up the stuff. They'll just start the new, my gosh, this drives me crazy about current events. I try not to ever pay attention to current events in the first few, like the first 12 hours they're occurring because the initial information that comes out of any current event hitting the news is always speculation.

Let's say somebody, God, I hate that. The current events are in the news is almost always negative. So I'm sorry, I don't really have positive stories to offer you because they don't really publish them, okay? So the first thing that goes into my mind is, I don't know why my brain went here, but I went to murder and then I was like, well, who's been murdered? And then went to the United Health Care CEO. This is where my brain went, sorry guys. And.

in the first few hours, like the only fact we actually know, right, is that this CEO has been murdered. That's the only fact. But until people know more, they start speculating, right? And this is what you'll hear on the news. Well, it could have been this and it could have been that and maybe this.

And then we all do this, right? So we have news media speculating and guessing and all this stuff. But then in our own lives, this is also where like conspiracy theories get born and birth because they're like, do we really know if they went to the moon? All these conspiracy theories get birthed because there's a void, there's a lack of information. Now, that one in particular has actually been quite published. It's a conspiracy theory is a little whatever.

Sophia Hyde (13:58.454)
Generally speaking, conspiracy theories tend to be negative stories attached to a void of information that isn't being shared because this is what humans do. They crave, they're gonna make up their own answers if you don't give them to them and they're never gonna be flattering. And so you get to decide, do I wanna play that game? Am I interested in playing that game? Cause that game sounds like a waste of energy. I am not participating in that, right?

As things, as you begin to take control of your thoughts and recognize that you're attaching stories to the fact that no one said something or maybe you interpreted a text a certain way and gave them a certain tone of voice in it, or this person, an example that comes to my mind, this happened like probably 15 years ago. I was at this networking event and it like a ribbon cutting for a Chamber of Commerce and I was just there networking and then.

got a text message or a phone call. I think this is before we were all regularly texting. I got either email or a phone call from another chamber member who was like, hey, there's something I want to talk to you about. Can we go out to lunch? And so I let her take me to lunch like the next day. And she's like, I just wanted to know what I did to upset you. And I'm like, what? And she goes, yeah, even my husband picked up on it. You were just really cold to me yesterday at that ribbon cutting and.

I just want to know what I did to offend you. I'd really like to have a relationship with you and I just don't know why you were so cold and what I had done. And he was like, man, you must have really put Sophia off. Guys, I had no idea what this woman was talking about. I had no ill feelings towards her. Thought she was a nice lady. This is just my task oriented brain. I am assuming we're going back to I was probably like 21 or 22 years old.

I was probably in task mode. There's probably somebody at that event. I very intentionally like wanted to network and talk to you. So I probably showed up to the event, looked for the person I wanted to talk to, approached them, had the conversation I wanted to have, and then maybe stuck around. Maybe didn't. I don't really know. But because I was in task mode, I'm assuming, like this woman wasn't on my radar. So my brain just like didn't recognize her or didn't like I have learned through maturity and age.

Sophia Hyde (16:23.277)
that I have to like smile and acknowledge people. But, and this is probably my neurodivergence, honestly. That I wasn't, the people skills didn't come naturally to me. had to learn them. So anyways, this woman had attached a story that I didn't like her and there was no truth in it at all whatsoever. There was no context. I had no problems with this woman. And so we wanna make sure that we are not moving through the world that way.

And a couple of things that can help you do that are one, to just exist with a posture of always giving everyone the benefit of the doubt. Just assume the benefit of the doubt. This is going to work in your favor 90 something percent of the time. I'll give you an example when this comes up. I sometimes have my clients not pay their invoices. most of them are on automatic payments too. And so like a card will default.

or they switched it over to manual and then they don't pay. Guys, I have just made a story in my head that I am never going to assume the negative about any of my clients. My belief system is if an invoice isn't paid on time, I assume either their credit card changed, isn't that so annoying when the expiration date hits or you had fraud and you have to like re-imput everything, it's a pain in the butt. Or I assume that they're gonna fix it. Like I just assume.

that it's just a paperwork issue and they're gonna fix it. And do you know what? It's always been that. That's what it is. And don't you want to have somebody approach you? Like rather than approaching them with like a...

like some story I have attached, like you haven't paid your bills, your bill is three days late. Do you not want to keep coaching with me or something? Like rather than assuming that this means that they want to quit the agreement they made with me, I just always give them the benefit of the doubt. And I just assume it's one of those annoying paperwork things. And so I will say, if I need to, usually my little system that sends the automatic reminders, like by the second reminder, it's fixed, right? And so I almost, I almost never need to talk to them.

Sophia Hyde (18:36.683)
But if I do actually have to talk to them, I just start with the benefit of the doubt and say, hey, your invoice is nine days late. Is there something going on that we need to talk about or I can help with? And this is like, I'm thinking of one client in particular who has a really bad habit of this. And she'll be like, my gosh, I'm so sorry, I'm gonna do that right now. Like, and we're working. Obviously she's in coaching. We're getting more organized. That problem hasn't been an issue in like six months, but we've got some systems in place that we just have to fix. She's just was.

disorganized, she's so much better now. And I knew that that's what it was. I just assumed, I gave her the benefit of that and I'm like, homegirls probably. This is just one of the million balls that she has in the air and she just hasn't gotten around to this little thing. And it's always, what it was every time. And so can you move to the world with a posture of nothing is wrong here. They're not mad at me. It's not like I haven't done anything wrong.

They probably didn't mean it the way I'm interpreting it. Nobody wants to intentionally hurt my feelings. Nobody's angry at me. Here's the story that I tell myself regarding, because maybe sometimes you do actually make somebody mad and you need to do something about it, right? Here's the story I have decided to attach to all of my relationships regarding people being mad at me.

I, it is my responsibility if I have some sort of an issue with somebody, it is my responsibility to address it with them if I have a problem. And if somebody has a problem with me, it's their responsibility to approach me and let me know. And so until they initiate a conversation and say, Hey Sophia, we need to talk. I just always assume that everything is kosher because the story in my head is if it's not kosher.

then it's your job to let me know because I cannot read your mind. Okay. So this isn't just about people dynamics. just goes, there's so many different ways. I could give you an infinite number of examples of how when the brain doesn't have information, it goes to the negative. And so one of my recommendations is for you to a few things. One, just give all people the benefit of the doubt until it's kind of like the court system, right? Innocent until proven guilty.

Sophia Hyde (20:56.917)
I just apply that to my relationships. I think everything was probably done with a good intention until I have proof that it was done otherwise. And when you're trying to make a new thought,

Sometimes the best thing to do is to do something neutral, right? Like with the text message table, that's like a neutral thought, right? Oh, they're not texting back because they're busy. Them being busy and not staying on top of their text messages is neither good nor bad. just like is, right? But sometimes when, if my brain's gonna make up a story anyways, and it's gonna default to the negative and tell me a lie, which is a lie because it doesn't actually know, I figure if my brain's gonna lie to me and make up something,

then how about I make up a story that always benefits me and always works to my advantage. So I'll give you a really fun example. I assume when I'm in a public place, like an airport and somebody is looking at me that used to feel insecure. Now I tell myself, no matter what I dressed like that day, no matter what I am wearing, I tell myself, if somebody is staring at me, I say,

they must think I'm beautiful. They're staring at me because I think I'm so beautiful. Guys, I could have like food in my teeth. I could have my clothes on backwards and they could be staring at me and be like, is her jacket on inside out? Is that a seam going the wrong direction? That could actually be what is going on in their minds. But I, since I don't really know and I can't read people's minds, I just tell myself stories that improve my quality of life.

And so I will walk around an airport and I will just think that people are looking at me because they think I'm Yeah, that's how I choose to move through the world because it's so much happier than walking through the airport and having a stranger look at you and then thinking, my God, do I have food in my teeth? my God, is my shirt inside out? my gosh, is there something on my face? Like, that's so stressful. That's so stressful. So if my brain's gonna lie anyways, and I can't read people's minds, I'm just going.

Sophia Hyde (23:11.565)
to make myself happy. Cause I mean, not? You know what the reality is? Is if somebody is looking at you across the room, you know what they're probably thinking? They're probably thinking, she looks familiar. Do I know that person or she kind of, that woman over there, she kind of looks like my cousin, Susie. They really resemble each other. Oh, she kind of looks like this girl I used to go to school with or this professor that I used to have. that's realistically, that's probably what they're thinking, but I can't read minds.

So if I can't read minds, I'm just gonna make up a story that makes me feel good about myself. I just assume everybody likes me and everybody loves me until proven otherwise. Now, that's the story I rewrite. Do not get me wrong, I still have insecurities. I have an entire adulthood of having been told by many people that I am too much for them on a regular basis. And so sometimes,

I do if somebody didn't text me back or something didn't go the way I want, sometimes my brain will say, maybe you've maybe you've worn them out, Sophia. Maybe you were too much for them and they moved on to other people and they don't want to be your friend anymore. And my brain will say that maybe you were too much for them. And then I will stop and I will go, do we have any proof for this? No, no, we have actually, we have no proof. This is all made up. So what is a different story I can choose?

The neutral option is they probably are just busy and are behind on their text messages. That's the neutral answer. But then if I feel like I need to pick me up, then I might write an extreme example the other direction. Not that I'm too much for them, but that they're madly in love with me I'm actually their favorite person. And they'll get back to me eventually because I'm their favorite person. Sometimes that's what I need. Sometimes I need to like, you know, it's the clock. It's the clock that swings, right? Left and right, like the clock tower.

Swings left and right. And you know, we can take that negative thought. And sometimes I love swinging it really far all the way to the right and making it crazy positive. But most of the time, the healthiest option is just picking something in the middle that our brains can actually believe. I'm gonna be yeah, realistically, this is probably what it was. Okay, why is this a helpful way to move through the world? Well, because our thoughts, remember, we talk about this a lot, our thoughts.

Sophia Hyde (25:35.438)
create our feelings, our feelings, create our behaviors, our behaviors, determine our results. If you are walking around with all these negative stories in your head and you actually start to believe them, like people don't like me and they're not texting me back and that job that I interviewed for that hasn't gotten back to me, I'm probably not getting it. And the guy that I went out on a date with probably hated me or whatever, you know, just like over and over again, like all these negative things.

If you start viewing everything through a negative lens, then what will happen is those negative thoughts are going to create emotions where you feel bad about yourself, Insecurity, fear, doubt, sadness. And then when you are doubting yourself, you lack your self-confidence, you're beating yourself up, you feel sad, feeling that way is going to lead to certain behaviors. Maybe those behaviors are emotional eating. Maybe those behaviors are

pulling away from your relationships and not putting yourself out there and becoming a loner or just like staying home rather than socializing. And then if you do that, right, then what are those behaviors gonna get you? Well, you'll actually be alone when you didn't wanna be, right? And so your end result will be like, well, I don't have new friends because I was thinking all these negative thoughts that then made me feel bad and then feeling bad made me like stay home and I put myself out there and now I'm...

I don't have the relationships I want. You see how that, you see that you said this is why this stuff matters? And so we can take that same thing. I use that example of socializing and friendships, but you can apply that to every single spoke on your wheel. That this is why the mind spoke is so important. It has the most power to lift everything up and it also has the most power to bring everything down. So what are the stories you're attaching? All right, we're gonna wrap up this episode with a couple of reminders. One.

that you are never going to be so enlightened that you stop having ants. They're okay. Your negative thoughts are okay. You're not a bad human. You're not a pessimist. You're not any of these things if your brain initially offers you a negative story. Now, what somebody who is wise will do, somebody who is mature will do, is they will look at that thought.

Sophia Hyde (28:00.162)
and they will decide whether or not they want to accept it. And then they will choose with intention the new thought they do want to create. They will override the ant and then internalize something else. You have the power to choose the stories that you attach to the events that happen in your life. Okay. That's it. I guess this one last thought was that

A lot of times when we're assuming, and I feel like this is such a great example with like the macrocosm, things happening in the news too. A lot of times the assuming and the reason the brain is making up those stories about something in your personal life or something at like a national or international level, it's because we actually desire control. It feels really uncomfortable to sit in the uncertainty and say, I don't know.

I don't know. Uncertainty doesn't feel good. And so in order to feel like it has control, the brain will just create filler. And I want to challenge you to become somebody who can feel comfortable sitting in the unknown when you actually don't have the information. Sometimes it works to pick a neutral thought. Sometimes it works to swing all the way to the other side and make up a crazy story like

Everybody in the airport thinks that I'm Sometimes you can swing. Sometimes you can go neutral. And sometimes maybe the answer is to actually acknowledge, I don't know. And I'm not going to make up a story. I'm just going to acknowledge that I'm uncertain about this and I don't have all the information. And that has to be okay.

It's okay that I don't know and it's okay that I'm uncertain.

Sophia Hyde (30:04.365)
and get comfortable accepting that. Man, if you can get comfortable sitting in uncertainty, whoo, like sky is the limit. You can basically do anything you set your mind to. All right, I am sending you so much love. We will be back next week. Bye bye.