40: Training Your Brain for Happiness & Understanding Self-Sabotage

🌱 Why you must train your brain to experience greater levels of happiness

🌱 The secret behind self-sabotaging

🌱 Why you subconsciously fear what life being “too good”

🌱 Expecting something to go wrong when things feel too smooth/peaceful

🌱 How to convince your brain that experiencing more joy is safe, even if it feels unfamiliar

🌱 The impact of modern media making conflict feel normal/familiar (no one likes a movie with no conflict)

🌱 Building awareness of your comfort zone & why doesn’t serve you (+ why you know it but struggle to change it)

🌱 My recommended resources for diving deeper

& more!

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Xoxo, Reagan🤍🌱

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello my friends, welcome back to the organic podcast. I'm your host, Reagan, and before I get into today's episode, just to give you guys some like personal touch to like just what I'm doing in my life right now, I open up my MacBook to obviously record this episode. I still have a couple tabs open and one of them one of them is Phantom Menace Opera Song. Sheet music for vocals. Oh my god, I was looking up the sheet music for the song from Phantom Menace when Darth Maul is hunting the Jedi. This is completely irrelevant from what we're gonna talk about today, but anyways, when Darth Maul is hunting Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon and the dun dun dun dun dun dun that music starts and you hear the opera singers. Because my boyfriend and I were talking about this when he was driving home from work today and we were on a call. I was like, he said, What are they actually saying? And I was like, say less, let me look it up. The the musician in me, the person who played saxophone from like third grade to senior year of high school and played in jazz band for eight years. Like, guys, I in case you don't know, I can play music very well. Anyways, immediately go to sheet music and do you know what they're actually saying in here? It's actually really, really funny. They're saying Kora, Mata, Kora, Rata Ma, and then it goes wait, da da da da da da da da. Yeah. Anyways, this has gone on for far too long. Today's episode, we are diving into how to train your brain to experience happiness. Because believe it or not, our brains are not preset with the setting that we're gonna be optimized for living a happy life. We are actually set in order for us to be able to survive at all costs. And a lot of the modern world gives us a reason to be scared and fearful of change, even if the change means that things are gonna feel better and we're gonna be happier. This is a source of a lot of self-sabotaging. And if you're someone like me who has struggled before with this feeling of like, wait, but things can't be good, like they can't be too smooth. What happens? Something's something's gonna go wrong if my life is too good. Like something, there's gonna, there's gotta be a catch. This episode will apply to you if you relate to any of these things, and it'll just be a good lesson and good reminders for living a happier life. So let's get into it. Welcome to the organic podcast. I'm your host, Reagan, mechanical engineer, lifelong athlete, and recovered overachiever, here to empower you to pursue your highest potential and live freely as your happiest, most organic self. Every week we'll dive into topics ranging from personal growth, mindset hacks, psychology, and a blend of science and spirituality to give you all the tools you need to stop living on autopilot and start creating a life of freedom, meaning, and fulfillment as your most organic self. If you're ready to become the best person of yourself, the most likely thing. I don't know about you, but to me, it feels pretty counterintuitive to say that we need to train ourselves to experience happiness. But it genuinely is the truth, I fear. As nice as it would be for our brains to have an auto setting where we are just optimized for happiness and it's super easy to get out of your comfort zone, it's super easy to experience change, like in a for a way that makes your life better. That's not the case. That's not the case. And the biggest part of training your brain for happiness in that you're training yourself so that you can experience more joy, more peace, more abundance, an easier life, just genuinely, just more happiness in all forms. Training that is required because I assume that if you want to experience a happier life, there are things in your life that need to change. And this doesn't mean that the life you live right now is not fulfilling, not full of joy, not happy, like unsatisfactory. That might be the case. You might have things in your life that you don't really like that you want to change, but you can even just be living in a way where you're happy, but you know that there's another level of happiness available to you. There is more out there, there's more joy. Like there's there's just like another level to kind of experience, and you want that. It's natural to always want to be growing and evolving and experiencing things that we have not yet experienced. That's just part of growing as a human being. So when it comes to being a happier person and living a happier life, because this requires change, our brains are going to feel resistance. I've talked about this multiple times on the podcast, but for a brief recap of the human brain on a very high-level overview, our brains are not programmed to optimize our happiness. They are programmed, just like any other biological being out in nature, for survival. Our very, very, very baseline needs are tied to survival. And based on this programming, anything that lies outside of our comfort zone is identified to our brain as something that is unknown. And when something is unknown, when something is in the gray, we do not know anything about it. It is gray space on a map, it is the little guys in Lego Star Wars that haven't been unlocked yet. When that was such a weird reference, but anyways, when anything lives in this area of the unknown, our brain automatically thinks, since we don't know what's coming, since we haven't experienced this before, since we literally do not know what's gonna go on if we shift to this experience, this means that there's a potential for us to die. There's a potential for us to be threatened. Anything that feels unknown, that you have not experienced before, that you have not become acclimated to feels dangerous on a very baseline, primal, biological, subconscious level. And now we wonder why so many of us struggle with change and why humans hate it so much. It's because we are literally programmed to avoid it at all costs. Like, and most people are not actually of the absolute privilege and blessing. We really should not be a privilege to know about this, but so many people are not given the opportunity to have the proper education around how our brains actually work, especially in the context of how it applies to our day-to-day lives or our futures. It's why people will stay in the same spot in their life for so long, even if you know that you are miserable, you know that you don't want to be there, you know that there's something off, you know there's something better for you, whatever it may be, your brain will always choose a familiar hell over an unfamiliar heaven. And this is where self-sabotage comes into play. Because when you're used to experiencing a less ideal situation or just something in your life that you don't like, but it's what it feels comfortable to your system, it's what feels familiar, even if it's unhealthy, even if it does not serve you, your brain on a primal subconscious level will always choose that thing, that way of living, that belief, that mindset, that person, whatever it may be. Your brain will always choose the thing that it's most familiar with. And this is obviously a block that needs to be overcome when you want to experience a life that is more aligned and happier and change the life that you have now in some small way or maybe in big ways to experience that, to get to a place where you feel like you are further along, closer to where you want to be, just like living a happier life. And I also don't want to paint this picture of living a like quote unquote happier life as this kind of paradise or this unachievable sort of like gray space marker of something to desire in your life. As I said, you could be living a perfectly happy, content life and just know that there is more available to you. And this is just a part of the continuation of growing as a human being, going through your life, no matter what your circumstances are, no matter what your age is, no matter anything, you will grow. And as you grow, I would hope, in most cases, that in growing, in learning, and going through life, you are generally on track to be going to a place that is better than where you currently are now, even if it's in super small ways with habits, just growing daily as a person, or in big ways, like completely turning your life around or completely changing a belief system, like things that take time, things that are massive. Nonetheless, all situations, all every single person on this planet could truly benefit from knowing the fact that your brain will always avoid something that feels unfamiliar and treat it as if it is literally a threat of like death, which sounds so dramatic, but that that's genuinely just the truth. So when it comes to training your brain for happiness, the first step is to have just a basic sense of awareness of everything that I just previously discussed when it comes to how your brain perceives things, how your brain categorizes threats, and includes anything in the unknown as part of those threats, and the red that being the reason why you avoid things so heavily. Like I can sense in myself when I am avoiding something, because I know that I've never experienced it before, and it is not an easy thing to overcome. Like, I think everyone probably has this experience on some level, even if you don't realize it. It's really not easy to overcome. But the just because once you have awareness of it, you can actually start to overcome it and tackle it. Because once you have awareness, it kind of breaks you free from the cycle of self-sabotage and kind of abandoning yourself and leaving yourself in the same loops of knowing that you're uncomfortable where you are, but not being uncomfortable enough to change because it feels safer to stay the same. So then you just stay the same, and then you go back in the cycle of being like, I don't want to be here, and then you start to think about shifting out of it, and you're like, Oh, but it's really scary if I leave, so I'm just gonna stay right here where I am, and then you you just keep going in the loop. The problem with this is obviously that it keeps you miserable and it keeps you stuck, but once you have the awareness of the fact that you're even in this cycle, that is like the the key to the door to get you out of it because you can't change something that you're not aware of. And once you have this kind of awareness, I feel like you're saying the same thing, but once you have this kind of awareness, it's what allows you to recognize when you are self-sabotaging, and then it allows you to have the logical basis that provides comfort to your mind, comfort to your primal brain, where you can tell yourself, hey, brain, guess what? I'm noticing this pattern, I'm noticing that it feels really uncomfortable to change, I'm noticing that I think it feels really scary to go in this different direction. And I'm gonna work with you because I actually understand why you think that. You think that because it feels very uncomfortable, because it's scary and we don't know what's gonna happen. But you actually do know that you are going to get to a better place logically if you can actually identify the self-sabotaging patterns and overcome them. And that kind of reasoning provides some level of comfort to your brain that can help ease some of the challenging aspects of getting yourself to change. Another level to this would be going through a season where you're just noticing that things are just going really smooth, things are working out for you, like everything is honestly really good. Like no complaints, no notes, like everything's just good. When you go through these seasons, especially if you're someone who is used to kind of expecting things to go wrong, or you have past experiences that make you apprehensive to kind of just peaceful seasons or things working out for you, you might find yourself wanting to self-sabotage on either a subconscious or conscious level, where it's like your system is simply so not used to things being good or things being smooth or peaceful that it seeks out the environment in which it feels most familiar and most comfortable, which is probably a less happy, you know, more chaotic form of your life in some way. And therefore, you, without even realizing it maybe, will kind of orchestrate these sort of situations where things will go back to the baseline of what you're used to, things being, you know, filled with drama, talking about people, conflict, or you know, going back into habits that don't serve you, that kind of thing. It's like as soon as things get too good, we I feel like so many of us, so many of us, it's like a societal society-wide programming where it's like if things are too good, something must be wrong. Like things can't just be smooth. And I feel like this is really fueled by the programming of TV shows and movies and reality T, like everything that we absorb on a wider basis when it comes to media, news, etc. Because so much of what we see on TV, online, in the news all centers on the negative. It centers on things going wrong, it centers on conflict. I mean, no one likes watching a movie where everything is just, oh, it's absolutely perfect. There's nothing to report here, like nothing's going wrong, it's all just good. To us, that's just boring because we always are we when we're watching a story, we're watching a movie, we're seeking out some kind of conflict, some kind of friction that then gets solved through the course of watching the show, watching the movie. And we can compare this to our lives be because as you might see in the parallels, when we're so used to this kind of seeking out conflict or expecting conflict or always just feeling like you can't be too comfortable in life or you can't have things be too easy or else something's gonna go wrong, that becomes like a baseline subconscious program that then kind of shapes how you see the world and how you see your own life. And if that's the program that you're running on as a baseline, of course things are gonna feel weird when everything is smooth, when you're feeling your happiest so far, when everything's going really well. I mean, it makes me think of people who are used to maybe less ideal kind of relationship dynamics, and they will find a partner who is like, you know, perfect match, super mature, super like ex checks all of their boxes, but to their system, it is so foreign to be in like a smooth, happy, healthy partnership that they will literally just start fights all the time or self-sabotage in some kind of way because their system is like, oh my god, this is not normal. I don't like this, let's freaking reset this here a little bit and give me something that I'm actually used to. A personal example for me, where I have really had to like like actively decondition myself from this belief. I have watched so I I was so invested in dystopian books and movies growing up, like dystopian series, divergent, hunger games, maze run, like every dystopian kind of like teen-centered book or story, like I was like, that's my shit. My favorite show ever, ever, my favorite show is the 100. I think it I don't know if it's on Netflix still, that's where I watched it originally. But all of these things are centered around themes of obviously like a dystopian world, things going wrong, major conflict, having to work through it. And I also, my mom would watch just like the normal TLC shows when I was growing up, and you know, they obviously TLC focuses on the stories that are heart-wrenching or they drive emotion out of you because that's what drives views. As I said before, you don't want to watch a movie or a show where everything is just perfect and there's no problems and blah blah blah. Like most people want at least some form of conflict or story to actually engage with. Like, there is a good chunk of my life where I genuinely did not even think like super far into the future because I was like, it scares me to even think that we might even get there. Because what if something happens? What if the world ends like get me a bunker in the middle of nowhere right now because we need to prepare for a freaking worst-case scenario, blah blah blah blah blah. Like, I was genuinely programmed to believe that this was like something that was actually gonna happen. It was like such a deeply ingrained fear in me that there would be some kind of dystopian tragedy or just something to fear that would literally prevent me from looking forward to like a full future and feeling secure in that. And like it's actually crazy to think about how much I was fueled by the fear of you know, things can't be too good because that means that something bad's gonna happen. Because all these stupid fucking TLC shows, it was always, oh, this was this perfect situation, and we never thought this would happen to us, and then boom, it happens to us, and then I just saw a disproportionate amount of shows where the situation was talking about that kind of circumstance where it was like a a very one-off kind of thing where it's like we never thought this would happen and this happened, or situations like that that just oh my god, they seeped into my subconscious and literally programmed my entire outlook of life. And the only ways that I've been able to overcome this is to number one, as I said before, have an awareness of the fact that it's even there in the first place, and then number two, actively choose to repeat to myself and like continuously choose to believe and fully accept the fact that things can be good. We are safe, everything is fine. It is safe to experience joy, it is safe to experience peace, it is safe to expect things to work out and for things to be good and there for there to be things to look forward to and for life to be easy. It does not mean like life does not have to be just this constant race against, you know, race on the hamster wheel or worrying that something's gonna go wrong or whatever, because when we live like that, when we live with the assumption that something must go wrong, something bad's gonna happen, we're not fully living to like the absolute fullest potential of life that we could be experiencing. And this is why I say that happiness requires training, it requires you to actively tell your brain, actively build a relationship within yourself, with with that that voice, that fear, that kind of like ego perspective inside of you that says, Well, what's gonna happen? What's gonna happen? What's going on? This is unfamiliar. It the training is in rewiring your brain to feel comfortable with things being peaceful, to tell yourself that your new normal is for things to actually always be working out for you, for things to feel really good. Like it is safe for things to feel really good and also be true. We don't have to wait for the other shoe to drop, we don't have to wait for something horrible to happen. Like your reality gets to be claiming the fact that your life can be easy, your life can be full of happiness and joy and peace, and you deserve to experience that. That is the kind of baseline program that I wish for everyone to experience because we are not living here. We we did not come here to be alive to live lives that just make us miserable or where we fear feel super scared all the time. Like our most ideal expression of living authentically, being ourselves, like experiencing an ideal life, obviously, is one where things feel easy, things feel aligned. We get to just feel like the joy and happiness of being alive. Like that is the goal of living. Obviously, there's lessons to be learned, there's conflict to be had, there's there's so much nuance to life. You can you know exactly what I'm saying here. This also does not mean that life is always going to be perfect and happy, and the only way that you're doing life right is if everything always feels like absolute rainbows and butterflies and smooth and perfect, and you don't bat an eyelash when everything is absolutely wonderful. Like this is number one, it's a process to actually allow yourself to get used to the fact that things don't have to be so hard and things can be easy, and actually to number one, believe that, and number two, kind of affirm that with your actions and behavior and just not self-sabotaging. But anyways, you are always gonna go through ups and downs in life, and you are always gonna have seasons that are way rougher than others, but nonetheless, if you can keep the mentality that as shitty as things seem sometimes, as absolutely fucking wretched as things see sometimes, if you hold on to the belief that no matter what. No matter how things look, everything is truly always working out for you for the better. Number one, that will be a massive anchor through kind of like, you know, rougher seasons of life. And number two, everything that you go through is just adding to all of your experience of life, which I think sounds really cliche, but it is a beautiful thing. We are meant to experience the fluctuations of life. We are meant to experience the highs and the lows. And I really do believe that the depth to which we allow ourselves to go in having those experiences of highs and lows is really reflective of just how much we are actually allowing ourselves to live the full experience of life. But you're not going to be able to experience like the absolute peak sort of potential for what life could feel like or how good things can be if you can't even understand on a subconscious level how to get yourself there. And as I said, it starts with just having the awareness that you currently have a limit. Everyone's single, every single person has it. Everyone, no matter how good your life is, there is a limit to how much your brain is wired to be accepting of experiencing. Like there, there is a level of normal for your brain. And when you go beyond that, when you try to stretch that, when you try to experience more happiness, more abundance, more peace than what you're used to, your brain will give you resistance. And this is where the awareness and consistency in terms of choosing to believe that things are going to work out and that you actually can be happy and things are okay is going to get you through that. So I hope this episode has opened your mind a little bit just to realize how much we really do have to train ourselves to experience greater levels of happiness and how having awareness of that is really just the first step. And moving beyond that, it takes literally rewiring your brain through small conscious choices to change your thoughts, to notice your thoughts, to affirm to yourself and logically explain, like literally journal about it, write it out why it logically makes more sense for you to be happier if you change your circumstances. And that, you know, kind of gives your brain the legitimate evidence that maybe your ego needs more of to be like, oh, okay, you know what? All right, we can release some resistance to this. And there's a lot of nuance to this topic, but just as a general overview, like I said, I really hope this was helpful. If you're curious to look more into this kind of vein of thinking, I would really encourage you to look up Becca Nichols on Instagram. She is a somatic practitioner nervous system coach. I love Becca, Becca Slays. She also teaches about nervous system capacity, really related to the self-sabotaging, that covers a little bit more in-depth detail what we talked about today, up well way more in depth, but her specific focus of work is more in-depth than the broader topic of just experiencing a happier life. It's all interconnected. And another resource that I would provide, provide that I would recommend, which was recommended by Becca actually, is to read or listen to the audiobook of um, it's called The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks, I think. And it basically just talks about this exact kind of concept that you have like a temperature, it's almost like a temperature probe for the level of happiness that you're used to experiencing and how you will always revert back to the mean of what you're used to having, what's in your comfort zone. And you like he has some crazy stories in that book where he will see like people becoming, you know, super successful kind of overnight, or like having a really big deal sign for a business contract or whatever, and then suddenly their whole life erupts in flames because they don't have the capacity to be able to hold things being so much better for them so quickly because their nervous system, their sit their body is just simply not used to it at all. Anyways, I digress. Those are some resources. I would love to hear what you guys think about this episode or if you want to chat about it in my DMs. They are always open. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for listening to the podcast. I truly do love you guys, and I hope that you are having an incredible day. Go be your most organic selves, and I will see you in the next one.