Your mind is YOUR tool, not the other way around

Do you let the pencil tell your hands what to write? Of course not. You control the pencil. It’s the same concept with your mind. 

Transcript

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Hello and welcome back to the Beauty and Positivity Podcast. My name is Alyssa Skinner, and I created this channel to share another part of me that you can't see through my videos and to share all the perspective shifts I've made that you can make too, and you will literally watch your reality shape itself. The life you live every day will be different. And a lot of people that know me would say I'm so positive all the time, and I love that, and I do think that's true, but positive thinking has kind of morphed into this lying to yourself practice, and that is not what it's about. It's very easily confused with just ignoring what's in front of us. And so I want to tell you what you can actually do to become a positive person, so much so that negative experiences stop finding you completely. And I can say that because my life and my identity took a 180 spin from eight years ago from last year. I mean, I'm changing every single year because this kind of work never stops in the best way. It's like you watch yourself expand and you're like, wow, it couldn't get any better than this. And then you watch yourself expand again and you're like, okay, this is awesome. So you be you get a little addicted. I'm a little addicted. So I watched my life change, my identity change in literally six months, just diving into this type of information. So don't underestimate how quickly you can change. In fact, every single morning we wake up is a new opportunity. It's a literally a new day, and we can be whoever we want, and we choose to be the same version of ourselves we were yesterday. That's kind of crazy when you say it out loud, but you're like, yeah, Alyssa, that's me. What do you mean? You want me to be a different person when I wake up? Kinda. If you want to be different. So if you've not heard of Joe Dispenza, he is wonderful. You should definitely look him up, watch his videos, and read his books. He has studied the brain, to put shortly. He's done a lot in his life, but um, he's proven how when we wake up, we think 99% of the same thoughts that we thought yesterday. That's so sad. Like we're just a little hamster on a wheel, right? And we wonder why our life is just on a repetitive loop, the same experiences, the same people, the same places, the same annoying things, the same traffic, the same annoying boss, the same annoying coworker, the same petty argument in the relationship, the same discomfort in our body. Like anything you can think of is on a loop. But our reality is only mirroring what our brain is focusing on. What you see in front of you is your brain expected that and created that. We're gonna get into it. It's a it's a lot to take in. I sometimes have to remember that I have been studying this information for years, and it's difficult to put into one podcast episode. Okay, this is years of reading books. So if you've listened to my previous episodes, you probably remember that we have a reticular activating system in our brain. It's deleting, distorting, and generalizing. Okay, so everything you see, your brain either deletes it completely, or distorts it to form to our belief that we already held, or generalizes everything. So we take in 11 million bits per second. You do not have to know what that means. Just remember 11 million, and our brain only keeps 128 of it. That's so scary, but that's what we're taking in, and that is how much we are deleting our brain, does us out of protection. We would probably explode if we tried to process everything going around us all at once. So that's also why we go on autopilot. It's to conserve energy. Our brain loves us, it's all for the better, but we have to kind of take control over what it's taking in. If it's only keeping 128 bits out of the 11 million bits, and 100 of that is how terrible your day was, that's a sad life. And so we want to train our brain to keep 128 bits of all the good things that happened in our day. And you see where I'm going. So I could go on forever. I'm not gonna get off track. I I already have. But all you need to remember is that most people go to bed thinking the same thoughts, replaying their day, and before they go to sleep, they're just thinking of everything that went wrong a lot of times, sadly. And then when they wake up, they think about everything from the day before. They start remembering their life, they're replaying their life, they're remembering who they are, they're remembering the relationship they're in, they're remembering how they feel in their body, what they were embarrassed about, what terrible thing happened yesterday, how little money is in the bank account, how I have to go live this life again today. I mean, maybe those aren't conscious, but those are definitely subconscious. I mean, if you're not super happy at your job, you probably are replaying, like, ugh, I have to go to work today, wish I could call out, what could I say? How can I get out of this? It's like, I definitely have been there. I definitely would wake up thinking, how can I get out of going to work today? So that's not a life to live. How can we redirect our mind and our thoughts and create our reality, the life we want to experience? How can we get all that in check? So I want to start by saying thinking positive is not lying to yourself. Okay, we covered that. It's just as Tony Robbins would say, it is not going to your garden covered in weeds and then closing your eyes and being like, There's no weeds, there's no weeds, there's no weeds. Because I say there's no weeds, so there's no weeds. But there are weeds. We're ignoring the problem, we're just pretending like it's not there. And that's not the good kind of delulu that we want to be, okay? Your brain is smarter than that. Your brain knows you're lying to yourself because you have a conscious and a subconscious. Your conscious, your waking brain, you are conscious right now, is telling your subconscious, there's no weeds, don't worry about it. And your subconscious is like, bullshit, like there are weeds. So our subconscious mind is basically everything we're unaware of. You could not possibly know what your subconscious beliefs are because you are unaware of it. There are correct practices to eventually dig, dig, dig and find out what your subconscious beliefs are, but you only have access to your conscious for now. So you are only aware of what your conscious beliefs are, what you're consciously thinking. So, number one, let's get into it because I just love this stuff. I'm I'm babbling. You are in control of your mind. You use your mind, not the other way around. Okay, you use your mind, not the other way around. Your mind is not controlling you like a little puppet, even though it might feel like it sometimes. Your mind is your tool, it belongs to you. You can stop thinking those old thoughts, you can stop replaying that memory. You can redirect your thoughts throughout the day, any time of day, throughout the night. You're just not, you've not strengthened that muscle yet on how, okay? You need to tell your mind, this is what I choose now, this is what I believe now. It's just the first step in taking control. It is easy for me to make changes because I say so. And then you can even tell your brain, like, you are my tool and I appreciate you, but this is what I say now. It's just the first step because we've never really done that before. We just kind of let our brain just think whatever it wants to think, but you are not your thoughts. And that took me for years to understand because I was like, I am though. What do you mean? So just know that you are not and you can control more than you think. So just start with those affirmations. This is what it is now because I choose so. This is what I believe now because I choose so. It is easy for me to make changes because I say so. It is easy for me to redirect my thoughts because I say so. Which side note, a book that helped me actually redirect my thoughts is Ask and It Is Given by Abraham Hicks. Highly, highly, highly recommend at the top of my list for sure. So you can tell your brain this as many times as you want. Those affirmations that we went over. Anytime you find yourself punishing yourself for the 10,000th time for something you only did or said once, we all do that. We all overthink about that super embarrassing moment or that time we were mean to someone, or we weren't our best self, or we could have been better. Who cares? We are all human, we all have lots of moments where we could have been better. But guess what? There is no past. The only moment is right now. The only time is your waking moment. When you wake up, it is a brand new day to be whoever you want. And it can be anything you want. When you tell your brain, this is what I choose now, it can be about money, your health, the relationship with yourself or with others, your job, anything you want. You start by telling your brain, this is what it is now. Thank you. Treat it like an assistant, name it if you want. I'm serious, people do that. People name their thoughts to make it feel to feel that disconnect a little bit so that you do find that control. Number two, mirror work. You can go into the mirror by yourself, of course, and apologize to yourself truly. Look into your eyes for a minute and just say, I love you, I forgive you, I deserve better, and you deserve better. That might feel weird, but when we take a moment to love ourselves, it boosts our self-worth. When is the last time you looked in the mirror and said I love you? It's really, really hard for most people to look into the mirror and talk to themselves in general. You might feel a little crazy, but you're not. Especially to apologize to yourself and say, I love you. It's actually kind of sad when we think about it that we think it's weird. Why would we talk to ourselves in the mirror? Why wouldn't you? Why wouldn't you love yourself first before do anyone else, before doing anything else in this life? This is your body, this is your home forever. When you are alone, you are stuck with yourself. This is your mind forever. You have to live here. So you should 100% love yourself or at least try to, because you will get there. I am someone who didn't used to love myself. I'm getting off track again, but this is important. I remember I was doing yoga, I went through a really hard breakup, and this girl she put her hands on me and said, You are beautiful. And I started crying because I did not feel beautiful. I didn't feel loved, I felt rejected, I felt completely unworthy. And so if I can get through it, you can. I think we all go through those moments, and we all come out of them. But it does take this type of work, and it takes doing it regularly because it is like going to the gym. You don't have to actually go to the gym, but you do have to take in this information into your brain over and over again daily if you can. And if you forget one day, just pick up the next day. Do not be hard on yourself, love yourself, have grace for yourself. I remember the first time I ever did this mirror work in my apartment. I lived by myself and I looked in the mirror and I just looked into my eyes and I thought, okay, this is scary. We've all heard of those scary movies, or like, don't look at your eyes in the mirror, but none of that is true. None of it. Honestly, it's probably just a conspiracy that no one wants us to love ourselves. They want to keep us on the hamster wheel. You could say that. But this is just about being with yourself for a moment. And it's about relieving the crazy amount of discomfort around talking to yourself in the mirror, around loving yourself, around accepting yourself. So I want you to go in the mirror and say whatever you feel called to say. Number three, come up with a mantra. A mantra is something that it's usually a word or a short sentence that you repeat to yourself a lot of times in meditation, but you can repeat it to yourself all day long. So I want you to repeat it to yourself quietly, in your mind, whatever, out loud if you're alone and you want to, as many times as you can remember. If you're trying to love yourself, I want you to say, I'm so proud of getting this far, I love myself, over and over again. Or if you're trying to become more fit or healthy, I want you to say, My body loves me and I love my body. Or my cells love me and I love myself. Or I'm so strong and healthy, I'm getting healthier every second. I don't care what it is. I just want you to repeat something over and over again that you are making true. Now, going back to the positive thinking, if you noticed most of this has been about self-love. And that's not a coincidence. We truly cannot be better for the world until we are better for ourselves. Cliche, if you want to think that, but it is so true. We absolutely cannot offer to the world what we want to offer or what we want to see in the world until we love ourselves, until we see ourselves as worthy. But if there is a negative experience or an unpleasant experience you want to gain more control of, or see it in a more positive light, I will leave you with this. How I personally handle these things, I look at it and I say, okay, well, this is actually working out for me better because and I fill in the blank. I just decide this has worked out perfectly for me. This was similar episode. I don't remember what the episode was called, I'm sorry, but it is like about gosh, what was it called? It's that game that I play. This is actually good because, if you remember that from a previous episode. So it's similar to that, it's just deciding. It's just harnessing control of what's in front of me and deciding this is benefiting me. I don't know how yet, and I don't need to know how. When you do this in the moment, you just need to decide. This has worked out perfect perfectly for me because I say so. Anytime I have been just a little bit bratty trying to manifest something, it's worked for me. I used to feel guilty for, you know, being bratty or whatever, declaring a situation, but that's just the conditioning. And you will get through that because I got through it. We have all been taught to be unworthy and selfish and don't ask for more because you're taking away from others, but there's no pie in the sky. You're not taking away from others. In fact, the more you have, the more you have to give. The fuller your cup, the more you can pour. So I believed declaring has worked for me. Being a little bit bratty has worked for me because I had no guilt. I didn't feel bad. And I did a little subconsciously, but I decided not to, you know? And then eventually every day or every time I did that, it just got easier. Where I was like, no, I control my reality. If this manifestation thing works, then whatever I say goes. So let's let's do it. And I would play around with small things. Like, if you've not seen The Secret, it's a movie, definitely go watch that. I think it's on Amazon Prime. I don't know. I have Alexa, so I just tell her, search the secret. So if you can do that. But watch that movie today. That is the perfect introduction if you don't know how to do this kind of stuff yet. And you can play with small things like the parking spot. When you're driving somewhere and you're like, I'm gonna get the front row parking spot because I'm worthy and I deserve that front row parking spot. And if someone's in it, they're gonna be pulling out as soon as I pull up. And so that's just a small way where you can start giving your brain evidence that truly whatever you say happens. And that's what I want, period. That's it. That's what you gotta do. So this might take a little bit of practice, declaring in that way, feeling worthy, but I want you to stick to it anyways and just watch what happens when you show up with that energy. And if you're overthinking an experience that hasn't happened yet and it's in your future, and you want it to be positive, you have even more leeway to create this experience. I want you to just visualize it going exactly the way you want it to before it happens. The amount of times I have shocked myself creating an experience in my future that I thought was so unlikely based on the people it was going to be with, I was thinking, yeah, no, this person would never do this or this group would never do this, like whatever, because of my last 18 experiences with them, why would it be any different today? And I had to challenge myself too, because well, this is my reality and I'm creating it, so can I change the characters? I mean, there's no other way to say it. It sounds kind of crazy, but seriously try it. Think about like, okay, if this is my movie and I'm directing it, I'm gonna make this character, I'm gonna give them a redemption arrow because I want to experience them being nicer or whatever it is you want, you know. This is your movie. Your life is literally a movie on the screen. And if you don't like the script, just change it. I need you to give the characters the life or the scene that you want to give them because you are the main character. Okay, lastly, I really want to keep on the positive thinking. This information is that you you just have to dive into this stuff every single day. Reading, listening to a podcast, audiobook, meditating, there's so many free guided meditations on YouTube. This is how you control what you experience. And you don't have to lie to yourself when you're thinking positive. You just either visualize the future exactly how you want it to go, or if it's something that's already happened, you decide why it was to your perfect benefit. And I want you to challenge that reticular activating system in your brain. That is what is deleting, distorting, and generalizing. I guarantee you're just in a loop of finding all the negative things. Your reticular activating system is trained to find all the things that are affecting you negatively because it's protecting you. Unfortunately, our brain doesn't really look for the positive things because one, it's not what you've trained it to do. And two, you've been in survival mode. It is too busy trying to protect you and it's looking for all the negative things, all the things that are a threat that could hurt you or steal your joy. Okay, anything that doesn't make you feel good, it's looking for. So I can tell you to stay away from that person and don't do that experience again because you'll get hurt. You're just in this fight or flight constantly. So how you get out of that is you challenge yourself to find all the positive things throughout your day in your car ride, at work, in a conversation with someone, when you're in the store, sitting in traffic, falling asleep at night. I want you to find all of the positives that happened to you today. And all of the positives that are going to happen to you today when you wake up in the morning, this will become your new dominant pattern. When you train a muscle, it gets stronger and stronger and it can hold more weight. Think about your brain as a muscle. Your thought patterns are your mental muscle. And what your thought patterns are, they're taking control. And so when you decide to only focus on the good things that are happening, you have taken control of the thought pattern. You are taking in 11 million bits per second, and I'm sure you can find 128 bits of positive information if you try. And as soon as you find that many bits of positive information, your brain no longer sees a single negative thing that happened to you today. What kind of life is that? That's a beautiful life. I mean, we've all met someone who is just so happy, no matter what. They're just the best person to be around. And you're like, I wish I could be like them. That is what they have done. They have trained, and you know what? Maybe it came natural for them, maybe they had great parents, it doesn't matter. Their brain is still trained to only see the bits of positive information. So that is your homework. I'm sending you so much love and success. Thank you so much for listening. And if you want to actually reframe your identity and not just think about positive thinking, but actually figure out what your limiting beliefs are in your subconscious mind and how to rewire them, you can go to my social media, Gorgeous by Alyssa, click the link in the bio, and click on Inline Babe Academy and just look at that course, just see if that fits you, because that is the information that changed me in just six months or less. You are capable of anything, and I love you so much. Bye.