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Day 1, Chapter 1

"In Two Minds"

When we are undecided, we sometimes say we are in two minds, and this is quite an accurate explanation of how things are. In your head, you have a logical mind and an emotional mind.

I mean this literally.

Your logical mind is located at the front of your brain. You actively engage with it, you are aware that you are thinking. As I write this book, my logical mind is fully engaged. If I get stuck about what to write next, I will consciously use my logical mind to find a way forward. It’s this part of your brain that sets humans apart from other species because it gives us the abilities to use imagination and solve problems. Where nothing previously existed, we can conceive an idea and then find a way to make it real.

If you look around, you can see the results of our imagination everywhere: the town you live in, the car you drive, the road it drives on, the clothes you wear, the chair or couch you are relaxing on at this very moment. At some point in the past, all these things were no more than someone’s vision. A short time ago, this book only existed in my imagination, but now you are reading it. That conscious part of our brain has shaped our world, but it’s not the most powerful part of your mind.

Your emotional mind is located farther back in your head. You don’t consciously engage with it. Instead, it engages with you and, unlike your logical side which switches off when you sleep, the emotional mind runs all the time. As soon as you doze off for a second, it takes centre-stage in your dreams. It works on a subconscious level, all the time monitoring your world, processing the information you are constantly collecting through your senses and sending you thoughts and feelings in a never-ending stream.

If you are watching a movie, the way you feel about the characters will change continuously as the plot unfolds and you learn more about them. You might start off disliking a character, but end up loving them after your feelings have gone through all shades of opinion. You don’t consciously keep thinking, “Do I like these characters?” You don’t need to, because your emotional mind is constantly re-evaluating the information it receives about them. In the real world also, you are constantly evaluating how you feel about every person you know. Even your feelings about those you truly love will fluctuate within a range.

It’s not just people. Your emotional mind crunches every bit of data your senses bring in, forming instant opinions and then firing them out at you in the form of thoughts and feelings, even when you are asleep. Have you ever gone to bed feeling cheerful, only to feel like your world has ended in the morning? Your mood has collapsed overnight for no reason that you know. You go through your morning routine feeling like something awful has happened, although nothing has. Then suddenly, for no obvious reason, your mood lifts. What was that all about? Well, no doubt your emotional mind had changed its ideas about how it interpreted the world while you were asleep but you didn’t know until you woke up.

You cannot control the emotional mind in the same way you can your logical side, as it works on an unconscious level and controls you. We try to control it with logic and can have some limited success. But it requires great effort and usually feels you are holding back a dam that at some point is going to burst, it’s just a question of time.

This is why we struggle with willpower. How many times have you made a decision to change a behaviour in an effort to improve yourself, such as going on a diet, only for your willpower to fall apart? You might be able to keep going on willpower for a few days, but if your emotional mind is screaming “Gimme, gimme!” every time you go near the kitchen, your resolve will eventually crumble.

Your emotional mind is too powerful for your logical side, sometimes it seems like comparing the power of a modern computer to an old fashioned pocket calculator. If you leave it to run the show, as most people do, you can expect your moods to go up and down constantly, stress and anxiety will be with you most of the time, and your feelings will run your life.

If this all sounds all gloom and doom, don’t worry. Solutions exist, and they aren’t complicated. Imagine your emotions are being run by a computer at the back of your head. Now, think about this for a moment: computers can be re-programmed, so why not your emotions? Imagine if you can get the power of your emotions working for you instead of shoving you around randomly?

Well, you can.

Your emotional mind is reacting to the data it’s picking up from your senses. It will be aware of every sound and smell in your environment far more than you are on a conscious level. It will monitor everything you see in great detail at colossal speed. It will be aware of slight changes in temperature, amounts of ambient light, and air movement on your skin. All this information and more is being mashed through and fed back to you as how it thinks you should feel.

You might be expecting me to discuss ways of dealing with those feelings, and indeed we will do that in this book. But that’s looking at the data (the feelings) that are coming out of your brain. How about taking a step back first and looking at the data that’s going in? That’s where you can make a difference simply and quickly.

Look at how you are physically right now. Let’s start with your temperature. Are you cold, or too hot, or just okay? Are you sitting somewhere comfortably? Is the lighting suitable for reading this book? If not, your emotional brain is going to dislike the data it’s picking up from your senses and it will start sending you feelings that say you are unhappy. It will do this by sending you negative thoughts and shutting off the supply of your brain’s natural feel-good chemicals, like dopamine and serotonin (which we will discuss more later).

What you put into your mind via your senses directly affects the feelings you are getting out. If you input negative sensations into your emotional mind, you will get negative feelings coming out.

That is something you can deliberately change.

Classic things to look out for are if you are hungry, angry, lonely or tired. If one of those applies, then take appropriate action. Eat if you are hungry, put on some relaxing music if you are angry, call your best friend if you are lonely, or go to bed if you are tired.

Maybe you need a change of environment. If you get out of the space you are in, your senses will be awash with new incoming data for your mind to analyse. If it likes the data it’s receiving, it will send you approving thoughts and turn up the supply of the feel-good chemicals in your head.

So next time you feel low for no particular reason, instead of feeling sorry for yourself and getting into a downward spiral, deliberately ask yourself how you can change the data your senses are picking up. Otherwise, you could convince yourself that you are depressed when all you need to do is turn on the heating, increase the light levels, change the music you are listening to, or have a snack.

So today, when you have a negative feeling, instead of reacting as you usually do, in an emotional way, I want you to try something different.  Use a negative feeling as an opportunity to learn a new skill. Deliberately engage your logical mind. Try looking at your situation and ask yourself what information your emotional brain will be absorbing from your environment via your senses. Is there something it would find objectionable? Think analytically about what you could change.

Is there a basic need that you have that you are ignoring? Are you comfortable and warm enough? Do you need rest or something to eat? If you can identify something, then take action.

This will take a certain amount of concentration on your part, or you will immediately react as normal. This is why simply reading this book is insufficient. You need to try the suggestions, or your autopilot will kick in, you will forget what you have read and make no progress.

So I suggest you task yourself with identifying 3 times today when a negative thought or feeling hits you and use the above exercise. It doesn’t have to be a dramatically negative emotion. A simple feeling of discomfort is enough to use to get the hang of this way of thinking. What it will show you is that when you have a feeling, you have choices.

A negative thought or feeling is not a command for you to act in a negative way, it is simply an emotion, and emotions are not commands, they are merely passing events in your mind.

You can choose to act on them if you wish. Or you can choose to change the information going into your emotional brain, which will change the feelings that come out.

Your emotional brain will reward you for feeding it more acceptable data because the good news about that part of your mind is that it gives you all your emotions, not just the toxic ones. It’s where your happiness comes from as well. You will have a more contented life if you pay attention to what you feed it.

Most people go through life unaware that they have choices in how they respond to their emotions and that they can deliberately take action to affect the feelings your emotional mind throws out. If you were one of those people, you have just learned a major insight into your inner-self which, on its own, will make a huge difference to your life if you use it.

But this is just the start. Let’s move on.

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