Thunk funk

Thunk Funk

Rene Descartes stated “I think therefore I am” .

Thinking the dimension that sculpts our realities and experiences.   The Mind your step sign reminds us to stop and observe our thinking.  Personal energy consumption is taxed by thinking habits – conservation is possible with deconstructing funky thinking patterns.  Like the last frontier of outer space there is terrain that is untouched and available for the brave.

Funky thinking patterns

Funky thinking patterns can be habitual  and distort thinking.  These distortions include:

• Catastrophising  or minimising  – ” It’s the end of the world! “  or   ” it’s just a flesh wound”;
• All or nothing “my way or the highway”statements,
• Generalising  “all —— people are like —-“,
• Personalising  “Its my fault I put the hole in the ozone layer”,
• Labeling and mislabeling “—-is a —–“,
• Jumping to conclusions  “When you d0 not answer the phone I think you do not want to speak to me”,
• Shouders  “I should  be —–“,
• Forecasting “He’s invited me to meet the family it means —“,
• Funneling or using a mental filter  “they don’t mean it “.

  

Why change your thinking pattern?

Thinking patterns are familiar, known and certain.  Here lies the rue this reduces scope for options, new information is not heeded or mistaken as criticism and potential to CHANGE is limited.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Changing your thinking can change your relationships and wellbeing in a positive way as outlined in Beyond Blue fact sheet 11 at www.beyondblue.org.au.

Psycho neuroimmunology is the science that studies the interrelationship of psyche, nervous system and immune system. Research has found the the way we think impacts on our wellbeing.   Chemical messengers called neuropeptides(e.g: endorphin) are found in the nervous, circulatory and immune system.  The rise and fall of neuropeptides affect physiology and mood.  Visualisation, affirmation, mindfulness, chanting, prayer and yoga are some of the ways in Mind Body medicine we alter thinking patterns to improve health.

 

Who hacked my brain?

Our brains have been likened to mega computer systems wherein present events, past experiences in family, friendships, schooling, culture, even nation act as programming.   This verb describes the predetermination of thinking.

A daily  challenge and responsibility is to determine what we filter out or in to our thinking.  It starts when we rise with hearing the news, reading social media, responding to family, negotiating work and relaxing in front of television.  Computers have security systems to prevent hacking. Humans have a conscious, self determination, capacity to move and a voice to call a boundary.   Hackers of thinking can be limited by the malware of an internal review process.

Daniel Groenwald offers techniques to limit techno stress at this link:

http://www.linkedin.com/pulse/10-hacks-combat-technostress-daniel-m-groenwald?trk=mp-reader-card

Brain Terrain – the last frontier

There is power in our thinking. Whatever we believe our body responds to as witnessed in the placebo effect, faith healing and even unexplained death after a person has been hexed.

I have witnessed the power of thinking as a midwife and athlete. Women’s birthing beliefs would impact on their birth experience and how they recalled their births.  Reviewing the frame of my thinking was part of my preparation for a sporting event.  Amongst my peers we talk of how an event is 90% mental effort and 10% physical effort.  As its not all brawn but brain required to endure events.

Imagination and creativity is the lost, last frontier of thinking.  It is not  reserved to the realm of childhood as this fun, boundless, explorative thinking pattern is where magic grows.  Internal critics, time constraints, external judgement could detour a person away from creativity and imagination.   Albert Einstein  encourages us as he stated:

“Imagination is everything.

It is the preview of life’s coming attractions”.