The Dark Side of the Mind: Stories of Love, Courage and Transformation

by Alba Alamillo

“I want to look nice and elegant,” I thought, therefore I bought elegant clothes and I took them home. When I was hanging them in the closet, I realized that I already had nice, new and unworn elegant clothes. That’s when it hit me and I realized the difference between the I want and the I am. I want to look elegant but … I am not an elegant woman. Who am I then? I am a practical woman who loves flexibility and comfort. I like clothes that feel nice and allow me to move around and go places easily, like a t-shirt, a pair of jeans and flat shoes. Therefore, every morning, when choosing the clothes to wear, I choose them based on who I am: a practical woman. There’s consistency between my choices and my definition of who I am, and that’s great because the mind likes coherence. “But I want to be elegant!” one little voice says inside my mind. “Go ahead, Alba! Wear that silk blouse and those high heels!” “No” the I am voice says. “The blouse will get dirty when I wash the dishes. I also have a meeting at my son’s school. If I wear that, they will ask me what the occasion

At some point the I want voice will stop asking because the I am voice always wins.

RAS: “The reticular activating system (RAS), or extra-thalamic control modulatory system, is a set of connected nuclei in the brains of vertebrates that is responsible for regulating arousal and sleep-wake transitions. As its name implies, its most influential component is the reticular formation. It is a set of interconnected nuclei that are located throughout the brainstem. The reticular formation is not anatomically well defined because it includes neurons located in diverse parts of the brain. The neurons of the reticular formation all play a crucial role in maintaining behavioral arousal and consciousness. The functions of the reticular formation are modulatory and premotor. The modulatory functions are primarily found in the rostral sector of the reticular formation and the premotor functions are localized in the neurons in more caudal regions.” Wikipedia

“Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything” George Bernard Shaw

Every

When you change your identity to achieve a goal, it takes time for your subconscious mind to readjust. How long? Approximately three weeks.

Your immediate group of family or friends (I’ll call it your tribe) also doesn’t feel comfortable when you change because the group wants to keep its homeostasis. If you change, the whole group dynamic will change. “Homeostasis is a relatively stable state of equilibrium or a tendency toward such a state between the different but interdependent elements or groups of elements of an organism, population, or group.” Merriam Webster dictionary In other words, sometimes your group will sabotage you even though they know that your change is for the better. When one person in the family leaves or changes radically, he forces the family to adjust their behavior to compensate for the change of one of its parts. We are a piece in a puzzle and if one piece changes, the whole puzzle will try to make the piece switch back to its prior shape because it has an impact on the group dynamics. That’s why the group resists the change. However, when they see that change is inevitable, the group will grieve and then it will finally adapt and adjust.

When we play a role in a group, the group gets used to us being in that role. If somebody stops playing their part, the system will try to push things back, go through some discomfort and finally adapt.

since we are intelligent, we become experts on self-harassment.

Notice how all of these statements have some shock included (being angry) and they are associated with the I am. And the child learns that it is OK for people to berate themselves out loud, but that it is not OK to praise. And he does the same, without believing what he’s saying at first.

You were born feeling wonderful about yourself, you loved yourself so much that you giggled at your reflection on the mirror. The

Fast forward several decades and that screaming little creature is the same professional adult who cannot utter a single word at his company meetings without blushing, shaking or feeling stupid.

night

the subconscious mind doesn’t have common sense, it only has ‘survival sense’.

Negativity bias means that if the mind is left to its own devices, it will choose to focus on something negative over something positive.

None of these positive news stories have a direct impact on our lives because they don’t affect our survival. Knowing them will make us happy, but being happy won’t save our lives. And, as a matter of fact, our subconscious mind doesn’t give a darn about our happiness.

Research has shown that rumination is associated with a variety of negative consequences, including depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, binge-drinking and binge-eating.”

The impact of the comment will be proportional to three things: the status of the person saying it, the level of trust you have towards them and the amount of embarrassment and shame involved in the process.

The impact of a negative comment

Your current beliefs

combination of the statements you’ve been told by parents, teachers, or other authority figures. You took them, put them in a file in your mind, and then pulled them out over and over to remind yourself what the authority figures of your childhood have told you.