I practice what I call a Brain Flip when I find myself in a tailspin. When walking straight into a negative situation and I feel like I cannot avoid the crap storm, I immediately ask myself, “How can I flip this?” Turn it around and look for the positive moment, the comedy, the lesson here. My mind begins to focus on something different, and I can knock myself out of a funk quickly this way. Here’s how—
I gather evidence.
We can gather evidence to prove that we are terrible people, disregarding all the good info and just logging all the mess-ups, mistakes and errors we make in life. We are gathering evidence to prove to ourselves that we are bad people.
Or we can flip it and—
We can gather evidence and look for what we did right in the situation. Paying attention to the details (evidence) placed before me. What can I learn from this situation? How can I look beyond the obvious? What is being revealed to me? Who is being helped here? Who can I serve? Sometimes it’s me. Sometimes it’s you.
There is a concept called “act as if...” where you think and act the way you believe you want to be—not drinking, showing up sober, sharing by talking, acting like you are a free and whole person—and you keep doing this behavior until your brain believes that this is the truth for you. And then you start living it.
Changing my thoughts changes my behaviors. I am proof it works. Try it.
“Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the
renewing of your mind.”
Romans 12:2
