An Unsupervised Brain.

Let’s start with a story shall we?…

I arrived home, unlocked my front door, and opened it to find my toddler nephew standing there naked. His diaper was on the floor next to him and he had something brown smeared on his hands and his face.

Internally, I started to panic. Externally, I calmly put down my purse and slowly moved towards my nephew in order to catch him and minimize the mess. But, he knew what was coming and started to run away, dragging his hand along the wall, leaving behind brown smudges.

I yelled, “Somebody stop him!”. A second later, my sister appeared holding the brown bandit and licking the brown goo off his finger.

When she noticed the diaper on the floor and the horrified look on my face she started laughing hysterically and said, “It’s just Nutella.”

Needless to say I was very relieved.

An unsupervised brain

Most of our brains are on auto-pilot, spitting out thousands of random thoughts a day without us being aware. And if your thoughts are running around unsupervised, like a toddler with an open jar of Nutella, the result will inevitably be a mess. It will seem like life is happening to you instead of you being in charge of your life.

The great news is that messes can be cleaned up but first you have to be aware of the source of the mess. Step one is simply being aware of your thoughts. 

Don’t judge them. 

Don’t judge yourself for having them. 

Just start watching them throughout your day. 

Watch them pass by like message on a screen. Observe the toddler on the loose in your brain, with the open jar of Nutella. Watch that baby and think, 

“Why is she doing that?”

“Oh boy, that’s going to make a mess.”

“Look how cute she is.”

“She doesn’t know any better.” 

“But, she’s learning and soon she’ll know how to put the Nutella down and clean up the mess.”

And that’s what this is about. Learning how your brain works, taking a look at it, cleaning it up, managing it, and then using it’s power to take control of your life. I challenge you to be the watcher. Observe your thoughts all day tomorrow and let me know what you you notice.

You’ve got this.

xo, Jo