6 Ways to Rewrite Our Brain's Negative Story
Written by Marci Renée
Photo by Moritz Kindler on Unsplash
“I can’t stop thinking about it.”
“I keep replaying it over and over.”
“It’s like a movie, and I wish I could hit ‘pause.’”
“Why can’t I shake these memories?”
Perhaps you have heard yourself saying these things in your recent self-talk. Or perhaps you have heard others say these things to you.
What if you actually could help yourself stop thinking about it, stop replaying the movie over and over? What if you could shake off these memories and interrupt the vicious, negative cycle?
What if you could rewrite your brain’s negative story?
What is Neurosculpting?
Those who have studied neuroscience—the study of the brain—have discovered that the brain is soft, malleable, and constantly changing. It is always being formed and transformed, and it can even be rewired with some help and intentionality.
Lisa Wimberger, founder of the Denver-based Neurosculpting Institute, with her colleague, Dr. Diane Poole Heller, in a training called “Rewiring the Traumatized Brain,” described the neural networks of our brain as living and breathing, continually growing and connecting.
In her book, Neurosculpting, Wimberger describes neurosculpting as “a mental training process that quiets our fight or flight center and activates our prefrontal cortex, which is the mind’s seat of compassion and empathy. It also engages left- and right-brain stimulation and incorporates somatic awareness for a whole-brain and whole-body approach to meditation and rewiring.”
The Brain Librarian
As we’ve seen before in our article, “What is the ‘Negativity Bias’?“ our brains are naturally geared toward negativity. As human beings, we have a tendency to easily recall and retell over and over the negative stories and situations of our lives. Wimberger suggests this is because these traumatic stories are emotionally charged, often connected to a life or death experience, and are important to our survival. That’s what makes them so easy to access in our memory and retell . . . over and over.
In her children’s picture book, The Monster Under Your Bed is Just a Story in Your Head: Conquering Fear through Neuroliteracy, Wimberger refers to the hippocampus of our brain as the “librarian.”
“Hippocampus is a complex brain structure embedded deep into the temporal lobe. It has a major role in learning and memory.”
—The National Library of Medicine
The hippocampus “librarian” stores the script of our difficult and traumatic stories in a nearby, easily-accessible location. Because we tell the story often, the “librarian” keeps the story in an easily-accessible location, since she knows we often grab it to read again and again. This happens again and again when our memory is triggered by the same event or one similar to it, and we repeat it over and over.
Dr. Heller and Wimberger remind us that we don’t have to keep telling ourselves and others the same traumatic story. We don’t have to keep our negative narratives on “replay.”
How Can We Interrupt the Negative Recording?
Wimberger and Dr. Heller give several practical suggestions about how to rewrite the negative story and rewire our brain. These creative tools help change the neural pathways in our brain. These “new things” can interrupt the negative thinking process and allow us to think differently.
1. Shaking—This is called “neurogenic tremoring,” which involves contracting the muscles. After contracting, the muscles will naturally soften. This tells the brain to “put the story back.” It tells the hippocampus “librarian” to refile the script. It interrupts the storyline and tells the story that it is no longer allowed in your mind. Shaking our body, as if we were cold and had the shivers, actually helps us to “shake” the memory off and “shake" the story away. The old adage, “Just shake it off!” actually has some validity to it.
2. Breathing—If thinking about your story causes your heart to race or causes you to have trouble breathing, exhaling long and slow can help. Exhaling decelerates the heart and brings you “back out of the library” of your brain. On the other hand, if you are feeling depressed and deflated, inhale deeply and slowly. The inhale accelerates the heart which triggers and activates the brain as needed.
Wimberger also suggests four tools to neuro-fire the front of the brain, or the prefrontal cortex, which is our hub of compassion and empathy. When activated, our fight or flight stress response is calmed.
3. Awe—Go on a nature walk, admire creation, and stand in awe of its majesty and beauty.
4. Wonder—Be curious, explore, ask questions, listen to faith stories, and hear testimonies of miracles.
5. Novelty—Use your non-dominant hand for things that you usually do with your dominant hand—like picking up your coffee cup or brushing your teeth. Stir your coffee backwards with your non-dominant hand, mix up your sock and underwear drawers, walk backwards, rearrange your house furniture, take a different route to work or school, try new hobbies, learn new skills, and do puzzles.
6. Humor—Watch a funny movie, listen to comedy radio, make funny faces, read a joke a day.
Telling a New Story . . .
Today, we can begin to rewrite our negative stories and the messages we have been telling ourselves.
“I CAN stop thinking about it!”
“I DON”T HAVE TO KEEP replaying it over and over.”
“It’s like a movie, and I CAN hit ‘pause.’”
“I CAN shake these memories.”
Not only can we help ourselves to stop thinking about difficult memories—not only can we push “pause” on the movie reel that keeps playing over and over in our minds—but we can actually “rewrite” and redeem the story. We can interrupt the negative thought patterns and sing a new song, dance a new dance.
What about you? Is there a difficult story that you’ve been reading for too long? A negative narrative that you’ve been hearing too many times?
Let’s go out and shake things off, breathe deeply, stand in awe and wonder, try something new, and have a good ‘ole laugh!
What new story are you going to tell?
Guest author, Marci Renée, along with her French husband and four boys, is a global nomad who has traveled to more than 30 countries and has lived in the United States, France, Morocco, and Spain. She loves to travel, speak foreign languages, experience different cultures, eat ethnic foods, meet people from faraway lands, and of course, write and tell stories. She is a published author of children's picture books, memoirs, short stories, and poetry.
You can find Marci and her books on her website.
"The Cultural Story-Weaver," at www.culturalstoryweaver.com