Your mind is lying to you

Have you noticed, whenever you want to indulge in a guilty pleasure, how your mind would cook up all the reasons to justify why you should do it. I am not saying, that having a cheat day is wrong, but when you wish to have one day of gluttony, ever noticed, how your mind would literally give you all the possible scenarios of why whatever you are doing is right? Let’s take another example, whenever you wish to do anything, which might technically not be right, like lying to someone, at the time of the action, your mind would give you all the reasonings, to make it sound like it’s the right thing to go ahead and do, and later, maybe post the action you might realise, how you were actually wrong, and should not have done such a thing.

The five minutes of extra sleep in the morning, the skipping your planned workout, the choosing to talk a little longer to your friends rather than go back to your studies, is what the mind tricks you into believing is right. The biggest enemy of your mind is resistance, change, to go from something old to anything new. It would do everything in its power to make the situation seem absolutely wrong, and try its best to keep you at the old, comfortable place (aka the dreaded comfort zone), how much ever miserable that might have been. When something in your life, goes on for prolonged period, whether it be good or bad (in this context, ill be specifically highlighting the bad parts), your mind is keen to take a liking towards it. The way human brain functions is that, once you expose it to a certain environment, it might be resistant at first (so if you start something new, a new start up, your mind will give you a hundred reasons on why you shouldn’t do it. “OMG, you are leaving your current, safe, well paid job? For something uncertain, are you making a right decision”, because you are pushing your mind out of its cushy comfort filled constant, into an uncertain variable). The resistance might be hard, hence the consistency get’s hit after a point of time (Let’s say you are just starting to work out, and the first 2 days are complete adrenaline filled, extra work out days, but it’s the third day that your mind would connive you to leave it, or take a break, or “You have done enough, one slice of pizza wont hurt, you really want to get up at 5AM again, one extra hour of sleep wont kill you”), so there your consistency takes a huge hit. When you go past the resistance phase, and your mind gets used to it, it will take every opportunity now to create the same scenario to feel comfortable, because now your mind is absolutely comfortable and used to this way of working, and will start convincing you, that “Hey, this is what I want.” (So when you are absolutely a gym freak, your mind would go on like “I want Gym now, let’s hit the treadmills, its okay if you have come late from office, I NEED GYM”). And that’s what makes it a habit. So slowly from hating to go to gym, your mind is absolutely devoted to this activity and will do everything in its limit to be there (“Its raining, it okay, I’ll still go”), and technically this is a good thing right? Your mind has gotten used to a healthy trait, so you are lucky. But what if I replace that gymming with something bad?

So May was the Mental Health Awareness month, and I wanted to write this huge article to emphasize this trait into the mental health of people. Studies have shown that, when someone is put through a toxic or an abusive phase, after a point of time, their mind gets absolutely accustomed to it. It stops telling them that this is wrong, and that its not normal, and starts justifying the behaviour. Worse, it starts recreating the same toxic atmosphere in the future to feel comfortable, again. Your mind does not only get comfortable with the good gymming trait, it gets used to the horrible and negative aspects to your life too. A friend of mine, studying medicine once told me, how our mind functions. When it is constantly used to be treated badly and felt being left in despair, it starts getting used to it. The mechanism of your mind is wired in such a way, that when put in a particular situation for a long time, it starts changing to get adapted to the situation. To get acclimatized to it. That’s the way us humans also work. Shift to the colder regions, your body will get acclimatized to it asap. When your wiring changes inside, your mind has made the negative situation the new normal and then starts recreating it whenever it isn’t present also. It cannot suddenly take the brunt of the change. It cannot bear the fact that for sometime, the negativity is gone and there is something positive. Subconsciously, it starts recreating the same pain, to get comfortable again. So you might have noticed, that even if you have been feeling all well for some time, in some nights, your mind starts replaying your nightmares, or starts constantly reminding you of the worst, and berating you, making you feel like you are not ‘enough’ or ‘good enough’. And when this isn’t enough, your mind tricks you into going back to the bad place from which you had left. Personally experiencing the same, I have realised that when you have consciously gained some perspective, that whatever happening is wrong, or you deserve better, your mind does trick you into getting back its methodone, and the methodone being the horrid past you left behind.

Think of your brain as clay, and a very very manipulative piece of one. When it is exposed to a particular situation for long time, be it good or bad, it starts taking its shape and becoming accustomed to it. Initially its painful, but later, its completely normal and used to the same. Now when the situation starts getting out of hand, that piece of clay is not used to the new change, so it starts getting rigid. When you plan to leave the situation getting so bad, the rigid piece of clay now starts manipulating you, to stay or go back. One of the ways I have noticed this happening is by replaying only the good memories completely cutting out the bad ones, the good might have occurred a handful times, now suddenly inside your head its continuously going on a loop, missing the reality, as if the happy moments were so evidently there all the time, and even most of all, recreating things that didn’t actually occur. Your mind, would start to recreate exaggerated versions of normal scenarios, making them seem so good and fairy tale like, that you start missing what wasn’t even there in the first place. Another trickery – hope. Well 'hope', is a beautiful thing, that keeps us alive and makes us wish for better, but in this context, hope is bad, because hope is giving water to a dead plant, or giving a CPR to a dead patient. Your mind starts making you hope for a change. Even when nothing went right in the godforsaken past, and even you know now nothing will change because it’s a dead situation and the best thing to do now, is to leave it and go towards something better, your mind will use its deadly weapon of hope. You would start hoping that things might just change if I stick around, that something good might come up, why leave something when it has a chance, no darling it doesn’t have a chance, sorry. The most deadliest weapon your mind can use against you is hope, because this beautiful feeling has the power to move mountains, but here it has the power to keep to stuck onto something, you know you are better off without. It has the power to devoid you of your future happiness, of what you actually deserve because your godforsaken mind is so used to being sad now, it wont allow anything else.

The most important thing to remember is your mind does not understand emotions. It’s a control centre. It only acts upon with the situation and the commands its given, and later gives commands to run your body. Emotions of happy, sad, good, bad is something it doesn’t understand. You give it a warm comfy bed everyday at night, it will manipulate you to stay the extra 5 mins in bed as it is now used to the warmth. You give it the ‘one extra episode’ of your favourite show, it will give you millions of reasons, as its programmed to do so, on why its not wrong to leave everything important and watch that one extra episode. You give it a bad situation, it will give you a million reasons to be stuck there and not leave it and drive the good situations away, You give it a good situation, it will ensure you have achieved your desired goals. That’s why we say the mind is the most powerful tool in the world, as it doesn’t only have the power to dictate your present, but also control your future. It can mould you to be self-destructive, killing all the future good opportunities and possibilities, while it can also make you the best version of yourself that can ever be.

Now after rambling so much, on how it is lying to you, how do we fix this? Well first is understanding consciously, how your subconscious mind is playing you. If you identify with these above situations, then make a list of what bad has been happening in your life and how you are going to change it, because darling, the key is not to be a slave to your mind but rather to control it. Now, its time to reshape the clay, to achieve your best, become your best and not lose out on the good opportunities, because your mind has convinced you ‘you can’t do this, you aren’t this, you don’t like this’. IF YOU WANT THE GOOD IN YOUR LIFE, BE IT WHATEVER OR WHOMEVER, THEN GET THAT GOOD, BECAUSE YOU DESERVE IT. If your mind’s biggest enemy is resistance, then you first start by accepting the current situation and charting out a plan to change it. Change is possible, your existence is a probability of 1:4,00,00,000,000, hence you are equipped with that much wonder to change everything around you, including your world. Once, you have made a list on what you deserve, the good you want to achieve, and how you are going to CONSCIOUSLY work hard to fix what’s broken or to get what you want, get ready because now it’s going to get difficult.

Now, the only thing to do is trick your mind into believing that ‘THIS IS YOURS AND YOU DESERVE THIS’. The initial steps might be hard, getting up at 5, or putting in the extra efforts and your mind will do every bit to resist it, but the key here is not to let it win. Understand that your mind is lying to you, its manipulating you to go back to your old pathetic self, and you don’t want that. No, you don’t. Put in the extra initial efforts, affirm it constantly to yourself that you deserve better (use affirmations, as they can work wonders. Whenever you feel your mind is talking nonsense again, keep repeating your goal to yourself, your vision, what you want. Write it down somewhere and read it out everyday, see it everyday, keep it near you, see it before going to bed, stand it front of the mirror and repeat it to yourself. All these can come very handy to remind yourself, why you are doing this in the first place and how badly you want it). Don’t succumb to your habits, don’t let your mind tell you that – ‘you cant do this because you aren’t wired that way’, answer back saying ‘If I want this, then I will get this and I will change the wiring for it, if its needed’. If your desire for something is so big, then be ready to change the wiring too and not let yourself just be bound to your definitions. You are not your definitions, because you can change too. You mind churns out those definitions and it is a is piece of clay, which you can change. So technically you can change, the key is to not let your mind define you. Its is a brilliantly powerful tool, and the best victory is when you can learn to control the most powerful tool to your liking. Just be conscious and remember, you deserve the best.