Have you ever found yourself on a drive and reached your destination and not remembered part of the journey?

Or, you found that you managed to solve an outstanding problem, or came up with an amazing idea, or remembered “that” name that you drew a blank on earlier when you were asked?

Well, there’s a reason for this and it holds the key to our being able to change our thoughts when we feel stuck in a place that we really don’t want to be in.

I read many posts on social media each day that intimate that switching to positive thoughts offers the answers to our problems. But as those of you know, it’s not that easy to just change a way of thinking, especially if we are caught in a spiral of problem focused thoughts.

We are increasingly becoming a nation who are problem focused; news, marketing (they need a problem to fix before they can sell you the solution), dialogue with friends and loved ones, even “mental health awareness” campaigns often are responsible for highlighting the problems that we are experiencing but don’t always offer the solutions! In many cases we find ourselves embodying our problems and not feeling like we are in control of our thoughts or actions.

So why can’t we just “switch those thoughts” around?

Firstly, our brains are wired to look for the problems. It’s part of our in-built survival instinct. We need to be ready to deal with the Sabre toothed tiger that is laying in wait for us round the next corner. But our brains haven’t caught up with our modern way of living and will still encourage us to focus on the problem rather than the solution.

Once the brain has identified a problem; whether it be financial, low self esteem, feeling of depression and or anxiety, feeling too fat, arguments… the list goes on, and we need to remember here that “A problem is only a problem if it’s a problem” it doesn’t want you to take your focus off the problem, it will obsess about it and start to look for anything else that could be related to the problem. (if we see one Sabre toothed Tiger we aren’t going to turn our back on it are we? there could be another following close behind too)

And this is the bit that others often don’t realise; when we are in the grips of a problem the brain impairs our ability to retain consious control (to a greater or lesser amount depending on the issue), so even if we wanted to see what was happening we can’t!!  So give yourself a break if you weren’t able to just “snap out” of the last negative spiral.

So what has the drive got to do with this?

When the brain is relaxed, as it is when were on a car journey (we don’t think about driving and it’s easy to follow the road) it is able to think clearly and solve the problems that we face. Sometimes we need to give the brain a little more help using specialist suggestion through practiced NLP techniques if there’s a trauma or fear involved, but in many cases just to relax the brain using guided mediations can be enough.

Now, I’d like to add here that I don’t think that there is anything bad with a bit of stress and anxiety. It’s a natural response to an unknown event or thought and can be just what we need to help us to get through the event that we face.

But, there’s a difference between us being in control and using our stress responses to our advantage and the stress response being in control of us!

I like too start my client sessions by explaining how our brains work. Why we feel the way that we do and most importantly what we can do about it.

I combine various talk therapies that warrant positive lasting changes in the brain helping you to move forward leaving your problems behind.

So, if someone tells you to just think positively and you really can’t there is often a good reason for this and you should give your self the break that you deserve to allow you the time that you need to switch things around. You may find that after a good night’s sleep you will feel better, but if you don’t and it feels all consuming give me a call and together we will turn things around.