Most people have a stash of knowledge, facts and information filling their minds… yet no idea that they have a toddler running loose inside there too.
There’s nothing more frightening than an unsupervised mind, and yet it’s the one thing we’re not taught to understand. Imagine a small human with a paintbrush and a can of bright red paint running freely around your home. Chaos! Yet this is the equivalent of most minds daily. No awareness. No containment. No perception of the damage we’re causing.
Here’s the thing: your brain believes the thoughts you feed it. Whether you’re conscious of them or not. There’s genius in that… but also unseen turmoil. Because we have a thought in our head, we assume it must be true. But with over 60,000 thoughts a day it’s impossible to keep track of them all. And head’s up… a LOT of them are not true!
Which means our subconscious beliefs are often running the show, without us even noticing. Unless we learn how to practice managing negative thoughts, our “toddler brain” is left to run amok with its paintbrush… and you can guess how that ends.
Let’s use an Easter analogy. Your brain LOVES to be productive. Give it a mission and it’s off, searching, sorting, collecting “eggs” for its basket. Super keen. Let’s say you’ve decided to buy a particular car. Suddenly, you see them everywhere. They were always there, but your brain wasn’t collecting that information, until it received your ‘instruction’ to search.
It’s the same with your thought patterns. Once you have a belief about yourself, someone else, or the world your mind starts looking for “evidence” to support it. Just like a toddler on an Easter egg hunt: “Here! Look! I found another one!” Useful you’d think.
It’s also very problematic…
Let’s say Maggie at the office is (apparently) the reason you must stay late at work. You’re furious, after all, you had plans. OK so they may have been your ‘comfies’ & a good Netflix movie but plans they were! Whether Maggie’s to blame or not, your brain doesn’t care. It’s received an instruction: Maggie is the problem.
So off it trots, in full detective mode. Gathering evidence, uncovering every moment she’s annoyed you since 2019… And into the basket it goes. “Maggie is a pain. Maggie is inconsiderate. Maggie is probably the reason the printer’s broken too…”
Unless you feed your mind a different thought, like “Maggie is under pressure today” or “this might not be about Maggie at all” you’re headed for a full-blown psychological murder mystery. And Maggie? Booted from the WhatsApp chat before the DI ‘Crack-the-case’ opens her notebook!
Worryingly we do this to ourselves every day. Thousands of quiet, invisible messages bouncing around our minds. “You’re too old.” “You always forget things.” “You’re not organised enough.” “It’s too late.”
These aren’t facts. They’re unchallenged subconscious beliefs and they fill our mental baskets without us even realising. So, my question to you is:
This is the work I love doing with clients. Helping women uncover the self-sabotaging thought patterns they didn’t know were running the show. Dissecting outdated belief systems and gently guiding them back to what’s true, helpful, and empowering.
For Easter then, instead of chocolate that will only sit on your hips, I’ll leave you with something more empowering: What thoughts are you collecting in your basket?
…And are they the kind you really want to keep?
If this kind of reflection resonates with you, you’ll love Calm Corners. My weekly letter where mindset meets meaning, and where your next chapter gets to start softly.
