LOL! I have asked myself (and my therapist) the same thing about my anxiety disorder!
One of the things to know is this: Our brains generate thoughts all the time. It's what they do. Just like our heart beats and our lungs inflate and deflate. We don't think up each thought ourselves anymore than we consciously manage each beat of our heart or each breath our lungs take.
Many of the thoughts our brains generate come in that area of "chatter" -- they are habitual thoughts that our brain goes back to time and time again. You're right, some is genetics, some is chemistry. But some is just our brain trying to go down old pathways that used to work.
You know how you can get a song stuck in your head? Well, you can get a thought stuck in your head, too. And if it's a thought you've had since childhood, it can be really, really stuck.
What you've done over the last 10 years is to start to make those thoughts less natural, less of a habit. And you've made huge progress. You are teaching your brain new thoughts, like "blushing is not a big deal," and it is learning to move on more quickly. This is pretty exciting.
I used to joke with my therapist that it must not be "my" brain because it won't do what I want it to do!! But when I think about it as an organ that has been taught to think certain ways -- in childhood, while growing up, and as an adult -- I can see why some patterns are so hard to break.
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LOL! I have asked myself (and my therapist) the same thing about my anxiety disorder!
One of the things to know is this: Our brains generate thoughts all the time. It's what they do. Just like our heart beats and our lungs inflate and deflate. We don't think up each thought ourselves anymore than we consciously manage each beat of our heart or each breath our lungs take.
Many of the thoughts our brains generate come in that area of "chatter" -- they are habitual thoughts that our brain goes back to time and time again. You're right, some is genetics, some is chemistry. But some is just our brain trying to go down old pathways that used to work.
You know how you can get a song stuck in your head? Well, you can get a thought stuck in your head, too. And if it's a thought you've had since childhood, it can be really, really stuck.
What you've done over the last 10 years is to start to make those thoughts less natural, less of a habit. And you've made huge progress. You are teaching your brain new thoughts, like "blushing is not a big deal," and it is learning to move on more quickly. This is pretty exciting.
I used to joke with my therapist that it must not be "my" brain because it won't do what I want it to do!! But when I think about it as an organ that has been taught to think certain ways -- in childhood, while growing up, and as an adult -- I can see why some patterns are so hard to break.
Does that make sense?
May 14, 2010 - 10:14amThis Comment
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