The laziness of the brain

Hello, dear friends, and welcome to another episode of holistic coach mastery podcast. Today's topic is about the laziness of our brain. And I realize that this may sound a little judgmental, but I want to clarify this, we are not saying it to put ourselves down to blame ourselves, or to really feel guilty about something, it's definitely not the purpose, the purpose is to understand what's happening, why it happens, the way it happens, and how we can reprogram our brain, how we can kind of get rid of this laziness. So first of all, one thought about the evolutionary purpose since humanity and human life and actually every being exists, the number one purpose, the number one goal is survival. Before you can think about your social goals, your financial goals, your personal life goals, you first need to think about survival. And you don't necessarily do that consciously. But that's like an instinct, that's like, number one necessity survival, staying alive. And in order for this to happen, there is one very important mechanism, which is efficiency, the brain, the body, our physiology, needs this efficiency, which means with minimum resources to achieve maximum result. So let's explore how this works in reality, when you are thinking a thought, when you are learning something new, when you are doing something, you are triggering pathways between the different neurons in your brain, it may sound complicated. If we explore this, it's really complicated, but that's not what we are gonna do. Because we don't need it, we need to understand that those pathways between the neurons are extremely important. And when you learn something new, when you have a new thought, it triggers connections, new connections between the different brain cells, okay. And once you learn something, once something becomes kind of a habit, when you can do it on autopilot, when you don't have to be extremely concentrated to do that. That's because the pathways between your neurons are already there. And it doesn't require so much energy to kind of like, symbolically follow those paths that are already there. That's the explanation why, for example, when you are learning to drive a car, at first, you're stressed, you know, you need to think about so many things. And with practice, it becomes a habit. And at certain point, you are even doing this on autopilot. And sometimes this may even be kind of a way to switch off your brain. How does that happen? Well, you have used those pathways so many times, that you no longer need to bring so much conscious awareness to it. And it's like your subconscious mind knows his job. So it's kind of like following the same pathways. It's energetically very efficient. That's very important for the brain and for the whole body. Okay, and this is a good Model when you learn something, and then you can just do it without so much extreme effort and all of that. But that's also the way everything else happens, including the bad stuff, including the bad habits and the negative thoughts, if you will, our brain likes the patterns, you have a thought chances are you have the same thought, frequently, or maybe even every day, you are doing something you are already used to do that. Somehow on autopilot, you are repeating that. So do you see what's happening? That's what we mean by the laziness of the brain. Again, it's not judgmental, because it's also allowing us to survive, it helps us to be more efficient. But in some cases, we definitely don't want to do that. In some cases, we want to escape, we want to prevent the repetition of old patterns, old models, old behavior, actions, emotions, you name all of it. But it's difficult, because it requires more energy. So in order to overcome this laziness, so to speak, in order to break those pathways, or to create new pathways between the neurons in your brain, you need to put more energy, even on a physical level, on the physiological level, it does require more energy. And also, it requires emotional and mental energy. And that's why very often we don't do this. That's why very often, we follow those well known paths, even if they are leading us nowhere. Or even if they don't bring us the results that we really want. And here is another important thing. Everything that you have been through, especially at your earliest age, after your birth, I would say even before that, even during the pregnancy of the mother, but especially during the first six years of your life, everything that you go through is recorded in your subconscious mind. And it doesn't matter if it's good or bad. The brain records this as it's fine, we survived. And it might have been difficult, there might have been pain or trauma, everything. But if you have survived it for the brain, that's okay, it means we can handle this. That's the norm. That's the normal for us or for me. And what happens is that it also programs patterns for you. And very often later in life, we tend to repeat or to attract similar situations. You know, how pretty common it is that if your father has been an alcoholic, in your a woman later in your life, very often your partner also struggles with addiction to alcohol or something else. Your brain has recorded the messages, it's fine, we survived that. So it recreates same situations or similar cases. Because you can do that that's the normal for you. Again, it's powder, it's recorded, and it tends to repeat because again, it's really efficient for the brain and for ourselves to act in though in this environment or in situations that we have been in before. Can you see hear how from one side this can be positive because you have learned certain lesson which means that you have certain expertise so to speak in certain situations. And then your brain is just creating or attracting similar situations because Okay, we are good at that. We can handle that. But of course this can also attract lots been lots of trauma in your life, especially if those first experiences haven't been positive. So this is a very big topic, I have called this the laziness of the brain. But it's also about the efficiency of your brain. So again, no judgment, we just need to bring more understanding. And another research shows that our thoughts on a daily basis are 90%, the same. So if today, you have certain thoughts, chances are that tomorrow, you will have it again. And then the day after and the day after, you will think about this, again. Why is this for absolutely the same reason, there are pathways in your brain, it's much easier to follow those paths, instead of creating new ones. And thought also trigger emotions, they trigger your actions. So it's kind of a circle that we are in, and it repeats until we do something different. Okay, so let's talk about now, what's the solution? First of all, of course, it's bringing more awareness. First of all, realizing this model, how it actually works, seeing the good intention behind it, because without this, we wouldn't be able to survive that. absolutely certain. We don't want to erase this. We don't want to, you know, throw this away, absolutely not. But we want to navigate the process. So first of all, higher awareness, understanding, and realizing that it's absolutely normal. If things are repeating, if there are patterns, if you are doing or thinking on autopilot, you need this, we as much as we want to be conscious and aware with what's happening in our life, we need to realize that we cannot do this 24 hour, during the day, it will be too much it will be too exhausting. So, for certain things, we still want to keep this going this out of pilot, this habitual actions and all of that, but we want to be able to control this process. And when we realize that there is a negative pattern, we need to have the tools to change that. And the other thing that we need to do is to observe, to observe and to analyze. It's a little bit like looking at yourself from the outside. Okay, what are my thoughts right now? How many of them are the same every day? What's my emotion right now? Is it also similar to what I'm experiencing most frequently to observe and to see, okay, do I really want this or maybe not. And the next things are the real deal, but they are also the most difficult. In order to break the habit of negative thinking, or repeating the same mistakes or attracting the same situations, we need to do things differently. And by that, I mean on many different levels. You may start with something really simple. For example, the way you ate, change something about the atmosphere, change something about your schedule, change the place where you ate, and everything else that you can think of which is kind of like small, but you are doing it on autopilot. Change it for example, if most of the time You put your glass of water in your right hand, start doing it with your left one. Or provoke your mind to, to awaken to be more present. And the way to do that is by doing different things, to do things in a different way, first, the habitual things. And then generally to start doing new things. For example, if you go to your office or your work, and usually you have, you know, like, typical path that you go to change it, sometimes this may not be applicable, but in other cases it might be, or if you have your regular walk in absolutely the same place, you know, thinking the same thoughts, change it, do to another place to to go to a place where you haven't been. So, the main idea here is to change things to put your brain in new situations. In those situations, the brain can't work on autopilot, and cannot be lazy, so to speak. And first, I would recommend you to start with the simple things, as we said, some habitual actions, some everyday activities. But then the more new things you learn, the more your brain learns how not to be lazy. And here's the thing, you may adopt some new positive habits in this way. And the truth, my friend is that at first, it's difficult. The reason why it's difficult is because it literally takes more energy and more resources for the brain to create those new pathways between the neurons. That's why we resist the change we don't like, or we try to avoid it. But the good news is that those new positive activities with repetition will also become more automatic. So at certain point, you won't need to put the same amount of effort, it will become easier. That's the point. And if you have tried to adapt the new habit, maybe it has been about exercising or eating something or having a schedule or something else a new habit, I'm pretty sure that at first, it has been difficult. And if you have been consistent over time, you have noticed that it gets easier. Okay? Especially if it's not something that's like extremely hard and you resist the change. So the way to escape from this brain laziness is to try and to learn new things, and repeat them until they become your new normal. Because it happens eventually, for the very same reasons, because of the efficiency because of the pathways. Which by the way, the more you use, the stronger they get. And old pathways become weaker, the less you use them. So again, this efficiency is also helpful when we are trying to adapt new habits. If you have negative thoughts, if you are over critical with yourself, or maybe you have fearful thoughts on a daily basis, or negative emotions. This is the same, it's absolutely the same. It's a repetitive model, it's a pattern. And at first it will require more effort to change it. But the more consistent you are, the stronger the new pathways and the new patterns will become. And the weaker the old ones will be until eventually, they disappear in certain way, at least symbolically. So I would like to offer you to think about, which is one or two things which you are doing on autopilot. Or it's kind of like your brain is lazy and it repeats them. And think about how you can change them. It's an amazing thing that you can do for yourself, even just by realizing this model and how it works. First of all, you can be kind of easier on yourself, stop judging, blaming yourself, that's physiology. It's not you who are guilty of something. It's just physiology, its nature. And we need this. But we can also navigate the process and we can use it to achieve the things that we want. Because in ancient times, as we said, personal happiness, emotional fulfillment, those things haven't been on the list, the main thing has been survival, competition, killing or be killed, I mean, like 1000s of years ago, and that's how old our brain is. And the things like emotional well being or peacefulness, those things haven't existed. But nowadays, of course, things are much different. The thing is, our brain is pretty much the same. So we need to do the effort and to learn how to do this navigation, and how to use our brains in the best possible way. Because it is possible. So I hope I have inspired you to look at this from a different perspective. And also to motivate you to create new patterns, new pathways between your brain cells, and to choose them in a positive way in a way that will help you to move forward. Thank you so much for joining me. Don't forget to follow my Instagram also, Marina Stoichkova. You will find also lots of astrology and psychology there as well. Thank you so much, and I'll catch you next time.