Mental rumination

This was a term I learnt a few days back, I don’t remember the exact book I read it in because I have read about 3 books int he last oe week. But this term has left a lasting impression.

Everyone’s brain is hyper active. The human brain was designed to ensure survival. So by its very nature it has a negative bias. Which means that the brain will always try to see the negative in any situation first. If you are enjoying something, maybe you are at a party, you have this nagging feeling that something would be about to go wrong. Its just the way the brain tries to keep you safe and attentive to possible dangers.

But because the brain is hyperactive, it is able to float through different scenarios in your mind. Suddenly you start to actually feel terrible, if you have worked yourself up. This author used a very good term mental rumination. Its not a new term. If you go on Google and do a search for this term you will find that the search returns more than 3 million results. So it is a very well known term. It talks about the negative emotions that get generated when the brain is idling and starts thinking negative thoughts which slowly go out of control in terms of negativity.

However why it stuck to me, was that it is a term which I had heard the first time and I related it to how a cow regurgitates its food to chew further, while its resting. I have many bouts in the day where because of some random or stupid stimuli, my mind goes in a spin and then I am rewinding into the past and then imagining the negative future on some action I have taken. Its like I have become the cow who is moving its mouth to digest the food while its resting.

That image is what I am now trying to bring in front of me, whenever my brain gets into a spin. Its a little crazy, but it gives my brain an impulse and pulls it out of the negative spiral it has gone into. This is similar to what the NLP folks talk about to get the brain into a different state immediately.

Not only does mental rumination make you feel negative, it also ends up wasting so much of your productive time in useless activity.

If you also face a similar situation to what I face of mental rumination, I suggest you also visualise some crazy image, whenever you think you are going into a negative spiral, and come out faster.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Fear – our brain could be playing games – 3

Fear, Human Brain, Risks, Worry

I have written multiple posts on this topic, the last being on 14th September, because there was I time I used to be scared of so many things. Its taken me a lot of effort to reach this stage where I do take considerable amount of calculated risks.

As I have read more about the functioning of the human brain, more I have started to believe that all fear is actually created because of our brain.

Now I will like to clarify one thing being fearless and being reckless are two different things. So I am trying to become fearless day – by – day. I am not becoming reckless.

What’s the difference. An example of being reckless – If I am driving and I see a truck coming right in front of me, I won’t think its my brain playing games and go straight for the truck . Thats what deer do in the night when they see headlights. I will take evasive measures to move out of the direction of the truck.

As Seth Godin talks about in his book “Linchpin ” Trying to become fearless is not about not having fear but more about being unafraid of things that one shouldn’t be afraid of.

Our brain plays games in making us fear things, which in general we should not be fearful of. Doing a client presentation or making a phone call. Nobody is going to come and shoot you. But in case you are in front of a person who’s pointing a gun at you, then you need to be afraid, real scared. Trying to pull the gun away from her – that will be reckless.

Till next time then don’t have fear but don’t be reckless either.

Carpe Diem!!!

Fear – your brain could be playing games

Brain size, Energy, Fear, Human Brain, Worry

A few posts back I had written about how we tend to procrastinate because our brain does not want to expend energy.

Based on what I have been reading, I have a feeling that even fear could be your brain playing games on you. The whole premise below is my own deduction without any scientific evidence to the effect.

As a kid, I used to be scared of everything. Some of that changed as I became around 7-8 years old. I had a friend named Jaimee who used to stay in the apartment above us. My father had bought one small cycle for me. He used to prod me to keep cycling in spite of the fact that I would keep falling.

Once I became proficient in riding my small cycle he pushed me to ride a bigger cycle which we would bring on rent. As I developed the ability to ride bigger bikes, I also got more confidence in myself.

After reading so many books on the research on brain activity, I have been reviewing from my memory a lot of the episodes in my life where I was scared.

Most of the places where I feared something, I have realized, I was not confident of handling the situation because I had not been in it before. Whenever there was someone who gave me the support I would be able to do things without any issue. But whenever there was no one, my brain would show me all the terrible consequences I would face.

Now I realize that brain eats so much energy, even though its so small in size. So the brain’s first objective is to save energy to ensure survival. So whenever it feels you intend to make it do work, the brain throws ideas to make you feel scared. This fear then stops you in your tracks and you back away and the brain feels happy because it did not have to spend the energy.

Now obviously in case someone is pointing a knife at you, then there’s actual danger to you and you need to be careful, but most other times my feeling is that the brain is trying to save energy.

Think about it.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Things happen for us – Not to us

Human Brain, life, Worry

Tony Robbins has a saying to the above effect, signifying that instead of feeling like a victim, learn and take something out of it. I have another belief on similar lines, which is God does everything for our own good. Whether you believe in God or not is a separate issue, but things do work out eventually.

Today’s is a prime example. Since I got up today , early morning I was informed of an unscheduled visit for a meeting with some government officials. The original meeting as per my understanding was for the next day.

What was agitating was the fact that I had two meetings scheduled in the afternoon with some other customers. My team had got these meetings after a lot of effort and as a matter of principle, I don’t like the idea of cancelling a meeting with a customer. I was worried and irritated.

Since the meeting with the government officials was critical for our customer, I had to relent. I then started dialling out my colleagues to stand-in on my behalf for the first meeting. Luckily for me the first meeting, which was at 3 PM, the customer himself sent out a request for change of date, since he had to take an unscheduled leave today. I was confident that I will be able to attend the second meeting which was scheduled at 5:15PM

So I told the officials whim I was visiting that I would be out of the meeting by max 4PM since it takes about an hour’s drive. But the discussions continued and I was finally able to leave by 4:25. Now I was again in a quandary. I again dialled out my colleagues to engage the customer till I reached.

Now comes the interesting part. I was able to luckily reach home and join the meeting at exactly 5:15PM and the customer’s team had not arrived. So instead of me apologising for the mess up, I was on the high ground waiting for them.

Moral of the story – sometimes you should let things happen as they are happening without getting to anxious about it. There must be something good for you with you cannot see at the moment. In today’s situation I was able to satisfy one of my largest customer’s inspite of the fact that it was an unscheduled meeting, I could keep my principle of not cancelling meetings unless unavoidable and now tomorrow I have the full day which I can use to finish some other work.

Till next time ….keep the faith – life is happening for us not to us.

Carpe Diem!!!