“A Neurocycle to Improve Low Self-esteem + Lack of Confidence” from Dr. Caroline Leaf
“A Neurocycle to Improve Low Self-esteem + Lack of Confidence”
Source: Cleaning Up Your Mental Mess (Listen: 1 hr 3 min)
Contributor: Selena Garcia
“Your identity is the unique way that you think, and you feel, and you choose.” — Dr. Leaf
Using a forest analogy, Dr. Caroline Leaf helps us understand identity, detailing its role in thinking, feeling, and choosing our way through various situations. Her passion for this topic is palpable, which causes her to repeat and revisit concepts. She does an excellent job of walking you through the basic premise of mind-building a thought into the brain.
We've shared Dr. Leaf's work before in our Journal titled "Cleaning Up Your Mental Mess.” Earlier we focused mainly on anxiety, depression, and intrusive thoughts. Here, we’re exploring how identity informs the ways in which we move through the world. Nature and nurture, consciousness and unconsciousness, all impact our functioning. In the second half of this podcast, Dr. Leaf talks you through how to do an identity check.
If you're struggling with a sense of "brokenness" inside of you, give this one a listen. Dr. Leaf proposes that if we don't bring mindfulness to the table, we diminish our unique impact we can so uniquely offer and that competition can lead to an identity crisis.
After grounding you in a place to start analyzing your patterns and behavior, Dr. Leaf will help you further define and shape your identity. In the process, it's essential to recognize that you're not going to alter your identity in one shot, but you can start by setting intentions based on your own values.
“When we are functioning in and organically growing our identity we tend to be filled with inspiration, creativity, excitement, peace, and kindness.” — Dr. Leaf
(2:54) "An identity crisis cuts to the core of your being and value, and will impact what you think, feel, and do. Your identity is you. You've heard me talk a lot on this podcast about the difference between the mind and the brain. And I talk about the mind being your, 'How you think, and how you feel, and how you choose.' Your identity is the unique way that you think, and you feel, and you choose. You've also heard me say often… I'm holding up a little tree in a pot. And this tree I always use to represent what a thought looks like because, with our minds, we build all our experiences into thoughts inside of our brain, and thoughts are real things made of proteins and chemicals, and they look like trees. And the root system is the source."
(10:57) "When we live in environments where we're perpetually bombarded with messages of, 'You're not good enough.' you can't see that internal forest, and that's where people get very desperate, and lose hope, and can get suicidal, and totally broken... So, our identities are developed and shaped in our connection with others and the impact we as individuals uniquely make."
(19:03) "Christopher Fox is a quantum theorist. One of my favorite quantum theorists, and he talks about the fact that it's not about you. It's about you in the world… It's not just about you alone. There is a whole teaching around that too, and I'm not going to talk about isolation now but it's you in the world. Only you can bring to the world what you can bring to the world. And when we see that, then you can look at someone else, even who's doing maybe an identical thing to you. Maybe in the same profession. Maybe another teacher, or another doctor, or another wellness coach, or whatever, and they're doing basically the same thing as you or something like that. You can look at them and realize, 'Hey, there's something you can do that I can't do and if I enhance you and lift you.' In doing that, you increase your own intelligence. You increase your own brain health. You increase blood flow coherence in your brain. You increase throughout your entire body. Your neurophysiology starts changing."
(31:38) "When we are functioning in and organically growing our identity, we tend to be filled with inspiration, creativity, excitement, peace, and kindness. We are more self-regulated, compassionate, and calm. And have purpose, and passion, and direction, and hope."
(32:23) "Inspired, creative, excitement, what's your level of excitement? Your level of peace. Things hit us, and all things happen, and you can feel in the moment that things are going crazy and you feel overwhelmed, but are you able to bounce back? Are you able to pull yourself together and go forward?... Your identity plays a massive role in being able to see that."
FOR THE FULL PODCAST, LISTEN HERE. (1 hr, 3 min)
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