By Dr Karen Hallam
Can one change their thinking? The short answer is yes. The long answer… it takes some work.
As we all go through life, our thoughts, whether conscious or running through the back of our minds, often dictate how we experience the world around us.
An important thing happens when we have a thought, particularly one that is unhelpful to us. In the brain we have millions of neurons that pass along messages to connected neurons via electrical impulses. Every function of our body is regulated by these chemical messages, from reminding our heart to beat (a very important message), right through to what colour shirt we will wear today. But let me give you an example of how this messaging system can strengthen unhelpful thoughts.
Imagine the first time you have the thought that you are not as smart as other people at school. This thought passes through your mind one day after a maths test that you did not do well on. To process this thought the brain wires a new neuron pathway or perhaps just slightly diverts one already being used. I think of this as the little track you see in the grass when you walk over it. If this track is not walked on again then it tends to disappear.
Imagine now that you began to take this track each time you felt you were not good enough or compared yourself unfavourably to other people. This track gets used much more now and becomes a bit of a dirt pathway that gets easier to use.
Imagine now that time has gone by and you are working. You frequently feel the sense of being an imposter and knowing that one day they will figure out you are not good enough. By this stage, the thought is so well-worn that the pathway has become a highway. Just like a highway, it’s fast and efficient and it’s pretty hard to think of an alternative way to go.
This is how our brains work. For some things this is great (e.g. driving our car), but for unhelpful thoughts and self-talk it can really damage our self-esteem and change the way we feel and behave. Someone with a frequent thought of not being good enough may not try for the promotion or pursue a relationship that could be great because of this unhelpful thinking.
This all sounds a bit heavy, but the good news is you do not have to keep taking the same pathway. While it is easiest to take the highway, we can challenge our thoughts several different ways. In particular, we can challenge ourselves to actually identify if there is evidence for a thought and try to come up with other reasons or explanations for events (maybe that maths test was hard and the whole class didn’t do well!).
Each time you question this pathway and try to think of a thought differently we encourage our brain to forge new, more positive pathways. At the same time, the less this highway is taken, the smaller and smaller it becomes.
If unhelpful thoughts are significantly impacting your life and sense of being OK, then it may be worth working with a psychologist who can teach you a wider range of skills. But if you have a negative thought highway that you can identify that you want to change, you can begin by recognising the thought is happening again, deciding to be kinder to yourself and choosing a new path of thinking.
So, can we change our thinking? Absolutely! Is it a challenge? Yep. Is it worth it? A thousand percent – it could change your life.
Dr Karen Hallam
Clinical Psychologist and Mental Health Advisor Moving Mindz