Relationship Coach Blog

Your brain and your mind are not the same thing.  Your brain does many things which are below your level of awareness such as regulating blood pressure, body temperature, etc.  The part that you are aware of and think with is what we commonly call our mind.

The job of the brain is to maintain status quo.  It’s kind of like a heavy anchor for a boat.  Although you may try to make positive changes, your brain will tend to feed you discouraging thoughts or feelings that make it difficult to change.

Knowing that the job of the brain is to maintain status quo (what psychologists call “homeostasis”) is an important step toward making permanent change.  It allows us to downgrade the importance of our feelings and automatic thoughts when we are trying to change.

For example, athletes know that when we push our bodies hard, our brain tries to get us to stop by telling us to give it up, it’s too hard, it’s dangerous, etc.  Such thoughts and feelings are normal and to be expected.   Athletes have learned to reinterpret this information from our brains to actually indicate progress.  Thoughts like, “No pain, no gain” and “Feel the burn”  help athletes to resist the urge to stop when their brain is sending them stop signals during training or competition.

When we are working toward behavioral change such as becoming more social or agreeing rather than disagreeing, we can similarly use beliefs to help us to resist our brain’s messages.  For example, when you are feeling attacked by your spouse you may have an urge to defend yourself or to counterattack.  If you have developed beliefs such as “Agreement is power,” “Defending is unnecessary,” and “Don’t repay evil for evil,” they will help you to maintain control of yourself and the situation.  A battle that you don’t fight cannot be won by your opponent (or spouse).

When you try to change, you need to change your beliefs about your old behavior as well as have supporting beliefs for the new behavior.  When you have sustained the changes for awhile, you will find that your brain is a great ally as it will then seek to maintain the status quo for the new you.

Learn more about changing your beliefs to actually get what you want from your relationships and  life by working with a relationship coach.