Do you know exactly what you want in life and yet no matter how much you try; you can’t seem to get it? As the list of things we want to achieve in our life keeps piling up, procrastination seems to happen the most. This is because your critter brain, which is also known as the brain stem or the primitive part of the brain that is wired for your survival, is doing its job very well to keep you safe.
Critter brain doesn’t like change. It sees change as a threat to your survival and to your core emotional needs which are love, safety and belonging. Critter brain’s job is to protect you from any change, it doesn’t differentiate between a positive or a destructive change.
It wants to keep you where you exactly are, in-line with your subconscious beliefs. So, let’s take a quick look at subconscious beliefs. Your beliefs come from your programming. Your programming consists of all the information you received from your family, caregivers, friends, school and home environment and the way you interpreted all the information that you received between the ages of 0-6.
Programming happens before the age of 7
Everything that you observed growing up has been building your identity over the years – based on your programming – defining who you decided to be or who you know yourself to be. A simple example would be finding yourself saying things such as “I am a failure”, “I am not worthy”, “I am overweight”, “I always disappoint people’’, “I can’t seem to get it right no matter how much I try”, “This is not meant for me” …. These are all excuses your critter brain is coming up to keep you where it knows to be true that was defined by your own self-limiting beliefs that comes from your outdated programming coded during your childhood.
The good news is that it is possible to upgrade your programming. This is something that I closely work on with my clients so they can start realizing the situation before it happens again and change it to be in-line with what they want to achieve in life. It is always so enlightening to see them uncover their subconscious beliefs that they’ve never knew existed and how it affected the outcomes they want to get in life.
Coming back to critter brain and how it uses your subconscious beliefs as a safety mechanism….
Anything new gets coded by critter brain as unfamiliar, hence unsafe. Once things start going too well, your critter brain starts freaking out and says, “well this actually might change your life completely, oh no!!!” It gets comfortable with what it already knows about you to be true (based on your programming and beliefs) as it can survive happily in a familiar environment.
For instance, if you lose weight and put it back again in couple months, critter brain is used to this pattern and will expect the same or similar patterns in the future. Hello, yoyo dieting!
Or let’s say you are doing very well in your job, and you finally got the promotion you’ve been waiting for, but suddenly doubt starts to creep in. You start questioning if you are capable if you have the expertise or talent. You start losing your confidence to a point it jeopardizes your years of hard work.
Another common example would be relationships… Did you ever experience with your partner, when things are going too well, you are both so in-love and happy, and yet you can’t stop thinking about hundreds of reasons why it wouldn’t work and start questioning your trust, your feelings for each other. Your relationship then starts going the opposite direction, in-line with your beliefs. When there is a change oppose to your engraved beliefs in your subconscious, critter brain is triggered and then it feeds this back to you to ensure you stay exactly where you are.
You can find similar scenarios in all different aspects of your life. Take a moment to think how this comes up in your life. Is there any area that you are self-sabotaging? If so, what could be the underlying reason? What is it that you fear or not familiar with?
How to Deal with Critter Brain?
1) Step Back
Start putting a distance to your self-sabotaging thoughts and behaviors by stepping back. Approach it with curiosity instead of judgement.
Pay attention to when these negative thoughts, feelings and behaviors are triggered. Ask yourself why now? What is it that I am feeling and why am I feeling this way? What happened to trigger this thought and feeling? Once you can name your feeling, you’ve already identified it and it is no more a blur in your head. You will feel the relief and confidence as you give yourself a moment to ask and hear what is going on. In our busy lives we tend to miss this step a lot. It is so vital for our mental, physical, and emotional health. Every resolution starts with stepping back, pausing to take a break and just listening to yourself. Paying attention to how you are feeling is not something that most of us were thought when we were growing up unfortunately. We mostly been told to be strong, to keep going no matter what. We can only keep going if we know what is stopping us at the first place.
Slow down and ask what is the good intention in this discomfort that I am feeling?
2) Make Peace and Let Go
Accept that it was your critter brain trying to protect you all these years. Thank your critter brain for doing an amazing job keeping you safe but now it is time to thrive! Know that it had good intentions for you, but it is time to move on.
Every time it pays a visit, repeat the same and make peace with your critter brain. Create a list of positive self-affirmations you can repeat daily which helps rewire your old and limiting beliefs.
3) Keep Your Awareness Going
Now that you know why it is happening, it will never have the same effect on you if you can keep this awareness level.
And yet when it happens again, it doesn’t mean that you are terrible at what you are doing. On the contrary this is a great sign that change is happening. You are growing and you are on the right track. You are doing so well to a point you got critter brain’s attention. Way to go! 😊
4) Reframe Your Thoughts
I want to share a great exercise that will help you start rewiring your mind immediately. When you catch yourself deep in negativity, write down your judgements.
Similar to the table created below based on some common judgements, create your own table and name as I did the first column “My Old Beliefs” and the second column “My New Beliefs”.
While doing this exercise the question you need to ask yourself is if the reframed new belief is more empowering or disempowering? If it is more empowering, then you are on the right track.
You don’t have to finish this exercise at once, you can write new judgements as you go when your critter brain is active. Think of the underlying reason, make peace with it, and let it go.
Be creative as you are coming up with your new beliefs. Remember it doesn’t have to be perfect. It has to be more empowering from your current limiting beliefs.
| MY OLD BELIEFS | MY NEW BELIEFS |
I can’t do it, it’s not meant for me | I define what I want and what is right for me. I can do, be or have anything I want. |
| I am not enough | I am more than enough. I am proud of everything I accomplished. I do everything the best way possible |
| I am not smart | I am wise and knowledgeable. I constantly grow and learn new things everyday |
| I failed | I learned what I needed to learn from this experience. Every single failure is getting me one step closer to success. |
| I am behind | I will set realistic expectations for myself from now on. I am exactly where I am meant to be and I can’t wait for where this takes me next. |
Summary
For self-improvement and the goals you want to achieve, it is essential to understand how our brain works. What’s holding you back is your subconscious beliefs about what you need to do, be or have, in order to keep the feelings of love, safety, and belonging intact. It is because of the way your brain was wired and programmed a very long time ago. Critter brain gets alarmed every time you go against your subconscious beliefs and looks for destructive ways to keep you where you are.
We looked at different examples of self-sabotages and when they kick in. Self-limiting and destructive thoughts and feelings will keep coming back in different areas of your life. With regular practice, it is possible to start detecting and overcoming them one by one. This is exactly what I am supporting my clients to achieve by simple yet very effective rituals that make the critter brain “get familiar” with what they want to achieve so that they not only get what they want but also can maintain it for the rest of their lives.
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