Redefine your subconscious identity pathology
“Because when you behave as if something is true your brain believes it and that is the important shift that needs to happen. We’re not trying to fool other people about who we are. We’re trying to reassure our brain that it’s ok to change and grow and be different. Be better. That uncertainty isn’t dangerous, it’s exciting. ”
- Ericka Thomas
Transcript
Redefine your subconscious identity pathology
When you live long enough, you’re going to accumulate trauma. Sometimes it’s big T trauma and sometimes it’s little t. The big T is stuff like assault, abuse, or car accidents, or combat, or witnessing a horrific event of some kind. Little t (the way I understand it) are the things that we wouldn’t normally consider traumatic on the surface but when you take them all together they add up over a lifetime. Like chronic illness, chronic pain, multiple surgeries, pregnancy/labor, accidents, toxic work environments, toxic relationships, long term financial hardship, death, losses. Things that we think of as common parts of life. There are too many to name here because the nature of trauma (what maks something traumatic) depends on an individual's past experience. What we don’t want is to become locked into a past version of ourselves that is limited by that past experience. Today I want to focus on the way traumatic events both big T and little t can shape our physical, mental and emotional health and become part of our subconscious identity, an identity pathology, and lock us into the past. So today our Work IN is a conversation about how this happens and how we can start to detangle ourselves from the fixed mindset social sci op of identity pathology by first rediscovering who we really are and then redefining ourselves on our own terms.
What happened to us may be historically important from a top down understanding of how we got where we are today. But if we want to grow out of maladaptive stress responses and the behaviors they create that are related to that history like anxiety, people pleasing, overcommitment, eating our feelings, emotional dysregulation etc. then we need to replace those stories with something more interesting.
That sounds too simple, easy and a little woo woo. It’s not. I know it’s not. We’re talking about subconscious beliefs here and that means we might not be aware of exactly what those are. Subconscious beliefs can trigger reactions and behaviors that we think are simply part of our personality. But like Joe Dispenza says, our personality creates our personal reality.
Let’s dive in.
We need to understand that everything we feel, from physical pain to emotions, is coming from the brain and autonomic nervous system to help you survive in some way. It's all an internal environmental conditioned response designed to keep you safe. That conditioned response is all based on past feelings and thoughts that mean certain things to your brain and autonomic nervous system. The brain has created response patterns (Standard operating procedure) based on the past and it will repeat them and reinforce them forever until we do something to break that pattern or create a new pattern. So if we do nothing different we are basically stuck in the past. That’s where the Henry Ford quote: if you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got. Takes on new meaning.
We reinforce those patterns and subconscious identity by thinking about the past, talking about it, paying attention to it. Essentially reliving it. Even if we aren’t doing those things anymore or those events aren’t happening anymore, the brain thinks it’s still happening because it only knows what we show it and visualization is the same as the action. That’s one of the reasons visualization can be so powerful in positive ways. There are studies that have shown significant skill improvement for things like playing the piano and even muscle development from visualizing the exercise. The brain can’t tell the difference so it makes the physical changes regardless. It’s also powerful on the negative side. Maybe more so because of the default mode network.
So for example let’s take something like a fear of dogs. Perhaps you have a story in your past about being bitten by a dog as a child. Your parents reinforce your fear by their words and actions after the event. They retell the story over and over to all their friends with dogs. As you grew up you were never allowed near dogs of any kind again. You tell yourself and anyone who will listen that you hate dogs. As an adult you now have an irrational fear and hatred of all dogs that has grown into anxiety and panic attack symptoms in the presence of dogs. That’s your brain protecting you. But not the adult you in this present moment. No, it’s protecting the child-you who’s stuck in the past moment when you were attacked by a dog. And it might not have anything to do with the dog or the event. It could be the subconscious beliefs surrounding it. Perhaps a belief that you are vulnerable, that you are small and can’t protect yourself or maybe that you caused that to happen in some way. Those are bigger fears than a fear of a dog. Those fears can change who you are as a person.
Maybe that seems extreme and it doesn’t always happen that way.
Here’s another example. As a teenager you overslept one morning and were late to school. Your parents never let you forget it. You become the kid who’s always late and then the adult who’s always late. Your subconscious looks for ways to make you late. And now you introduce yourself as a “late person”. As if you have no control over that. You’ve adopted this label about who you are as if it is set in stone. Part of your personality. But I think we might agree that lateness isn’t considered a successful trait. Most employers won’t put up with that and it’s a habit that can limit your success in the world.
I think it’s safe to say that most of us are swimming in a long list of possible identities from a long list of possible sources. Conscious and subconscious. It isn’t any wonder that some of those adjectives become how we define ourselves.
We can get our subconscious beliefs about ourselves from our own experiences(traumatic and otherwise), our family experiences, and our communities. Those beliefs can show up as behavior choices and be adopted as parts of our personality. (introvert, extrovert, empath, basket case, people pleaser, doormat) Just like our health history, they are passed down from generation to generation and then become confused with genetic traits. But just like epigenetics can break the cycle of lifestyle diseases, things like growth mindset, somatics and trauma release can change the course of intergenerational trauma and identity pathologies.
The good news is we aren’t locked in the past. Unlike our brain we can tell time. We know the past, present and future. We can reprogram our brain and its responses. We are more than what happened to us in the past. We are more than our diagnosis and the labels that have been given to us by others. The way forward is through.
It starts with awareness and self examination.
Changing our perception of who we are, redefining our self, is difficult because we’re all wired to the negative. That’s the default mode network in the brain and it’s designed to say no, to resist any kind of change. It’s a survival response. And really powerful. We are who we are, right?
Wrong.
If you’re ready for a shift into growth mindset and transformation from the inside out, here are 3 thought exercises rooted in awareness to get you started on your redefinition journey.
Exercise 1
Catch the negative thoughts about yourself. They might be hard to see at first because we think the same thoughts all 90,000 of them every day. Observe the “I hate that I do that.” thoughts Or I hate that about myself”. If you think you don’t have those, look for the things that drive you crazy in other people. Usually that’s a clue. We tend to judge others most harshly for the things we try to hide in ourselves. Then apply simple curiosity. “Isn’t that interesting…” I wonder about that…”
If you really want to go deeper you can start to apply Byron Katy’s inquiry work to what you find.
Is that true?
Can you absolutely know it’s true?
How do you react, what happens, when you believe that thought?
Who would you be without that thought?
Turn it around and find the opposite.
This is a journaling exercise. You have to find the thought first.
Exercise 2
Try this exercise just for fun. Try to take the next 24 hours and every thing you say begins with “isn't it great that…” Try it. It’s difficult even for the most positive people. You’ll be surprised at how difficult that is. I know I was. For me when I did this the first time I got so frustrated finally I just had to keep my mouth shut.
Exercise 3
Here’s another exercise. Go a day without using the word “no” can’t don’t or won’t. I started this in my yoga teacher training and with zero negative cuing when talking to students. But even with only a couple hours a week it started to leak out into my regular conversations.
Look, I know what some of you are thinking. This smacks a lot of toxic positivity, pollyanna magical thinking - the fake it till you make it advice. And I suppose if you worked hard enough you could make the case for that. But really, and I didn’t always believe this mind you, really this is about using polarity of opposites to create balance in our internal environment. The internal state that we live in 24-7. In order to do that we have to have some awareness of the level of negativity that we live in everyday based on our subconscious beliefs and shine a light on the limits that we impose on ourselves that have no basis in fact or reality. That’s how we can create a new reality.
I used to believe that fake it till you make it philosophy was dishonest and cringy business behavior. I prefer “Behave as if…” Because when you behave as if something is true your brain believes it and that is the important shift that needs to happen. We’re not trying to fool other people about who we are. We’re trying to reassure our brain that it’s ok to change and grow and be different. Be better. That uncertainty isn’t dangerous, it’s exciting.
Why would you want to do those things? Because every time you have to stop and correct yourself you’re correcting the brain and when the brain makes predictive errors it has to change it has to make new neural connections and it will reprogram itself to give you what you’re asking for, not only to think differently but being unpredictable forces the mind to stay present. It stops living in the past or the future and stays in the here and now. It shifts attention away from thoughts and emotions of the past and creates new more positive, more interesting thoughts in the present. A clean slate so to speak and a new version of yourself.
How we define ourselves can either shrink our world or shatter glass ceilings. When we talk about stepping outside our comfort zone or thinking outside the box this is what we’re talking about. You can be very comfortable and completely miserable at the same time.
Now some of you might wonder “what if I don’t want to change who I am?” And to that I say great! More power to you. But if you look around and don’t like where you are, how you feel, how your life is turning out, how you think other people see you… there’s only one person with the power to change that. And that’s you. Try some of those exercises and let me know what you think.
Thanks for listening today! If you're looking for ways to handle the effects of stress, physically, mentally and emotionally through the body head over to savagegracecoaching.com/theworkin you’ll find all the show notes for this and other episodes plus lots of free resources. And if you’re in a place where you are ready for more and you live in the Dayton Ohio area I’m taking private clients for trauma informed yoga and trauma release exercise in person and online. So you can book a discovery call and we can have a real life conversation. And of course I’d be ever so grateful if you would take a moment to like and subscribe to this podcast wherever you’re listening.
Thanks again everyone and as always stop working out and start working IN.
Hey there!
I’m your host Ericka Thomas. I'm a health coach and trauma informed yoga professional bringing real world resilience and healing to main street USA.
I offer trauma release + yoga + wellness education for groups and individuals…regular people like you.
Book a call to learn how I can help.