Written by When you make the conscious decision to walk away from your past and desire to become a better version of yourself, the mind will constantly remind you of all your failing, past mistakes, rough situations, and bad things that you have been through. This is the attempt of the mind to bring you back to a circumstance in which it can control you. May 20, 2020, Psychology Today article Discussed Dr. Jonathan Haidt’s book, The Happiness Hypothesis, in which he talked about the brain being the driver and the human being more of the advisor. He uses an analogy about an elephant and an elephant rider, referring to the rider as more of an advisor than a director. The brain works similarly. We appear to direct the traffic in the brain, but we are just advising it. The brain is the director. (Berry)
The mind knows that if it can fill your thoughts with images of what went wrong, it assumes that you will turn back and run from your attempts to be a better version of yourself. It uses your fear, shame, guilt, and past challenges against you, knowing that for so long, it has successfully used those tactics to keep you stagnant. A CNBC article talked about a phenomenon that researchers call Availability Heuristic. The writer of the article stated, “Many people are mentally paralyzed by fear and doubt. If you are preoccupied with the past, you will have a lot of difficulty moving forward.” (Kaplan)
When you have made that decision, it is almost nightmarish with the assaults that the mind/brain will unleash. It wants one to concentrate on past issues because it wants one to focus on solving unsolvable problems. The mind realizes that keeping you in that loop will allow it to control you. Here is a good thing about that. The more it assaults you, the further along you are.
When you commit to becoming a better version of yourself, it is no longer easy for the mind to keep you in a mental prison. It is like a video game; the levels get more difficult as one advances. I experience this phenomenon often. My mind/brain constantly will remind me of my past, the issues I went through, and the things that occurred to stop my progress.
In the beginning, the mind was successful at doing so because I would think about how “unfair” I was treated and “why” this happened to me. As I decided to walk through these assaults, I realized that I was getting stronger with every mental image it hit me with in an attempt to thwart my progress. I understood that I had choices. The choice to follow my mind and my past down that rabbit hole or continue to move forward. “The best way out is always through,” in the words of Robert Frost.
To escape the mental prison that the mind wants to keep one locked in, one must agree to be brave and see the past as just that. Realizing that it cannot be changed and that whatever happened was designed to happen for two reasons. One is to keep a person anchored to their past, and the other is to fuel progress.
The choice is up to the person. Is it more important to combat the mind and fight a war that cannot be won or is it a better choice to understand that sometimes losing battles can amount to victories over the long term? Realize that every battle is not meant to be won and every war is not meant to be fought. When fighting the mind, one must be tactical because the mind knows everything about you and must trick it.
You must trick the mind by using discipline and ignoring the voices that want to relegate one back to a previous thought process. The next thing one must do is realize that the mind’s assaults can work to one’s advantage. As stated earlier, the mind will put the full court press on when it loses the war to pull one back to its perceived vantage point. It gets more difficult when one decides to go to the next level, just like in a video game. This is when change occurs for the better. The mind does not bother when one does not stretch themselves. It only presents difficulties when a person attempts something new.
Think about it: when something is done out of the normal, the brain first attempts to convince a person that it cannot do it. Many are stopped right there because they listen to the brain and may be convinced by someone whose brain told them that they could not do it, so they tell you that you cannot. The mind assault has allies and uses them to lead people to believe they cannot accomplish a desired goal.
The mind will also use any failed attempt to convince one that the goal is unachievable. The person who pushes on must understand that failing is part of getting to a better version of yourself. Learning come with failing a lot. Will Smith said, “Practice is controlled failure.” Learn to see failing as practice, and learning is consistently achieved. The learning curve tends to straighten out over time. It will feel like a lack of achievement from time to time, and that is when one must watch out for the dirty tricks and full-on assaults of the mind.
It is steadily attempting to convince that it cannot be done, or it is attempting to rationalize why. It will always present a reason not to move forward. Podcaster Eddie Pinero referred to this scenario as the mind giving you a “parking space.” The mind will show you a more convenient route or tell you to stop altogether. One must resist that calling because even when it hurts mentally, physically, or emotionally stopping is not conducive to progress. If one does, the mind wins, returning to square one. Understand that every step forward is progress, and the mind attempts to pull one back with every step.
Also, understand that the mind is only doing what it is supposed to do: protect. The Amygdala region of the brain controls the fight or flight response. (Wendt & Begum, MD) The mind sees the unfamiliar as a danger and, as a result, responds accordingly. Overriding the brain’s pre-wired defense systems is critical. One must be stronger than the brain’s attempt to protect. Understand that as one pushes closure to what is unfamiliar to the brain, the harder it will apply the assault.
That is when congratulating yourself and realizing that one is made to endure the assaults the brain puts on you. Remember the video game concept. You are advancing to another level, so it is getting Harder. The advancement means one is getting better and closer to achieving the goal. You will not feel that you can handle the mind’s assaults sometimes because, as David Coggins discussed, the mind has a tactical advantage. It knows everything about you.
It knows one’s desires, fears, perceived limitations, and desires to achieve goals. Even more wicked is that the mind will convince one that it is doing this in one’s best interest. Telling you to stop and attempting to convince you that the pain you are going through will stop when you stop. The problem is that it is not true. The brain will continue to bombard you with fearful images even if you stop because it does not want you to restart and have zeal in your forward march. It does not want you to feel that stopping was a rest. It wants you to cease and desist. It wants you to stop believing that you can achieve that goal. It wants to scare you into stopping and believing that you are aiming too high.
These are all tricks that the mind plays. It is an attempt to stop one from pushing forward. It will remind one of every grief they have gone through, and if one is presently going through a challenge, the mind will convince one that it will never stop. Understand that all storms cease and know that after the storm comes a rainbow. Holding on and enduring the assaults until that happens. Convince yourself that it can be done again today since it was accomplished yesterday. One is defying the mind and applying will at that point.
Remember that you have come too far to go back. Retreat and surrender are not words that you can think about. You cannot let your mind convince you that you cannot do what you have set out to do. Also, do not listen to the naysayers that will validate the mind. Realize that they have given up and allowed their mind to control them. Misery loves company, and naysayers are quick to convince you that you cannot achieve your goals because they have let their minds convince them that they cannot. This is a syndrome known as Crab Barrel. “The concept, also called crab barrel, refers to the attitudes and behaviors of individuals who believe that they should be more successful than others, want others to fail, and cannot tolerate their success.” (Uzum and Ozdemir, 2020).
Amazingly, other people, even those you may consider friends think this way, but it is real. Now you see why you must protect yourself from mental assault. There is a cadre of enemies, some of whom you are sleeping with. The assaults can come at you both internally and externally also. Do not listen to anyone that tells you that you cannot do and do not listen to yourself tell you that you cannot do it because if you listen, then you will not do it. After all, you believe you cannot.
Bibliography
Haidt, Johnathan. The Happiness Hypothesis. Basic Books, 2006.
Berry, William LMHC, CAP, and Jessica Schrader. “How To Control Your Mind.” Psychology Today, 19 May 2020. Accessed 1 Jul. 2023.
Pinero, Eddie. “CHANGE THE WAY YOU SEE YOURSELF.” Eddie Pinero/YouTube, 10 Mar. 2023. Accessed 2 Jul. 2023.
Kaplan, Ellie . “5 Ways to Make Sure Your Brain Works with You, Not Against You, According to Science.” Make It, 18 Apr. 2018. Accessed 1 Jul. 2023.
Schwikert, Shane R, and Tim Curran. “Familiarity and recollection in heuristic decision making.” Journal of experimental psychology. General vol. 143,6 (2014): 2341-65. doi:10.1037/xge0000024
“Robert Frost Quotes.” BrainyQuote.com. BrainyMedia Inc, 2023. 2 July 2023.
Coggins, David. Can’t Hurt Me. Lioncrest, 2018.
Smith, Will. “This Is Why Will Smith Wants You to Fail Before You Succeed | Goalcast.” Goalcast/YouTube, 24 Jan. 2018. Accessed 2 Jul. 2023.
Whatfix. “The Learning Curve Theory: Types, Benefits, Limitations (2023).” Whatfix, 24 Apr. 2022. Accessed 2 Jul. 2023.
Wendt, Taylor , and Jabeen Begum MD. “Amygdala: What to Know.” WebMD, 1 Oct. 2022. Accessed 2 Jul. 2023.
Uzum, Burcu, et al. “Crab barrel syndrome: Looking through the lens of type A and type B personality theory and social comparison process.” Frontiers in Psychology, vol. 13, 2021.