You can’t stop the thoughts, but you can stop believing them.
The moment you plan to do something outside your comfort zone, an inner voice shows up to talk you out of it. You know the one: “Not today, you’re too tired. You tried this before and nothing came of it. You’re not really good enough for this. What’s the point, nobody’s waiting for it anyway.”
This voice doesn’t normally show up when we do small, familiar things. It turns up the moment something in front of us feels too big, when we are looking up at a mountain and wondering how on earth we are meant to climb it. And almost always, it talks us down rather than up.
It’s easy to believe those thoughts, but there is a cost: we keep ourselves small, we don’t move, we get stuck, and our world grows smaller and smaller.
The brain’s first job is not to make us happy, it’s to keep us safe, and it does that by trying to predict everything that could go wrong. The only material it has to work with is our past, everything we have experienced and been taught, and the beliefs that grew out of it. So when something new and uncertain appears, the brain reaches back, finds the nearest old failure, and holds it up as evidence: “you couldn’t do it then, so you can’t do it now”.
The brain can’t tell the difference between what genuinely threatens us and what is simply unfamiliar. To the brain, both signal danger. And let’s not forget the emotions that follow those thoughts instantly, making us feel insecure and shaky. As the brain notices our discomfort, it discourages us from stepping into new territory. Staying where we are has a known outcome. The brain prefers a known unhappiness to an unknown anything.
So the discouraging thoughts are not a fault in us, and they are not the truth about us either. They are the brain doing its job, a little too well.
You will notice the voice gets loudest in three places: when we are overwhelmed, when the outcome is uncertain, and when someone outside us has been critical and the mind is still chewing it over. The common thread that runs underneath all three is that each one asks us to be courageous.
The work is not to stop those thoughts, that’s a misunderstanding that keeps us stuck forever. They are not the enemy, it’s believing them that gets us into trouble. All they reflect is that there is discomfort here, that we have come to the edge of our comfort zone. But that edge is exactly where growth happens, if we let it.
When we can hear a thought as just a thought, rather than an instruction, everything can change. As soon as we stop taking them at their word, when we recognise that they are only a summary of our past experiences (samskaras), and that they are trying to protect us from discomfort, we no longer identify with them. They don’t need to be silenced, they can exist, while we know better, while we remember we don’t have to listen. And we know from experience that thoughts will pass, especially if we don’t react to them. They are like clouds in the sky, passing by, changing shape and dissolving. Only when we believe them do they stay and mess with us. We just loosen our grip, so they can be there without running the show.
To let go of them I tell my brain:
“Thank you brain for trying to protect me. But I’m ready to feel the discomfort and move through it.”
It is very simple but powerful. Every time you do it, you’re handing the brain a new piece of evidence: it is all right to feel discomfort, it is all right to let it move through you, it is all right to change. Do that often enough and the voice begins to ease on its own.
So the next time you catch that voice talking you out of something, see if you can answer it differently. Thank it for the protection, then feel the discomfort, and do it anyway.
I’ll leave you with one question: What is the thought your mind has been telling you lately that feels less like a thought and more like a fact about yourself?