Get Out The Psychological Pruning Shears
Knowing that our brains are essentially malleable and plastic allow us the ability to shift away from harmful thoughts/behaviors to creating new/serving ones. The act of “mindset pruning” is akin to taking the shears to your hedge - cut off the stuff that is no longer helpful and soon, new growth will start to form. This is why when we lose a limb our brain, over time, will rewire to still help you achieve the outcome you desire - albeit through a different method/neural pathway! This information can help us retrain our brains to shift away from survivalist thinking to thrivalist thinking!
Growing up on a farm, I was no stranger to growing the 4H Garden and despite my efforts to get out of any sort of weeding or gardening, I was thwarted by my mother’s incessant need for us to “burn off our energy.” In any case, I learned early on the benefits of pruning away the bushes and trees in the orchard so that they might yield better fruit for harvest. In order to make room for new growth, we had to “dead head” the old stuff: essentially get rid of the stuff that’s sucking up the water, preventing the sun from getting to the new growth, but NOT yielding anything positive. Our lives are no different. In order for us to get to the “next level” or invite ourselves into a new way of being, we need to first remove the stuff that is sucking up our life force. For that, I have a few handy tricks to help you out:
1) Get clear on what you want
This is really important. Most of us know what we don’t want, which can be a handy place to start, but it is imperative for us to consider what “not this” would look like. While you don’t need ridiculous specifics (though that can help!), having a general idea of where you want to go/be is helpful to get started. As you already know, understanding your values is helpful for this process - but also figuring out your Authentic Code, or rather the things that “next level you” want to live by. For me those things are:
Expansion - if the thing/opportunity/person is not going to help me to expand, I need to limit my attention, time and energy there.
Creativity - if the thing/opportunity/person is not going to support my creativity, it’s probably going to be a hard pass.
Alone Time - if the thing/opportunity/person is going to impact the time I spend with myself (within reason of course) then I might have to say no.
Education - if the thing/opportunity/person is not going to encourage me to learn OR give me the space to teach OR receive what I am teaching then they may not be ready for me.
[To learn more about finding your Authentic Code, check out To Be Magnetic]
Previously, I would say “YES!” exuberantly out of ego. Wanting people to like me, or rather not-not like me, I would say yes to everything and everyone that came along. Realizing that the next level of me doesn’t want to do that anymore, I have to set some boundaries and knowing my Authentic Code or Values makes it easier to maintain them.
The more I say YES to the things that I truly desire and NO to the things that aren’t serving my highest purpose, the more the NO things will prune away.
Think of it like this - the way you think about something today is probably not how you thought about it when you were a teen. You learned better, so you did better and know it makes you cringe thinking you used to think about that thing in the old way - that’s what pruning has done for you!
2) Physical Pruning
I recently did an Instagram reel encouraging folks to go through their workspaces and homes and physically start to remove the things that helped them survive up to this point, but now are just collecting dust or hanging lifelessly in their closet. Getting rid of those low rise jeans from your twenties will allow some new comfortable and practical leggings to take their space. Letting go of furniture that was passed down, but cuts your leg every time you pass by it will help make room for a smaller piece that is more in line with your design tastes and allow you to start creating the space in your world for you to exist as the person you want to be.
So many of us collect and hoard things we think we need to get people to approve of us. I just threw out piles of different hair and makeup products that I NEVER wear because it’s not practical for who I want to be. I gave away 5 bags of clothes, 1 of them just being bras because I stopped wearing them 3 years ago! I packed up my books from my bookshelf because I realized I was only keeping them there to show people (and myself) how smart I am because I have a low self value and not being seen as smart is one of my identity hang ups! Reflect above to your values or authentic code and as you go through your stuff, Marie Kondo it - but instead of asking “Does this spark joy?” Ask yourself - “Would the higher version of myself who believes in these values need to keep these things?”
3)Mindset Pruning
Alright, in order for the old stuff to “die off” we need to start creating new thoughts, new behaviors, and new rituals to take their place. This will take some time, but it WILL make a difference. This is why David Eagleman worked to create a wristband that can “hear” through “touch” - it doesn’t happen right away, but the brain will, overtime, adapt to what it’s learning. Normally we thinking of hearing as with the ears, but a person can learn to understand what someone is saying through touch - wild right? But this is the same process that happens when you take in and process new information on a subject.
Let’s assume you grew up in a family that was very much of the diet culture mindset: FAT IS BAD. DIETS ARE GOOD. WEIGHT-LOSS IS SOMETHING TO BE ACHIEVED. Every time you hear or see something that confirms this, imagine it is carving the same path. Mom says “Oh, I can’t go swimming because no one wants to see me in a bathing suit” - eeetch. The path is carved. Your aunt comes over and says “Oh! You are sure getting chunky!” - eeeetch. The path gets a little deeper. You see an advert featuring a fat body as the BEFORE and a thin body as the after - eeeetch. The path is now becoming VERY consistently utilized. This continue on and on. Then, you start to reinforce those with your own words: “She shouldn’t wear that with THAT body.” “This looks unflattering on me.” “I can’t be in photographs, I need to lose weight first!” EEEEEEETCH - you’ve become complicit in strengthening that neural pathway. Then you get introduced to someone like me who says “I’m fat and it’s fine.” - SCREEEEECH! Your brain gets a little stressed: “That’s conflicting with the information that we have in the database!” and now you respond in a stress response: Fight: “THERE’S NOTHING FINE ABOUT BEING FAT!” Flight: “That’s weird that she would say that.” Tend & Befriend: “You aren’t fat, you are beautiful.”
But maybe you keep listening to me. You watch my stories, you read my blogs and instagram posts, you listen to the podcast - a new path is being formed. It’s still very gravely and not paved like the other one - BUT it’s starting.
Then you expand to see other people saying the same thing as me and all of a sudden, you have 2 neural pathways that are equally paved and you have a choice: Do I reinforce Path A that got me this far (disliking fat bodies to fit in and survive) OR do I reinforce Path B (consider that it is a much more compassionate helpful route to help you thrive)? As you go along, you will have instances of both show up because Path A started when you were young so it’s cement is hard to break up.
You decide to focus your attention on Path B by shifting the media you consume, shifting the language you are using towards yourself and others, educating yourself about the reality of weight stigma, and practicing new thoughts daily. The next time you go visit your mom or your aunt and they say “Honey, watch what you eat!” OR “I’m ugly” your NEW neural pathway will - SCREEEEEEEECH!! And your brain will get stressed: “That’s conflicting with the information we’ve been receiving in this database!” and again, you will respond with a new stress response: Fight: “THERE’S NOTHING WRONG WITH MY BODY!” Flight: “Whatever, mom.” eyeroll, Tend & Befriend: “It hurts me when you say things like that about me and yourself. I hope that we can work together to heal this.” What has happened, is that you just pruned the old way of thinking that seemed to make so much sense before, but now that you have learned and know better for yourself, your new neural pathway is like “I can’t believe I ever thought like that??” It’s almost like that part of your life never existed.
The hard part of MIND PRUNING is that it takes SO much time and as a society, particularly Western society, we are hard pressed to wait for anything to happen - patience is NOT our virtue. But I promise, the science has proven if you keep at it - it will in fact get easier!
If you need help getting started on your pruning process, feel free to reach out for coaching or start taking in information via my podcast, blog or book!
