What is the “setting” of our brains? And how can you change it?

 

“Setting” of the brain, some people might call it a belief, other might call it a principle. But it practically is a coding of our brain, when you input x, it outputs y.

When an event occurs, we receive it with our five senses (sight, hearing, taste, touch, and smell) then process though senses through our brain’s setting then it outputs thoughts and emotion. That’s how our perception of our world and lives work.

For an example, you saw someone giving a homeless person money on the street, if your brain setting is “giving money to homeless person is a kind gesture”, then your output would be a thoughts that “wow, that’s amazing he/she did that” with warm emotions. If your brain setting is “giving money to homeless person is irresponsible thing to do, because they could use that money to buy drugs which will not help them in the long term” then your output will be “I can’t believe he/she did that!” with anger, maybe little bit of judgemental emotions. The point is not which is right and wrong, but to be aware of your brain setting and being able to adjust them to “your” liking. These setting often were simply inherited from our parents or society, and a lot of people go through life thinking these “settings” are who they are.

I want you to know, it’s not. These are simple coding in our brain, that’s super easy to change, and you have all the power and ability to adjust it however you like.

Also these “settings” shapes your life. It is kind of like selective hearing, but you’ll experience life through lenses of your “settings”, so it’s definitely worth paying attention to!

On my next post, I’ll go over some of the basic things you should be aware of before changing your settings.

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I'm not interested in myself...?

Continued from previous blog:

I felt like I was hit by a bus and a giant wall was crumbling down in-front of my eyes.

I don’t know what I like…
Moreover, I’m not interested in myself, AT ALL!

I was so shocked by this realization after so many years of trying to be “what I want to be”, I lost my interest in my authentic self.
 I was only interested in “who I could possibly become”, and “what I can do to get there the fastest”.

Simple questions like, what do I like to do just for fun?  
If I don’t need to “become anything”, how would I like to spend my time?
I never even thought about that… for a very very long time.

This was a pivotal moment in my life when I decided to finally start investing effort and time into knowing my true authentic self, in order to start living my life how I truly want to live it- feeling relaxed, happy, and joy from within, instead of what looks good from the outside.

I started to journal to get to know how I was perceiving the world around me, what kinds of unhealthy expectations I had on myself and others, how my brain worked, etc.
This was the true beginning of my journey. 

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One magical question that changed my life

Continued from the previous blog post:

After I was forced to take time off from my consulting job by my doctor, my immediate attitude was, "OK fine, I'll take some time off but it will probably only take a couple of weeks for me to get better."

Things weren't that simple. My body wasn't complying with me anymore regardless of what I thought I should do.

The more I tried to fight it, the worse my physical symptoms got.

After realizing there was literally nothing I can do anymore, I finally "gave up" trying to control the situation, and left my Tokyo apartment to go stay at my grandma's for a couple of weeks to rest.

This is where my grandma lives :) So peaceful.

While I was staying at my grandma's place, I felt there were two versions of me coexisting.
One feeling so relieved, and one feeling restless and anxious.

There were days I would sleep until noon, have a healthy meal that my grandma prepared, go for a walk and feel the warmth of the sun and the breeze.

There were also days I would read tons of books on entrepreneurship and motivation, and watched endless TED Talks, feeling like I had to be doing something to not fall behind.

However, for the first time in a long time, I could finally stop my brain from overruling me.
I finally had a proper excuse to do so thanks to my physical symptoms.

This was a crucial step to my recovery.

The brain (knight) can make a wonderful partner to the heart (princess) when it's used properly, but when it's not used properly, it can be violent and destructive.

※To understand the relationship of the brain (thoughts) and the heart (feelings), please read my previous blog post: The danger of ignoring your heart.

After a couple of weeks at my grandma's, I went back to Tokyo and started receiving talking therapy.
My therapist listened to my stories patiently and was very gentle and supportive.

However, after about 6 months of my situation not changing despite what I hoped for, I made the decision to take this matter into my own hands and started proactively learning about how the mind, body and brain work.
(※This is my personal experience of what I went through, and what I decided was the best way for me to handle my situation. :) If you are going through something similar, please carefully consider what are the best steps for you. I want to make it clear that I'm not saying talking therapy is useless. It was very helpful to me but I wanted to take it one step further and take matters into my own hands.)

I started reading tons of book on the subject, looked for articles online, attended seminars, went and talked to specialists, etc.

This process included,

• Attending a 10 day silent meditation retreat, where I wasn't allowed to talk or look at anyone, with no access to the outside world, and meditated up to 12 hours everyday.
  (This was way too powerful for me back then. After 5 days of hardcore meditation, I started having panic attacks, and couldn't stop crying during my meditations, so I had to stop and come home.)

• Stopping everything I didn't want to do but felt I needed to do.

• Writing heartfelt letters to my parents (this was insanely scary to do!!!) expressing things I couldn't before, and asked questions I couldn't ask before, like "do you love me more when I'm successful, and when you don't have to worry about me?" "why did you tell me 〇〇 growing up?" "why didn't you let me do 〇〇?"

And one day, I was asked this question by one of my advisors:

"Satomi. Do you have a hobby? What's your hobby? :)"

Me: "....Hobby? (Hmmm...I can't think of anything.) Maybe...traveling? or bettering myself?"

"No, I didn't mean those. Do you have anything you just enjoy doing even though it doesn't necessary make you "better"? Something even if other people didn't understand, doing it makes you happy or makes you feel calm? :)"


.....

..........

...........!!!!

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The danger of ignoring your heart

When I think about how I incorporated the unhealthy beliefs (aka "settings" of the brain) I had about myself such as:

- I need to be successful to be loved by other people and myself
- I need to continue to get better
- The more value I provide to the world, the more valuable I am as a human,

there are probably many reasons, but I can think of two big ones.

(Note: These were both unconscious motivations I had and did not realize I had them until later when I started figuring myself out)

1. I was bullied by other girls when I was in elementary school, and that experience made me want to be "better" (in the most obvious way possible) than them to prove myself.

2. I felt like my father expected a lot from me, and I started to believe that the more successful I became, more he loved me.

Father-daughter dance with my lovely father :)

I had next to no problems in my life until I got into the management consulting job, because even though I was going through my life based on those toxic beliefs, I've always managed to achieve my "conditions" to love myself.

However, when I started my job at a management consulting firm in Tokyo, for the first time in my life, I was felt like "I'm not enough".

I felt like I wasn't as intelligent or capable compared to my peers.

It was so obvious that I was not cut out for this job.

For example, I would have a hard time passing required certificate exams, and I stayed in the office until midnight every night because I couldn't finish tasks quickly enough to go home at a decent time.

Looking back, I know I should have just moved on and said, "This is not a good fit for me! Let's just find something I am good at and enjoy doing."

However, because of those subconscious beliefs, I couldn't let it go.

To me, (at that time) "quitting" this highly-esteemed job meant "failure". And I couldn't let myself fail, because I had no idea how to love myself if I did.

As this situation progressed, my heart (feelings) and brain (thoughts) started to fight with one another.

Heart: "I can't do this anymore. I'm so exhausted. Something is not right, things should not be this hard!"

Brain: "What do you mean? You can't quit now! The boss told me that he worked his ass off when he first started too. Stop complaining and work harder! You can do it. You can do more."

※ I want to quickly explain this concept of how you can think of the heart (feelings) as a little princess who gets more excited and happy about life when the brain (thoughts) is working for her. 

The brain is like a muscular knight who comes up with strategies and executes.
Everyone has both, regardless of male or female, but especially for women, it's extremely important to start with what the princess wants. When the brain (knight) works against the heart (princess), like in my case, you start to have unbearable resenting feelings.

As I continued ignoring what my heart was trying to communicate, I started to have strong feelings of despair as I woke up every morning, have panic attacks, and I couldn't leave the house without tearing up. 

These physical symptoms were a strong message from my heart (princess):
"Dude, I've told you a million times I do not want to do this anymore. And you continue to just ignore me. It's unbelievable how disrespectful you are towards my feelings. I have no choice anymore but to force you to stop abusing me."

I made an appointment with a doctor after realizing there was nothing I can do personally to stop or control these symptoms. 

After I explained everything to my doctor, she told me, "You need to stop going to work immediately."

I felt so lost.

I didn't know what to do.

I didn't know who I was anymore.

It made sense considering I only knew myself as someone who was successful, always achieved her dreams, and was unbeatable.

And I only knew how to love that version of myself...

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【Hello!】Self-introduction♡

Hello there :) My name is Satomi.

As I start this blog today, I want to introduce myself a bit first.

I was born and raised in Japan until I moved to Canada by myself for high school. After that, I moved to Seattle for University.

I moved back to Tokyo for a management consulting job fresh out of college.

I had next to no problems in my life until I got into the management consulting job.

After working there for a couple of years, I started having lots of emotional problems and health issues.

First, I thought those were due to a demanding and competitive work environment, and because I wasn't sleeping very much.

However, I learned over time, it was due to my unhealthy belief (I call them "settings" of the brain) I had about myself, what it means to be successful, and the way I looked at the world.

After I was forced to quit my job by my doctor, I started learning about myself & the toxic ideas I had about myself.

For example...
- I need to be successful to be loved by other people and myself
- I need to continue to get better
- The more value I provide to the world, the more valuable I am as a human

In this blog, I want to share the concepts and tools I learned, and continue to learn and implement into my life, and share with you my process of becoming happier, more fulfilled, relaxed self, without having to prove anything to other people or society.

I hope you enjoy taking this journey with me.

with love,
Satomi

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