How To Clean Your Mental Mess According To a Neuroscientist

In 2019, a biopsy came back pre-cancerous.

The solutions given were to either have multiple surgeries to remove the potentially cancerous tissue or to remove organs that I was not ready to part ways with.

I opted for neither and was treated like I was headed towards an immediate death sentence. But, I am still alive and for the moment all healed up.

What I did is still considered pretty radical and woo these days, but beyond a shadow of a doubt, it is what helped to heal me physically. Understanding the mind, body, brain connection is essential when it comes to unlocking your own health.

Today, I want to dive into the mind aspect, stress the importance of managing it and give you tools to actually do so. Underneath many (if not all) chronic diseases is chronic inflammation, much of which is brought on by lifestyle choices, which are based on how we feel, which are based on how we think. Our thoughts alone are powerful enough to create inflammation, hence the importance.

There is growing research that is suggesting, compellingly so, that certain mental disorders like anxiety, depression and PTSD might not be ‘disorders’. A recent study found that these disorders are actually responses to adversity rather than chemical imbalances and is calling on the scientific community to rethink mental illness.

Labels are important and according to the newest research, the scientific community got it wrong. People internalize labels. These labels become part of their identity and they actually perpetuate, even exaggerate, a normal response to adversity. 

People can overcome adversity but a disorder is something that must continually be managed. Anxiety, stress and toxic thinking are all ways to describe normal human responses to adversity. 

You are not broken, nor are you defective. 

Think of these as maintenance lights, like for your car, except for your mind and body. These responses are telling you that you need to deal with something that has happened or is happening in your life. 

Society has taught us that negative emotions are undesirable and that we should take antidepressants or antipsychotics to numb this pain. The thing about these types of medications, while helpful for many people, is that they don’t actually do anything to heal what the patient is experiencing in the first place. Rather, they dull ALL experiences and pain happens to be one of them, along with every single other emotion.

If you don’t address the root of the thing, you will continue to experience it. When something is uncomfortable and it continues to cause you distress in your life, you likely will look for a solution to lessen the pain or to make it more manageable (this is where addiction comes in).

Gabor Mate poses a brilliant reframe when he says that we’re asking the wrong question when it comes to addiction and make no mistake, we are all addicted to something.

He says: “The question isn’t why the addiction, it’s why the pain.”

So start there. Ask yourself, “why the pain?”

According to communication pathologist and cognitive neuroscientist Caroline Leaf, this a 5-step process that you practice to begin clearing your ‘mental mess’ if you are experiencing any of the above:

1. Gathering Awareness: What are your physical and emotional warning signals? Try practicing anything that allows you to witness yourself without judgment so that you become aware of how you’re thinking, what you’re feeling and where you’re feeling it. Ex: meditation, breathwork, mindful diet, etc. 
2. Reflecting: Why are you feeling these things in your body and mind? When you start to feel one of those emotional ‘warning signs’, ask yourself why. Then, reflect on the thoughts that start to flow into your mind; Do you have any earlier memories associated with them? What is the root? Reflect on this.
3. Writing: It’s important that you actually write with a pen and paper because it activates a different part of the brain than when you bang away on a keyboard. This helps you to process what is coming up rather than repressing it.
4. Rechecking: Look at what you’ve written and notice how your thoughts and feelings have changed. How can you reframe your thoughts into a possibilities mindset? This process takes the sting out of emotions because we are able to see things beyond our own distorted lens.
5. Active Reach: What is a simple action that you can do each time one of those thoughts or ‘warning signs’ crops up? It could be slow deep breaths or repeating a mantra, but whatever it is should help you conceptualize your thinking and find sustainable healing.

And while this practice will surely help you declutter your ‘mental mess’, it brings up a much larger question about the culture scape that we reside in. If we stop pathologizing people and instead look to the environment that is exaggerating these responses, we begin to see a much different picture.

“So much of what we call abnormality in this culture is actually normal responses to an abnormal culture.”

-Gabor Mate

If ADHD is not a disorder and it’s actually an evolutionary mismatch within the current learning environment - then it becomes about education reform.

And if most of "mental illness" follows that same path, that’s not the only system that needs to be reformed...

Because if the same can be said for the high rates of depression, anxiety, and PTSD - then these are normal responses to an abnormal culture. We must ask ourselves why we continue to operate within systems that drive people into suffering.

Would love to know your thoughts on this and what has been most helpful for you in decluttering your mental mess.

🌀This week I’m… 

📚 Reading:

• The Body Keeps the Score, Bessel van der Kolk
• The Tenth Insight, James Redfield

🎧 Listening:

• Lewis Howes, The School of Greatness Podcast w/ Caroline Leaf

🧘🏻♀️ Practicing:

• EMDR
• Reiki

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