Tell our brains not to do a thing and it ignores your command because brains simply don’t do don’ts. They lack equipment to simply stop doing a thing while they come well equipped to act on or do a thing. Let’s say we wish to stop judging a sibling, or we resolve to stop criticizing. Good luck with that because the “don’t judge command”, or “don’t criticize reminder” is framed in a non-usable language to the human brain. It’s best to avoid advice, especially to teens because what our brains fail to understand or register or tangibly do, it cannot support.
So how can we get past the “don’ts” and into more sustainable genuine results from our brains? Tell our brains what grace mindset thing adds benefits to all and our mental circuitry jumps into action.
Instead of not judging we can tangibly bless that person. Blessings might come in the form of a lunch invitation, an offer to help them in some way, an apology, a listening ear to hear what’s on their mind, or even a smile of authentic affirmation of their strengths.
Conflict loses its fire in the presence of mind-bending blessings since our brain’s serotonin or aha chemicals fuel and support endless benefits that we create and can pay forward.
This reality also impacts our growth in other areas. For instance, rather than say, don’t bend your arm in bowling, we might decide to use a strategy such as putting the other arm out in a way that balances and straightens the bowling arm.
Instead of telling ourselves, “don’t forget” say to take a pill at a certain time, instead we might place the pill bottle in a space where we will see it as a reminder at that time.
Rather than attempt to control another person’s words or rid them of some behaviors, we might bless them instead with tangible acts of unconditional love and acceptance. Kindness and care models how we hope they will treat us well in return. It’s also the brains way to grow mindset standards for ourselves and those around us.