What’s love got to do with it?
When you have IBS you have a constant struggle between your body and your mind. Your mind says “Hey, I want to eat that onion soup with bread and cheese all melted on the top and I don’t care about the consequences.” And your body says “If you do that to me, I am going to let you know it was NOT a good idea.”
Mastering the art of self-love is a critical piece of managing your mind and managing your IBS. But how do you do that?
Self-love is the promise to yourself that you are going to learn what is good for you and what is not good and make an effort to focus on the good. As you begin to honor this promise to yourself, you will see how powerful it is in generating a sense of self-love and self-respect. Every promise you keep is evidence that proves you MATTER and you VALUE yourself.
Unfortunately, we all start with an untrained mind that will do its best to make us fail. Your untrained mind sees everything as a BIG DEAL and will try to convince you that you are constantly in danger and every good decision you make is going to put you in even worse danger. For example, if you decide NOT to eat that onion soup with bread and cheese on top, your untrained mind will tell you that you must eat it or you will die. It will tell you the consequences of that action will be far outweighed by the immediate pleasure of eating it. It will convince you there is urgency and you need to eat it quickly so you can’t change your mind.
Fortunately, we have the tools you need to train your mind to stop making everything an urgent catastrophe so you can focus on the small decisions, actions, activities that are actually facing you. Start by introducing the power of possible thinking to your mind. When it says “Hurry up! Eat that soup or you will die.” You can pause and consider the consequences and say to yourself, “It’s possible if I don’t eat that soup I will not die. In fact, it’s possible if I do eat that soup I will feel horrible afterward and wish I hadn’t eaten it in the first place.” This power of possible thinking will minimize the thought and name the facts and make it simpler to pause so you can make the right decision for you.
Your untrained mind will always try to convince you it’s URGENT that you take action or make a decision quickly. That urgency will drive you to do it without thinking. By training yourself to pause and consider you are training your mind to get control of itself. You are asking your adult brain to step in so the toddler brain can settle down.
Eventually, that untrained mind will be replaced with a more powerful trained mind that will become your inner champion instead of your inner doomsday predictor.
Stop and think about what your untrained mind is telling you to do? Sleep a little longer. Who needs time to exercise? Don’t drink water. Who cares about hydration? Have another cup of coffee. Who cares how it makes you feel? Eat those donuts. You’ll feel fine afterward.
Then consider what form of self-love you can focus on first? What do you need to give to yourself? Do you need to get up a little earlier in the morning so you have time to exercise or meditate? Do you need to drink more water? Do you need to eat food that sustains you and nurtures you?
It’s possible to change any area of your life by training your mind to recognize what you REALLY need and giving it to yourself. This is just an introduction to the way we teach you to harness the power of your mind in the IBS Game Changer program to support the work you will do around your personal triggers.
