Become the ruler of your mind......not the other way around!

Ever looked at someone and wondered how they seem to be able to hold it together when you feel bat shit crazy?

Well, the chances are that they know about the rules of the mind......"what rules of the mind" I hear you say.

Well there are essentially 3 rules of the mind, the most important one as far as I'm concerned is:

Your mind does what you tell it to do.

Think of a time when you've felt crap, might be just after treatment when you feel icky (i know that is often an understatement - this photo was me at one of my many low points in 2016 🙄). Now think about what you are telling yourself at this time?!

More than likely you are thinking something like:

"I don't want to feel sick anymore" "I want this pain to stop"

"I don't want to feel like this"

When you are doing this you are telling your mind the things you don't want, not what you do want - you're giving yourself the wrong information and so you get the wrong results.

Instead you need to think:

"I want to feel energised"

"I want to feel well"

"I feel happy"

It's all about telling your mind the right things. Now I know when you are in the depths of treatment and the chemo is taking its toll on your body you feel it's highly unlikely that just thinking differently will help. But it does.

It's not going to remove all of the side effects you are experiencing but I know from personal experience that it certainly can help. If you tell your mind you want to do something you will get more energy and be more in control, the key is remembering to change the way you think and believing it.

The second rule of the mind that I share with clients is:

Your mind only responds to two things!

The pictures you make in your head and the words you say to yourself!

Every time you are nervous tell yourself you are excited instead - it may sound weird but the feeling is very often the same; fluttering in the chest or belly. I used this a lot during treatment and surgeries - I told myself I was excited to get the cancer removed and move forwards. I walked into surgery with the perfect BP because I felt in control and was dialoging with my mind in the right way.

Stop using words like terrifying, disaster, nightmare and replace them with phrases such as "I have phenomenal coping skills", "I choose to respond with calm and peace".

And the third rule of the mind is:

Your brain is wired to keep returning to what's familiar and reject what's unfamiliar!

The most common thing around this rule is when people naturally align to the wrong people because all they know is about being treated badly, you don't recognise nice behaviour so you reject it.

From a breast cancer point of view for me this was about making the chemo experience something that I actually enjoyed......bear with me on this one because I know it can seem hard to grasp.

We are wired to believe that chemo is unpleasant, not a nice experience and so we tell ourselves it's got to be this way. Instead embrace all three rules of the mind and create a new narrative that tells your mind that chemo day is going to be good.

I would reward myself with a caramel frappe as soon as I arrived (so I looked forward to that 😋), I always made an effort with my appearance, thought about what I was going to wear, did my make up and bronzed my bonce. You see, I created a narrative in my mind that was unfamiliar - not what I had been led to believe - and then I made it familiar.

In episode seven of my podcast I talk about the rules of the mind and about how you can become a mindset master with just a little juggling of the way you are thinking. It's not rocket science by any means and when you've learnt about this you will probably wonder why you haven't been doing this all the time. In fact you might think you have but then all of a sudden you will realise there are narratives going on in your mind that could be upgraded, easily and effortlessly and have amazing outcomes.

So....off you pop.....give it a listen and then start practising and let me know how you get on.

Drop me an email at nikki@badasscancerthriver.com or jump on Instagram and DM me.