LECTURE:
How to Control Your Thoughts and Feelings

Master Your Thoughts and Emotions to Break Free from Stress, Anxiety, and Depression

At some point in their lives, 85% of people will experience mental health challenges or psychological disorders. Recent research, using advanced brain imaging techniques, has identified specific entrenched biases or patterns in the brain that contribute to these mental health issues and psychological disorders. The encouraging news is that these fixed biases or patterns can be modified with simple techniques.

In this lecture, you will gain insights into these biases and patterns and learn how you can change them yourself.

Upgrade Your Brain’s Operating System

Every time we learn something new, the brain creates an automatic pattern that most of us continue to use for the rest of our lives. It’s akin to having Windows 95 installed on your computer and using it for a lifetime. I don’t know many people who still use Windows 95 on their computers, yet there are many who haven’t updated their brain’s operating system.

Negative habits, inappropriate emotions, and unhelpful reactions are the side effects of an outdated operating system in the brain. During this lecture, you’ll learn how to upgrade your brain’s operating system.

Are You Your Emotions, or Do You Have Emotions?

When you say, “I am angry, I am disappointed, I am nervous,” you are identifying with those emotions. You’re saying that you are anger, disappointment, or nervousness. To change these emotions, it’s essential first to detach from them—to see them as something you have, not something you are. Once you achieve this, you can accept the emotion, change it, or let it go as you choose.

This lecture will provide you with a deeper understanding of this concept and simple techniques to help you free yourself from unnecessary suffering.

Can You Learn Not to be able to Ride a Bike?

When you first learned to ride a bike, you consciously directed all your attention to balancing, pedaling, and watching the road. You couldn’t think or talk about anything else simultaneously. Over time, your brain developed automatic patterns, and now you can ride a bike without consciously thinking about it—it happens automatically.

To learn Not to be able to ride a bike, you would need to intentionally fall off every time you got on for the next three months. Eventually, new automatic patterns would form in your brain, and you would fall off automatically. This same principle applies to changing bad habits and unhelpful reactions.

In the lecture, you’ll receive detailed explanations and learn techniques to change the things you want to change.

Being Present in the Moment

Unlike animals, humans possess the ability to imagine, which has allowed us to progress as far as we have. While this is a gift, it can also be a disadvantage if we can’t control our imagination. Many people imagine negative scenarios that will never happen, leading to feelings of sadness, anxiety, or anger—they live in the future. There’s nothing wrong with thinking about the future, but if it fills you with negative emotions and paralyzes you, it’s better to focus your attention on the present moment.

In this lecture, you’ll learn techniques to direct your attention to the present, so you can focus on the now rather than the future when that’s what you desire.