By Jenny Peterson
Whether you're striving for personal growth, pursuing career goals, or working on health, you are going to need two very important pieces to ensure your success.
These two pieces are 100% of the time missing when someone says that they have tried mind-body healing and it hasn’t worked. It's the reason DIY courses are a waste of money most of the time; not because the information is wrong or bad, but because these key components to getting results are missing.
Have you guessed what these two pieces are yet? I’ll give you a clue, one starts with a “c” and the other starts with a “d”.
As humans, we are very impatient based on how our brain is designed. We are always looking for the shortest way to get a dopamine hit, the feel good chemical. In fact, our attention spans are continuing to shorten based on how we are wiring our brains through social media. It's all about those quick fixes of dopamine. We want to feel good now, have the dream house now, the perfect job now, the perfect body now.
This is why the quick fix products sell so easily. They give the illusion that whatever your problem is, it will be fixed quickly. While some people are fine with selling these types of products, on an integrity level, I just can’t do that. I’m here to talk about what gives you long lasting results. Anything less than that, doesn’t align with me.
So when people come to me and say, “I’ve tried mind body work, having sessions with a practitioner, but I just don’t seem to get results.” There are always these two missing pieces, consistency and discipline.
I will ask these questions to determine if they are missing:
Are you on a daily basis shifting old patterns?
Do you have an action plan designed to break your old patterns?
Have you stuck to a daily plan consistently for more than 60 days to change your patterns?
Are you using tools to help you build the awareness and perception muscles in your brain to support these changes?
If you answer no to one or more of these, then there's a very good reason why you are not getting results.
The problem with the mind-body world, even the GNM world, is that they are often telling you, "All you need to do is shift the way you perceived a situation that happened before your symptoms showed up and then your symptoms will go away." Now, I wish I could say that is the only thing you need to do, but it's not in 95% of situations.
Unless you...
1) are extremely seasoned in your awareness
2) have worked on all your old patterns and
3) have developed a strong “change in perception” muscle
…it's just not going to be that easy.
99% of people will not check these three boxes due to how we operate. We are just not taught how to be that consciously aware of our own poo. Once you do the work that is required to heal, you will be able to check off those boxes. After 6 years of teaching and doing this work, that is where I am at. But it took consistency and discipline for me to get here. And I am not going to say that I am perfect and no longer have to do this work. It's a continuous process if you want to grow as a person, but it also becomes automatic to the point that it doesn’t feel like so much work like it does when you first start.
You will always be healing and growing. From where you are right now, it might sound a little discouraging that this is a lifelong thing. But, the truth is that you need to address the big stuff right now and then as you move forward, the work is very simple. It won’t take months or weeks to work on something in the future, it might take you a few minutes. The deep, big stuff is what is holding everything there and causing you to respond to life the way you are now. When you let that go, everything changes.
CONSISTENCY
Let’s first talk about consistency. Consistency refers to the ability to maintain a particular behavior, attitude, or pattern over time. It involves repetition and regularity, ensuring that actions are performed consistently and reliably.
Here is a truth bomb that might be hard to swallow. You are where you are - with your life and your health - because of consistency.
You have unconsciously been consistently operating from old survival patterns your entire life. You consistently respond to life and behave from those patterns. They are deep grooves in your brain and are very automatic to you at this point. Your brain loves that consistency because it's effortless. It doesn’t have to exert energy when you use those patterns. The problem is, when you consistently operate from them, they get stronger and deeper, so it's a cycle that can be hard to get out of.
So for example, if you grew up with a belief that you're not good enough, this belief continues to follow you into adulthood. The life experiences that you have will be interpreted through this filter. Every time you perceive a situation from this filter that you are not good enough, that pathway in your brain will get stronger and stronger. It will become so automatic that you won’t consciously see it. Even if you do consciously see it, without having discipline and consistency to change it, it will remain and most likely end up showing in your body through symptoms.
Small consistent actions add up to big changes. If we could see what is happening inside our brains with these small consistent actions, we would be able to see that there is change happening, even though we can’t physically feel it, and it would help us to keep doing it. The problem is that we can’t see what is happening in our brain or body behind the scenes with these small actions and people give up too soon. They are looking for this huge change or shift and they don’t see the small changes that are happening.
The tiny little things that perhaps no one even notices, are creating muscle memory around new behaviors. Tiny little things repeated over time is what produces dramatic change. It's like this slow curve and everyone wants to talk about the pivot moment when it goes skyward. But the truth is, the real work is in the drudgery, the difficult, anonymous work of shoveling shit every single day.
Just like you were unconsciously consistent with the patterns that haven’t served you over your lifetime, you will need to be consciously consistent to heal and rewire new healthy ones. It's going to feel like a lot of work in the beginning because you are consciously trying to shift this very deep pattern in your brain and your brain doesn’t like change. This is where discipline comes in.
DISCIPLINE
Discipline is doing something no matter if it's uncomfortable or not. Discipline creates focus. It involves self-control, willpower, and the ability to resist distractions or temptations that may hinder progress. Without discipline, you will give up under the slightest struggle.
To have discipline you will need to develop a mindset and behaviors that resist impulses, overcome obstacles, and stay committed to a chosen path. It requires self-control, willpower, and the ability to delay gratification in favor of long-term rewards.
When it comes to their healing, I see a lot of people lacking discipline around their thoughts regarding their symptoms, the amount of protocols they are following and staying stuck in old ways of responding.
If you find yourself...
1) letting old thought patterns take control (I know it may feel like you don’t have control but you do)
2) jumping from protocol to protocol or
3) not doing anything differently in your daily routine to become a new version of you
…you’re lacking discipline.
I can teach you all day what your symptoms mean and give you the tools to shift your patterns, but you have to be disciplined enough to not give in when those old patterns show up. Discipline is a muscle you build. If you are saying to yourself, I could never do that, then you have just let your old patterns win. Instead, understand that building this muscle does take time, and with the right parameters put into play, you can develop it.
When you are making changes to old patterns, you will be tested. Discipline is going to be what keeps you moving forward, not motivation. There are going to be days that you are not motivated, but discipline will have you do it anyway.
The greatest version of you is the disciplined version. The version that has parameters:
"No, I don't do that."
"I don't allow that."
"I don’t hang out with those people."
Your mind has to be stronger than your feelings. Think about every poor decision you've made in your life. There was most likely more emotion that was involved in it than there was mind.
Honestly, I believe discipline is freedom. When you have discipline, you get what you want. When you don't have discipline, you do not get any of what you want. When you don't have the discipline, that's when anxiety sets in because you're no longer paying the price. And if you don't pay the price, you get nothing.
YOU CAN’T HAVE ONE WITHOUT THE OTHER
The primary outcome of discipline is mastery and self-control. While consistency is progress and results. To achieve your goals no matter what they are, you need to have both. You can’t have results with just one.
This is also not about perfection.
The goal is to be 1% better than yesterday. And some days you might not even do 1% better but because you are disciplined you keep doing it. Consistent action, not perfection is what will move you forward.
The repetition of small things creates habits. Those habits determine your future. The 1% each day creates your progress until you reach a certain point where you gain momentum and grow exponentially. Do not underestimate progressing a little every day in the right direction.
When you actively work towards something and achieve even a small piece of it, the brain rewards us with dopamine and you will want more. That will make you feel good and at the same time strengthen the circuits in your brain that help you move forward and keep doing it. That’s reward and reinforcement and why just recognizing that you did 1% better than yesterday will make your brain crave more. This is how you can use your brain to your advantage instead of disadvantage.
HOW CAN YOU GET STARTED?
You don’t need more sessions, more information or self help books, or a magic tool to heal. You simply need to be disciplined enough to take consistent, small action regarding your old patterns. I don’t know your specific patterns that you need to work on. That is where personal targeted work comes in. So because I don’t know your specific patterns, I suggest just starting with some basic things that I see with those that have chronic symptoms.
Ask yourself, where do I know I need more discipline? Most people know where they need to do it but don’t take the action.
Here are some areas that I see those with chronic symptoms need to apply discipline:
Obsessing about your symptoms. Thinking about them, fearing them, googling them, etc. Remember that focusing on your symptoms doesn’t resolve them, otherwise you would be better already. If you have a chronic condition, most likely it's not life threatening, there is no need to panic. Use your awareness muscle to be aware of when you are focusing on symptoms and be disciplined to shift your thoughts and focus away. Your mind is a gold mine, only the gold is buried under all that noise.
How you start and end your day. Rather than jumping on your phone upon waking or before you go to bed, discipline yourself to take some time to close your eyes and imagine the life you desire. Really feel it. This is the best part of your day to program your subconscious mind and most people are completely wasting it by programming it to get even more addicted to their phone. Be disciplined with how you use this precious time for programming. If you don’t go to your phone during these times but your mind is in a shitty place when you wake and go to bed, then change that! Wake up, telling yourself today is going to be a great day. Go to bed with gratitude for all the small things in your day. This is going to feel weird. You will most likely feel resistance in the beginning, do it anyway, remember that is what discipline is about.
Who you surround yourself with. The “disciplined you” will need to set boundaries with what and who you allow to enter your valuable headspace and environment. Don’t surround yourself with other people that sit and complain about their symptoms, or worse yet, are victims to their life. Instead, surround yourself with people that have done what you want to do and demonstrate stepping into your power.
Doing too many healing protocols. There is no shortage of healing protocols out there. Yes, I love the work that I do and believe in it. If it doesn’t resonate with you, then find something that does. Then be disciplined enough to stick with it for at least 6 months, better yet, a year. Don’t focus on anything else but that one thing. If you don’t get the results you are looking for from that, it's time to move to the next stepping stone. There are no wrong choices when it comes to healing work. The work you choose is right for you at the time. You will learn something from everything you try, I guarantee it, but you have to be disciplined enough to give that one thing a shot.
Discipline your inner happiness. Being happy is a choice we have to make everyday. When we let external things control whether we are happy or not, we are not in control of our lives. I remember when I was experiencing chronic symptoms how I would let those symptoms create my day and my mood. It wasn't until I stepped into my power to create how I want to feel, to create my own happiness regardless of what my body was doing that I realized that I am the only one that can choose if I want to be happy.
Now pick just one of these things and do it consistently. Not all of them, just one of them. Once you get good at creating consistency with one thing, adding on another isn’t so hard. It's really that first step that presents the most challenges in your brain. Remember, these are just places to start being more consistent and disciplined that will support your healing and build these muscles. At some point you need to dig into the deep work and find your patterns and apply the same consistency and discipline to let go of and rewire them.
At MBR, we know how important consistency and discipline are to reaching your healing goals. That is why we have created a system to follow that helps you develop those muscles. Having clear goals, creating a routine, staying accountable, using reminders and celebrating the smallest progress are some of those important pieces of our system.
We don’t expect you to come in with discipline and consistency, but we help you create that because we know without it, you won’t get results.
SUMMARY
Every day we face choices about how to improve our lives. Quick fixes are all around us and we all wish for the magic formula that promises immediate results with little effort. True transformation is found not in these elusive shortcuts but in the disciplined pursuit of healthy habits.
Today, ask yourself which path you are on. Are you chasing fleeting promises, or are you building a foundation of habits that will sustain you for a lifetime?
How willing are you to heal? How long the process takes is largely dependent on how willing you are to change your life and work through your old survival patterns.
The rewiring of your brain takes time, but it is best done with small conscious habits that build up over time. These habits can completely change how you view certain situations, how you react emotionally, and how to behave in those situations. In the beginning, the new habits might seem like they aren't working because your old ways of thinking are so ingrained into you. But perseverance is important. With time, these new neurons will strengthen, and then these new pathways will become your default.
The most important thing to remember is that healing is a process. It is a messy process. It is like a tangled mess of string that requires patience and steady hands to untangle. We understand that untangling all of it feels overwhelming and you don’t know where to start.
Let us simplify this process by providing you with a step by step plan for your healing.
This healing plan will be the exact steps you need to take to address your chronic symptoms and how we can support you in that plan. If you would like to work with myself and the MBR team, this is the first step to take.
Without a plan, you can plan on your old patterns to continue taking control and getting in the way of your healing. We got your back at MBR.
You can find the link to request your healing plan below.
You are unique, your symptoms are connected to very specific patterns within your subconscious.
Without a plan unique to you, you will continue struggling and miss out on the life you deserve to be living! To help you get started on your long-lasting healing journey, we would love to provide you with a healing plan that is unique to you. Get your custom healing plan today!
You can also download my free healing guide, “Why Can’t I Heal” where you will learn the 5 reasons that you haven't healed despite everything you've tried. These are the missing pieces to your healing and the key to resolving your symptoms for good.
Jenny Peterson is the founder and CEO of Mind Body Rewire (MBR). She teaches those that are overwhelmed with trying to heal chronic symptoms how to simplify their healing by focusing on just one place, the subconscious mind. Learn more about MBR here.
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