Am I gaslighting myself by rewiring my brain? This is such an interesting and multi-layered question that touches on many aspects of brain retraining. Unfortunately, I think an answer in the affirmative is the reason many people who could benefit from brain retraining programs like DNRS don’t give it a proper go.

First of all, accepting that the answer for healing may lie in our brain does NOT mean that our symptoms are not REAL. We have very real, physical symptoms. Understanding the science of limbic system impairment and Polyvagal Theory enabled me to understand that my brain was stuck in a stress response loop that was resulting in symptoms, I have written more about this here and here. Once I learnt the science I moved past my aversion to brain retraining and didn’t see it as gaslighting, the part of me that wanted to shout, “but it’s not all in my head!!!” quietened down once I understood more.

Another common criticism of brain retraining is that it teaches you to redirect your thoughts and emotions away from those that aren’t serving you, and many believe that in doing so this is is a form of gaslighting. By moving thoughts and emotions to more positive ones am I denying my true feelings? If I am thinking and acting greater than how I feel and ‘ignoring’ symptoms am I denying my pain? This a tricky question to answer as I think sometimes what feels like gaslighting is needed, especially early on in the healing journey.

Before I started brain retraining I was frustrated by my symptoms, I had been sick for years of course I was angry, upset and over it. These emotions are valid and true and deserve to be seen. However, now that my brain has shifted I can truly see that I was seeing the world through a lens of threat. My brain was in a chronic stress state and chose the perspective of fear in all my interactions with the world, this lead to some thoughts that I can see now were not true, but it also caused me to be in a chronic stress state which was not conducive to healing and was flooding my body with stress chemistry like cortisol, adrenaline and norepinephrine.

I needed to shift my thoughts away from constantly looping and feeling and thinking about my pain and suffering and symptoms. By constantly body scanning I was also reminding my brain and reinforcing loops that leads to symptoms. Of course changing these thoughts can feel fake and lacking in authenticity to begin with because it’s radically different to the stress state we are coming from.

I love the quote, ‘we become addicted to our most comfortable emotional response’, (I think I initially heard it from one of Tessa Malcarne‘s podcast episodes – Tessa is my coach, and I highly recommend her podcast). I truly believe our brains can become ‘addicted’ to negative stress hormones. Feeling frustration, anger and sadness can become an unconscious habit, and in allowing these emotions to perpetuate I truly believe we are reaffirming the same life we have always had, with the same symptoms. Breaking this addiction is going to feel unnatural and as though we are lying to ourselves.

I have learnt to ask myself, ‘What if the thought you are having isn’t really true and it’s just the limbic system trying to get a response?’ I definitely look back at my brain retraining process and can see some thought patterns I engaged in early on that weren’t true. For example, I had moments when I was getting really worked up and annoyed at my sister or mum and was convinced that they were the worst people in the world (sorry, love you both!). I perpetuated these thoughts, attaching stories to the interactions and ruminating which intensified the negative feelings. The more time that passes the clearer I can see this is a limbic response, especially when it loops in our minds and we can’t let it go. To me, consciously making the choice to shift away from these unconscious thought patterns isn’t gaslighting myself, it’s an acknowledgement that my nervous system is dysregulated. I always try to do this with love and without judgement, one of my favourite mantras to use in these moments is from Gabrielle Bernstein, “I forgive this thought and choose another”

Of course, on the flip side, many thoughts and emotions we have are very real and true. Many people who come to brain retraining have been through significant trauma and suffered intense and unimaginable pain and suffering! There is a lot of evidence out there that releasing suppressed emotions is a key aspect to healing, this idea almost feels like it is in direct opposition to many brain retraining principles, programs such as JournalSpeak teach a lot about this. I do believe that emotions are ‘energy in motion’, if we don’t feel or release them they can sit in the body and cause a cascade of symptoms.

For me personally, I needed to do intensive brain retraining with DNRS which allowed my nervous system to heal and build the capacity to process these emotions, about 12 months into my rewiring process I started to work on releasing these (and am continuing to do so now). Prior to starting DNRS I was completing talk therapy and I felt like I was constantly going around in circles and I wasn’t getting anywhere, but now I see a holistic therapist and because my nervous system isn’t so stuck I can feel myself making progress and I can process emotions without my body getting overwhelmed.

I feel like I am at a stage now where I am learning when I need to feel and release emotions, versus when my body is stuck in a limbic loop and my brain is, to be blunt, trying to cause drama. For me, this continues to be a process of trial and error, and with time I am learning to lean more into feeling and expressing my emotions with truth and authenticity, and releasing deeply suppressed emotions using a variety of tools.

I also want to add, that blatantly redirecting and ‘denying’ my thoughts and feelings didn’t always work for me. Sometimes I could see a thought was absurd and manufactured by my limbic brain, and I could laugh and redirect, but other times the emotions needed to be acknowledged. A tool I learnt from Tessa was to instead label and validate the feeling before gently redirecting. For example, when a symptom shows up I know that surrendering and not reacting is the best response for teaching my nervous system safety, but in the moment having a symptom pop up can be frustrating! My internal monologue will go something like this, “Oh, of course you are feeling frustrated Alex (label). Anybody in your situation would be feeling exactly the same way (validate). But is sitting in this feeling serving you in this moment? What if you could gently move towards feeling joy or surrender instead? Wouldn’t those feelings be better for you right now?” This loving redirect strategy has been key for me in healing.

Overall, brain retraining is all about trial and error and finding a balance – I seem to be concluding every blog post in this way, it really is an art form (backed up with lots of science!). In this case, it’s about balancing the full experience of emotions, being a curious observer, and recognising when the limbic brain is influencing us, so we can shift from stress-inducing thoughts to healing emotional states.

What are your thoughts? Do you ever feel like you’re gaslighting yourself when brain retraining?

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