A lot of my physical healing from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Lyme disease has come from learning to redirect my thought patterns. I have learnt a lot about this from the neuroplasticity based programs Dynamic Neural Retraining System (DNRS) and Primal Trust. Our thoughts are either promoting a feeling of safety in the body, or not. When we stay in looping or ‘unsafe’ thoughts, this sends stress signals to the nervous system. I use an array of tricks to move my brain into higher level thought patterns, with time this has become a lot easier! I thought I would write out some of my favourite strategies for changing thought patterns:

• I got this one from a DNRS living group, it involves using the alphabet and going through each letter and saying something I am grateful for. For example, A – all the abundance in my life, B – beaches! Especially the one I live by, C – calmness that nervous system regulation brings me, D – DNRS, etc.
• Similar to above, another one to work through is a ‘self-love’ alphabet where I list traits I have and love about myself for each letter (very tricky at first but it’s a great exercise for learning to be kinder to yourself)
• I love this tool which I learnt from this episode of the ‘Our Power is Within’ podcast featuring my brain retraining coach Tessa Malcarne. In this podcast they talk about thinking about a particular project or something you’re working on or wanting to work on. Early in my retraining I used to think about the vegetable garden I was working on at the time and plan in my head how it would look, and how I’d plant everything out. It has to be a type of project that gets you excited enough that it can distract from other thoughts, and one you can also think about in a lot of detail. As I’ve progressed the ‘project’ I think about has changed, recently it’s been thinking about this blog and all the different ideas I have for posts. This moves me toward feeling joyful, motivated and excited, while also distracting me from other thoughts.
• One of my FAVOURITE tools when navigating thought patterns that aren’t serving me is the practice of labeling and validating my emotions. There’s a fascinating study where participants were shown images of people expressing various emotions¹. One group was instructed to label the emotions they observed, while the other group simply viewed the images without labeling. The results showed that the group who labeled the emotions exhibited reduced activity in the amygdala (the part of the brain involved in processing emotions like fear and stress). This suggests that by naming our emotions, we can actually diminish their intensity. It makes intuitive sense to me, the brain often fears what it doesn’t understand, so putting a name to our feelings can reduce that uncertainty. Validating the emotion adds another layer of authenticity. For me, this might sound like: “Oh Alex, of course you’re feeling frustrated. Anyone in your situation would feel that way. But is this feeling serving you right now? Is there a higher-level emotion you can move towards instead?”
• I love when something happens and I’m caught in a looping pattern and I realise it’s just my brain being silly. Sometimes I will laugh and say, “Okay brain, I see what you’re trying to do”. There’s a great episode on the Michael Singer Podcast where he talks about how all our problems come from our brains and how to come back to the present moment. It’s a great listen and one I come back to when I find myself agitated or stuck looping. He laughs at the absurdity of our brains, laughing it off helps me too.
• I used to picture thought patterns in my head as though they were a ski field. The ingrained ways of thinking were a well-trodden, popular ski run, whereas the new ways of thinking were untouched snow. Of course at the start a new way of thinking is going to be harder work. I would remind myself of this when I was finding it hard to redirect, and tell myself, “if we can do this now, next time it’s going to be even easier”. This helped to motivate me.
• Future predicting and overthinking was something I did a lot. When I realised that this is just the nervous system trying to keep me safe by thinking of all future scenarios it helped me have empathy and understanding for it. Again, I’d say, “I see what you’re doing brain, but we are safe right now, so there’s no need to future predict”. I’d remind myself what’s happening in the present, and look around the room for something to appreciate around me and pull me into the now.
• I also love this simple grounding trick: looking around the room and naming everything I can see in a particular colour. It’s a quick way to shift my focus and reconnect with the present moment
• At the beginning of my journey I realised I would feel frustrated when I caught myself in certain thought patterns. Judging myself and feeling frustration was counter intuitive to what I was trying to achieve with brain retraining. A mantra my coach Tessa taught me was “I forgive this thought and choose another” which is from a Gabi Bernstein book. I come back to this mantra a lot, smiling and accepting my thought patterns and letting myself move on with grace.
• Sometimes I know that a trigger is coming up. For example, my period used to be the time when my thought patterns would be challenged the most. For this time I had a pre-prepared paragraph written in my phone reminding me of how I wanted my thought patterns to be, for example: “We are having a challenging day, but our brain is making changes. The more I can stay non-reactive, and keep focused on brain retraining, the more changes I will feel. This is a beautiful opportunity for healing in this moment right now”
• I smiled, a lot! (Mostly fake smiles to begin with). This one might sound simple, but it works. Smiling can instantly shift your state and make it harder to hold onto lower-grade thoughts.
• I have to give a LOT of credit to my coach Tessa Malcarne for a lot of these strategies, another podcast episode that is very helpful is this one, it goes through some more strategies for redirecting thoughts. I re-listen to it whenever I’m stuck in thought loops. I especially love how she explains time-frames for changing habits, if a new habit takes 30 days to stick to, then in 3 days we are 10% rewired! I used to set myself the challenge of sticking to new thought patterns for 3 days. Breaking it down in this way made it seem a lot easier. I would write reminders for the number of days achieved free of certain thought patterns in my diary and reward myself as I worked through them.
• I wore jewelry that would remind me to feel grounded and give me strength. I was as though it was a reminder of what I was working towards and could pull me into the present. I would touch a particular necklace and draw strength from it.
• Another way of being more present around my thought patterns was having social media and phone detoxes. This was essential at the start of my journey, all social media platforms are inherently dysregulating. I find that spending time off my phone allowed me to be much more present with my thoughts

I hope these tips help! Remember at the start is when everything is the hardest. Show yourself grace and celebrate every redirect. You’re doing better than you think! Pruning thought pathways is like peeling onion layers, and when we show up with consistency powerful changes can happen.

_{1. https://www.uclahealth.org/news/release/putting-feelings-into-words-produces-therapeutic-effects-in-the-brain-ucla-neuroimaging-study-supports-ancient-buddhist-teachings}