Your Mind Is a GPS (Is Yours Stuck on “Don’t Want”?)
Why your thoughts keep replaying old pain (and how to set a new destination).
The Thought Spiral That Keeps You Stuck
You were never meant to live in survival mode, but when your mind keeps scanning for danger, it’s like living with one foot on the gas and the other on the brake at the same time.
Imagine waking up each morning already exhausted, your mind hitting play on everything going wrong before you’ve even had a say.
Some of you don’t have to imagine that, because this is every day that ends in “y” for you.
Your mind races with stressful thoughts before you even pull the covers back.
All the things you don’t want in your day.
You don’t want debt.
You don’t want another fight with your spouse.
You don’t want your stomach to hurt.
You don’t want to wake up exhausted.
You don’t want to live in a constant state of stress.
Sound familiar?
Maybe your stressful thoughts are of a different flavor, but they are still not easing you into a great day, are they?
I know this well because once upon a time it was me and my own ‘less than greatest hits’.
“Empty your cup so that it may be filled; become devoid to gain totality.”
-Bruce Lee
When You Can’t See What You Want
When I start working with a new client, I ask them, “What do you want?”
And more often than not, they struggle to answer.
Because all they can see, hear, and feel are the things they don’t want. Their mind has been rehearsing the negative for so long that imagining a different future or possibility feels impossible.
But here’s the thing, they are stuck in a habit loop not unlike a broken record.
How the Brain Rehearses Familiar Pain
In order to improve this habit loop you need to break the trance you’re in and choose new coordinates.
Think about driving somewhere for the first time, a new city, an unfamiliar location.
Yesterday I drove to Twin Falls. I drive there all the time, but this time I was going to a new meat processing place to pick up a quarter cow.
I had no idea where I was going and I needed to use Google Maps.
When I opened my Google Maps, I didn’t type in the location I didn’t want.
I didn’t add:
“I don’t want to go to Costco.”
“I don’t want to go to the mall.”
“I don’t want to go to Fred Meyer.”
If I enter anything other than where I want to go, I end up stuck or lost.
Which is exactly where many of my clients feel they are when they come to work with me.
Your Unconscious Mind Takes Orders So Be Specific
Yet, this is exactly how most people approach their lives. By constantly focusing on what they fear or do not want, they unknowingly program their unconscious mind to recreate the same patterns over and over.
What about going out to dinner?
Picture yourself at your favorite restaurant. The waiter asks what you’d like, and you say:
“I don’t want the Caesar salad.”
“I don’t want the cheeseburger.”
“I don’t want the babyback ribs.”
The waiter stares at you, waiting. Because you haven’t actually ordered anything. In fact you’re wasting the waiter’s time and your own.
Just like ordering a meal or setting a destination in Google Maps, creating your ideal life requires knowing where you’re going and what you want, not just what you’re avoiding.
Reprogram Your Inner GPS
So here’s your challenge:
Instead of thinking about what you don’t want, start defining what you do want.
The goal is to make your vision so clear and detailed that your brain starts recognizing the new destination as familiar.
Ask yourself:
What can I see in my ideal future?
What can I hear?
What can I feel?
What can I smell?
What can I taste?
The more vividly you picture it, using as many of your five senses, the more natural it will feel.
And then one day, when you arrive, it won’t be surprising at all.
It will feel like Déjà vu. Surreal. You know it’s new, but it feels so familiar!
A Real-Life Repatterning in Action
One client I worked with wanted to visit one of her children who lived roughly a two day drive away.
For a long time she successfully prevented herself from making this trip by focusing on all she didn’t want with catastrophic what-ifs.
What if I can’t get my headache medication there?
What if my granddaughter plays the TV too loud or picks shows I don’t want?
What if I get a headache?
What if I want to go home and don’t feel well enough to drive?
On and on it went. The brain can churn up an infinite amount of “don’t want.”
After we released all the emotional charge on these memories and predictions and created a compelling picture of what she did want it seemed like everything fell into place.
She was able to go on this trip, have a great time, and her pharmacist sent her with enough medication for the entire trip, which she didn’t even need.
All those issues were figments of her hypervigilant mind.
When your mind is hypervigilant it’s a lot like putting on horse blinders. You see only the unwanted possibilities before you.
The truth is, you can’t think your way out of a body that feels unsafe. Most people try, but understanding why you feel a certain way doesn’t change anything.
Your memories give you identity. Your mind works by pattern matching and interpreting present events through the lens of past experiences.
We move from trance to trance, unaware it’s even happening.
This is why it is so important to interrupt the trance and destress.
When you’re calm, you make clearer decisions.
When you’re tense, your brain loops the old stories.
That’s why soothing the body first changes everything.
Your mind doesn’t care what you don’t want - it just obeys what you rehearse.
Release Resistance Before You Redirect
Destress before you decide.
First, soothe the overactive nervous system. If you’ve been reading my posts for a bit you’ll know I favor these modalities to do so:
Havening Touch by Doctors Ruden
BodyMind Release by Harry Pickens
But there are many ways you can do this.
One daily strategy I teach my clients is to assess and empty their metaphoric stress bucket every day.
What happens to a bucket that’s too full? That’s right: it overflows.
When your metaphoric stress bucket overflows you snap at the people you want to be patient with.
You make poor choices, like choosing instant over delayed gratification.
You miss out on opportunities, possibilities, and solutions because you’re wearing stress induced horse blinders.
So destress before you decide. Empty the stress bucket.
Your Future Self Is Waiting
Another way I help my clients do this is by creating a thirty day guided visualization that reinforces what they want and who they want to be six months from today.
One of my favorite messages to receive is this kind:
“My health is great and I’m continuing to get stronger at the gym.
We’re going to enjoy several family visits this summer, and we booked a white water river rafting trip in Wisconsin, which is something I have wanted to take Sally (not their real name) on for years.
Everything we worked on has come true. Amazing.
Thank you so very much for all your guidance and support.
Hope you are having a wonderful summer,
-Mike (also not their real name)
Sent from my iPhone”
You get more what you focus on.
Take a breath. Imagine that version of you already living freely.
Your future self is waiting.
What destination will you put in your inner GPS today?
Ready to rewire your thoughts for real?
Start with my free Quantum Repatterning Journey Audio, a short guided process to calm your nervous system and reset your focus.
If you love how grounded and clear you feel afterward, the Golden Light Series builds on it - five soothing audios designed to retrain your unconscious mind to expect peace, confidence, and success.
Your future isn’t waiting for permission, just a new direction.