Quick Tip: How and Why to Name Your Brain

Today’s episode is a quick how-to on naming your brain and why this can be a helpful strategy for reducing stress and improving self-confidence and self-esteem.

To get started, it’s probably best to explain more about what naming your brain actually means. This is a technique that some people use to help distance themselves from unhelpful, sometimes even destructive, thoughts.

These are the thoughts that tell us that we’re not good enough, that we should be better at xyz, that everyone thinks we’re a phony or just putting on a show, that something terrible is definitely going to happen without a shadow of a doubt, and so and so on.

While these thoughts are meant to protect us from perceived harm, they’re often not real, or they’re exaggerated.

For example, if we come to the conclusion that everyone thinks we’re an imposter before everyone else even has the chance to come to that conclusion on their own, then we’ve beaten them to the punch.

So we have control over the narrative.

The unintended consequence of this, however, is that now we have the impression that everyone thinks that we’re an imposter, even if they don’t, and that’s likely going to have an effect on our self-confidence and self-esteem.

Name the Brain

Most people experience negative thoughts like this at some point or another, and because they can take a toll on our wellbeing, it can be beneficial to try and challenge, dismiss or even quiet these types of thoughts.

This is where naming the brain can come in handy. Because by naming the brain, or the mind, we are creating distance between us and what is happening in the brain.

The negative thought cycle now becomes an entity onto itself, which when separate or a thing over there with a name becomes easier to control or at least tell it to be quiet.

Essentially, when you create distance from the negative thoughts, it’s going to help cut off the emotional response, or the feelings of inferiority or insecurity that can come up when your mind is trying to tell you that you’re an imposter.

It’s kind of like ignoring a situation that is irritating you—you’re not giving it your time and energy.

So if you don’t give negative thoughts your time and energy through your emotions and continued negative thinking, then they will quiet down.

Try It Out

To give this strategy a try, you can give your brain a human name, or you could name it after an object, a color, a place, whatever works for you.

Also, if naming your brain doesn’t resonate with you, you could try instead to personify it or create a character around it. For example, maybe when your brain is trying to get the best of you, you can personify it as your younger self or a younger version of yourself or maybe it’s a monster or a character from a book or movie that you once read or saw. Whatever makes sense to you.

Once you have your name or character, try using it when your mind starts chiming in with negative or fear-based thoughts.

For example, let’s say you come up with the name “Fred,” so the next time your mind starts telling you that you’re a fake and everyone’s gonna figure it out, you can tell Fred to be quiet or thank him for his input and let him know it’s not really needed.

The more practiced you can get at this, whether through naming or personifying your brain or some other way that allows you to detach from those thoughts, the quicker and easier you’ll be able to cut off the negative thought cycle.

*Disclaimer: The information contained in this episode is for the sole purpose of being informative and is not considered complete.