Create Some Calm With These 17 Super-Easy Mindset Hacks

Meet Marla. Marla is having a conversation with a good friend. While sharing, her friend interrupts and redirects the conversation to something else. This royally ticks Marla off. Marla, feeling angry, hangs up the phone, swearing to never share with her friend again.

She then replays her friend’s behavior. And as she’s replaying, she’s crafting a narrative of how rude her friend is. How her friend has no time for her. How her friend is selfish and not interested in anyone but herself.

Each time she replays the event and the story she’s crafted, she gets angrier and angrier. (Side note: This repeated reaction is creating a solid neural pathway in Marla’s brain).

So, the next time Marla’s friend calls, Marla immediately feels angry. (Hello, neural pathway). And because she’s angry, she forgets the well-crafted “speech” she’s prepared, and instead, her words come out in a jumbled mess.

Have you ever had that happen, where an event sparks a strong reaction that renders you unable to make a coherent sentence?

OUR BRAINS ON STRONG EMOTION

I always wondered why I couldn’t think straight and why I sounded like a bumbling fool when I felt angry. And then I started to geek out on all sorts of brain-related books and articles. Come…