Hello Beautiful

I’ve had some questions from clients and students lately about how to become less judgmental. There is a lot we could talk about on that topic, but I want to share today a way to get started. It involves working with our brain to re-wire beliefs that lead us to judgement.

If you want to change your perspective on something, it takes some reprogramming work with your brain.

Our beliefs come from our repeated thoughts. 

If you grew up hearing judgement about something, then you have neural pathways that were developed based on hearing that judgmental thought repeated time and time again. 

Take some time this week to consider what you believe, pick one and work with it. Likely that belief began with repetition. Maybe at a young age, you heard someone say it multiple times. Then you started thinking it on your own. Then for years you held that same thought. It has a deep neural pathway in your brain from repetition. 

We can change beliefs, but we have to repeat a new thought many times to re-wire a new neural pathway. Neuroscience research on neuroplasticity is where you can look for scientific evidence of the human ability to re-wire our brains. 

You can change a belief with repetition of a new thought.

I was working on this recently in my own brain. I have a belief that I don’t like winter. I live in the midwest where January and February get pretty bleak. So I started an experiment this summer to get ready for this winter. I want to train my brain to see everything in nature as beautiful this winter instead of dead. (I know that everything is indeed not dead, but my brain likes to tell me how sad winter is, so I’m working to re-wire that thinking.)

So on my walks, I am thinking “hello beautiful” with everything I see. Things like flowers that truly are beautiful and things like dead plants that are hard to see as beautiful. But everything is beautiful because it is part of a cycle of life, it is part of nature, and what it contributed before it died was beautiful. So I also say “hello beautiful” to the things that might not at first glance seem beautiful. 

I know it sounds weird, but re-wiring your brain involves doing weird things. 

Here are the “hello beautiful” things from a recent walk:

If I want to see everything and everyone as beautiful, I have to practice it. The hollow tree stump. The dried leaves. The flaking bark. It all gets a “hello beautiful.”

I’m already noticing that my brain is re-wiring. “Hello beautiful” is popping into my brain when I notice people, when I wake up in the morning, and when I see a messy pile of stuff on the kitchen island that teenagers left behind. I’m less habituated to old thoughts about things, and can already begin to see beauty where I hadn’t before. 

Over the years since learning about neuroplasticity, I have worked with my brain to re-wire many old beliefs and now I find it a fun challenge. I am living evidence that you can change your brain. It just takes some intentional practice. But the changes actually come faster than you think they will if you stick with it. Like so many things, consistency is key.

Experiment with it in your own life. Approach it as a fun game with yourself. Take a belief you no longer agree with or feel yucky about and switch it to something you want to feel instead. Then repeat that new thought as often as possible. You will notice a change in the way you see the thing that you used to judge. It starts as a softening and then the judgement fades away.

I’ll keep you posted on how I feel about Winter this January! I’m hoping this brain work makes a noticeable difference in my winter attitude. If not, I’ll go back and read this post again. 

My goal is to welcome this winter with a “hello beautiful!” And I’m hoping this practice will also help me see myself in the mirror, people I disagree with, and my own failures with a “hello beautiful” sentiment too! It really is all beautiful.

If you want less judgment in your heart and mind, do the work to re-wire your brain. The world needs more of us doing this work, so let’s lead the way!