56. Creating thoughts on purpose and Morning Journaling

Vanessa 00:00
Welcome to coaching for Latina leaders, the only podcast dedicated to the advancement of Latinas at every level of life with your host, Dr. Vanessa Calderon, a Latina with over 20 years of leadership experience, Harvard grad physician, and mother of two.

Hello mujeres, Welcome back to the podcast. So today I want to talk to you about something that I love to do, which is morning journaling. But before I do, can I just say that I threw out my back, and holy smokes back pain is the worst. So if you are dealing with back pain, knee pain, or hip pain, I just want you to know that I feel you, I see patients with back pain all of the time in the emergency department. And I'm always pretty empathic about their pain because you know, pain is just so subjective. But wow, like a new lens, I definitely have a new perspective on back pain now for sure. Sitting here with my heat pack on my back right now, as I record this podcast.

Okay, so anyway, we are talking about morning journaling. So, let me share a story with all of you. So I used to have this very inconsistent practice with morning journaling. Okay, so I had kind of this inconsistent relationship, I like to do it, but I just never prioritized it. And I would go through these kicks where I really wanted to get good at it. So why would buy a cool journal or some pretty cool colored pens, And then I would try it for a little bit, and then I would just fall off again, because what was I doing, If you guys remember the cognitive thought model, I was trying to change the circumstance by buying new pens and journals, when really what I needed to change was my thought because I just didn't think that it was that important. And then I learned two things. I learned number one, that a consistent journaling practice puts you in touch with your intuition your inner knowing with what I call my great divine. And the second thing that it does is it helps you create the results that you want in life. It helps you achieve your goals and really create the life that you want. And the way it does that is by helping you think your thoughts on purpose. Again, remember the cognitive thought model, you'll have a circumstance that will create a thought that will help you you'll, it'll cause you to feel a feeling which leads to action and ultimately to a result.

So whatever thought you have, leads to your ultimate results in life. So your results are always a function of what you're thinking. And that's why journaling is so important. Okay, so let's talk a little bit more about why it's important. So again, creating thoughts on purpose and choosing how you want to think for the rest of your day is incredibly important. I mean, we all know the importance of positive thinking. But this is the thing that our brain doesn't think positive all of the time or even on default. In fact, our brain has a negativity bias. And one of my favorite neurobiologists, Dr. Rick Hanson says, Our brain is like Velcro for negative thoughts that anything we think that's negative, it'll just stick stick stick stick stick, and like Teflon for positive thoughts. And that is the truth. Whenever we think positive thoughts, we really have to go to work to believe them. But our brain will hold on to negative thoughts. 

And in case you're curious, that's because our brain has evolved to keep us safe. So when we're thinking something negative, it thinks it needs to remember is to keep us safe.

Okay, so even if you are a general optimist like I am, your brain probably still doesn't think positive thoughts on default. In fact, usually what's happening is our default subconscious thoughts or our negative thought patterns, which can either be neutral or negative, in all honesty, they can be neutral, sometimes those are what's usually running the show 95% of the time, we are not thinking thoughts on purpose. Only 5% of the time, are we actually consciously thinking our thoughts on purpose. So the other thing too, is, let me just share one more fact with you is that our human brain is scanning the world around us every four to six seconds looking for signs of danger, which means it's looking for things for us to be anxious or nervous about.

So I share all of this with you because I want you to understand that we have a negative bias. We're gonna think negative thoughts will think the more often than positive thoughts. And when you wake up in the morning, you have the opportunity to clear your brain of those negative thoughts and choose the positive thoughts that you want to think instead. That's why it's so important to think on purpose and think intentionally. And creating a consistent journaling practice in the morning helps you do that.

Vanessa 04:59
Okay, so Let's talk about how you do it. So my recommendation is this, my recommendation is for you to get up every morning and start your morning with journaling. I want you to block off time every day. So again, I had this inconsistent practice. And then two years ago, I just committed to doing it, I started reading this book that talked about the importance of it. And then I was like, let me try it for myself, I committed to doing it. And within about a month or so of doing it, I was so in tune with my intuition. And my inner knowing it was, it was a little banana, I'll be honest with you.

So again, get up every morning because the reason why it's really nice to do it in the morning is that you're able to clear your brain right away. And then think thoughts on purpose right away. A lot of people want to do it at night before you go to bed. And all of that is fine, it'll just serve a different purpose. Okay, so do it in the morning, get up 15 minutes earlier than you normally do to try it. Okay, so what I do is I just buy those legal notepads that come in a pack of like five or ten from Amazon, that's nothing fancy at all. I don't buy a really cool-looking journal. But feel free to do that, if that's your jam. And then I choose two different colored pens.

Okay, I choose a black pen. And then some other fun colors. Sometimes it's a purple pen or a pink pen. And what I do is I spend the first 10 minutes and I actually set a timer for myself because I could really like go for it and journal forever. But um, I set a timer for myself. And I spend the first 10 minutes clearing out my brain. And the prompt I use is what am I thinking? That's it? If I don't already know, I'll ask myself, What am I thinking. And then I just let myself free flow, I don't overthink anything, I just let my hand go and everything comes out. Sometimes it's things like, I'm never gonna get enough, done, this sucks. I'm the worst. It's like whatever negative thought is in my brain, I let it all out. And then my alarm will go off. And it'll be about 10 minutes. And at the end, at the end, what I do is if I have any questions that I want clarity on or any words of wisdom that I need, or you know, if I want to tap into my mentor or my future self, I'll ask myself a question. I'll say, please, I'll ask myself, whatever question it 

is, like, Am I on the right track? Or how should I be thinking about this? And what I'm essentially doing is I'm creating space for my inner wisdom to answer that question, because, in all honesty, we have the answers inside of ourselves all of the time. But it's hard for us to answer our own questions when we don't create space for it.

So I get all the negative stuff out of my brain. And then I asked myself, whatever question that I need support with at that time. And then I give myself about a 32nd break. And I'll say, please write back to me through my pen, and I get my second colored pen purple or pink or whatever it is. And then I let myself go, I just free write in a free write for about another five to 10 minutes of whatever answers are coming out of me. And they're usually pretty beautiful and loving and supportive, and they answer my questions, which is the best part about it. Okay, so let's just review, morning journaling. It's important because it helps you reconnect to your inner knowing your great divine, your intuition, whatever you want to call it. It's also important because it helps you create the results that you want in life on purpose because it helps you think your thoughts on purpose.

You see all of your negative thoughts early in the morning, and then you get to decide how you're going to think instead. And that is just so powerful. It matters because our brain has a negativity bias. And we want to make sure that we are priming our brain to work for us with the positivity bias and positive thoughts instead of those default negative thoughts. And the best way to do it is first thing in the morning. So block off time every day in the morning, all you need is about 15 minutes, nothing fancy get a legal notepad like me, and choose one pen or two color pens, whatever serves you. Okay, try it for yourself and see how it goes, and DM me, follow me on Instagram at VanessaCalderonMD.com. That's where I spend most of my time. Follow me there and send me a question and or let me know how it goes. I'm curious how it's gonna go for you. And as a reminder, if you haven't already downloaded your guide, which is the free guide, the ultimate free guide to stop people-pleasing.

I want to encourage you to go get it now. It's on my website Vanessa CalderonMD.com\guide, go there. Get it for yourself. It is awesome. It teaches you all of the ways that you can tell whether or not you're people-pleasing. Why does it develop and then what to do to stop it? Okay until the next time, adios!

Vanessa 10:13
Hey, if you love what you're learning, then you've got to check out my free Ultimate Guide to stop people-pleasing, where I teach you a simple five-step process to stop saying yes. When you really want to say No, you'll be so glad that you did. There's a link to the guide in the show notes. I'll see you next time.