Learning to Unlearn

This year, I found myself fascinated by Olympic gold medalist Eileen Gu talking about how her brain works.

She used a term I was vaguely familiar with: neuroplasticity, the brain’s ability to reorganize itself based on internal and external input. Eileen described her use of journaling as a sort of lab, where she writes down thoughts and evaluates her mind from an analytical lens, trying to improve and rewire until she can change her thought patterns to become the person she wants to become. 

It got me thinking of my own brain, and the identity I’ve grown to embrace. My mental landscape is not always a friendly environment, despite my attempts to shape it into one. My negative thoughts still affect my self-esteem and behaviors at times. Thinking about my own brain patterns, the good, the bad, and the negative requires that I look inside myself, something that can be scary and difficult. 

But after thinking about what Eileen said, I began to understand a new way of analyzing my own brain. I realized that it’s okay to have a negative thought, then to rewrite it. And what is rewriting, if not unlearning? So I took the idea of journaling as a lab, to identify and reject my negative thoughts. 

And in doing so, I’m learning that negative thoughts do not have to influence behavior or truth; they can simply just be thoughts. 

An ugly truth that affects my psyche is that I sometimes have unwanted intrusive thoughts, especially the ones that can play into negative self-talk. They are not real, even if my brain sometimes tries to convince me otherwise.

Still, sometimes anxiety gets the best of me, so if things escalate and I find myself spiraling, I use a technique my therapist taught me: grounding the five senses to redirect thoughts and help me catch my breath. It can be hard to focus on anything when things feel out of control, so practicing grounding helps me reconnect with my body and the physical environment. To do this technique, first, I find five things I can see. Four things I can touch. Then redirect focus to three things that I can hear, two things I can smell, and lastly, one thing I can taste.

Another trick I do when I have a hard time telling myself something good is to visualize someone else telling me something positive. This can be a friend or someone I view as an authority on kindness, telling me a positive affirmation. Maybe on a depressing Tuesday, Pedro Pascal might suggest that I’m being hard on myself and that it’s okay to take a breath. Or my best friend might reinforce that my negative thoughts are often not true. 

Similarly, I might find a bit of media that gives me joy. Like watching Tom Holland’s “Umbrella” performance on Lip Sync Battle, or remembering a particular scene in a book or show that stole my heart. And yet when I think of things that live in my head rent-free, I’m not usually considering all the bad things I let live in my mind, too. Giving those ideas the brainspace only makes it easier to fall into familiar negative thought patterns, no matter how invasive or just plain wrong they are. I’m now trying to think of that landscape as available for rent. Do I want this negative thought to be part of my mental landscape? Is this something I can afford in the limited space of what my active mind remembers? No? Then it needs to go. 

Is my self-talk helpful? No? Well, then it should also go. How? Well, that’s a bit more nuanced and definitely something I have yet to understand. But for now, what I’ve learned is that it’s okay to accept that thoughts are just thoughts, and it’s important not to give them any authority in my mind — not letting them control actions. Understanding that even when I make a mistake or want to overthink an interaction that didn’t go to plan, it’s okay to breathe a moment and talk to myself like a friend would. 

For Eileen, journaling means many different things. The Olympian does deep work, focusing every day on aligning her thought patterns with her behavior to become the person her eight-year-old self would look up to. I’ve recently embraced this mindset while journaling. I love that I’m trying new approaches in self-reflection. I think that for all of us, it’s good that we’re still learning, and it’s okay to unlearn as well.

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I’m not a mental health professional. I’m just a girl with mental health problems

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Lacey Cole believes in the power of friendship, in telling stories by a campfire, and in happily ever afters. When she's not writing romcoms, she's probably in a bookstore, gaming with friends, or herding cats with her partner.

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