Everything You Need To Know About Mental Diets and How To Create One
Hey, pretty people!
I recently brought a post talking about limiting beliefs (check it out here). There, I briefly mentioned mental diets, and I also announced I would eventually bring more clarity on the subject later. The time has finally come!
What is a mental diet, actually? Mental diets aren’t the newest concept in this more ‘spiritual’ world, and have been around for a while. They do seem like a fairly complicated concept to grasp, but I promise everything is a lot easier than what it seems.
Before jumping straight into the post, let’s define the term Mental Diet and a few of its principles.
This whole idea was made quite famous by one of the most popular manifesting teachers out there, Neville Goddard, with one of his questions;
“What thoughts are you ‘consenting’ to?”
IN SIMPLER TERMS
Simply, a mental diet consists in monitoring your thoughts, and feeding yourself positive content. Thoughts, ideas and everything that empowers you and helps you move towards your goals are good for you, while doubts and limiting beliefs aren’t exactly welcome.
Watching your thoughts isn’t always simple, that is fair to say, and we can’t possibly do that all the time. However, what we can do is try! The truth is that we think it is going to be hard just because we have been told that time and time again. Guess what, that’s a limiting belief!
Monitoring your thoughts, what you ‘consume’ (in terms of videos, gossip and this type of content) and who you associate with is not too scary to do, and after a little bit of practice it will basically become second-nature to you.
Before moving ahead with this concept, I would just like to refer you back to this interesting article by huffpost.com. I found it quite on point, and I figured you may want to give it a read as well.
So, are you ready to find out how to create your own mental diet and maintain it through your daily life?
Let’s get started!
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THE PREMISES
I would like you to take a look at this incredibly simple chart. As basic as it may look and sound, this is everything you should do if you wanted to start a mental diet.
Like I suggested in my Limiting Beliefs post, take a day to figure out what are your thoughts on a daily basis. Don’t do anything in particular when you come across a limiting belief, just aknowledge it and move on. It may be helpful to write them down, just so you can address them later. Let’s make a practical example, shall we?
Let’s say, for instance, you were thinking ‘I am a neat, clean and organized person‘. Fairly simple, right? Well, now ask yourself: ‘is this a useful thought for me? Is it moving me forward towards the person I want to be? Is it holding me back?’. In this case, we can say that this thought is a ‘good’ one, it is moving you forward and helping you make progress.
On the other hand, let’s say the starting thought was ‘I am the most disorganized person. My room is a mess, I can’t stay clean, I always make messes etc.‘. Again, a pretty simple concept. Is this a useful thought, though? Is it moving you forward towards the person you want to be? Not really.
Of course, these examples were a bit silly, but they are perfect to see that there are so many limiting beliefs all around us – in the most insignificant aspects of our lives, even!
Our job is to essentially obliterate them in the most efficient and quickest way possible. Mental diets will help us do that!
DEALING WITH UNUSEFUL THOUGHTS/LIMITING BELIEFS
Let’s go back to the example we just made; ‘I am the most disorganized person. My room is a mess, I can’t stay clean, I always make messes and I can’t help but live in a disorganized house‘.
We have detected this thought, what’s next? Well, first of all we need to aknowledge it is a limiting belief. Just like that, whenever you think something of the sort, just repeat in your head ‘it’s a limiting belief’ or simply label it.
Then, now that you know that that thought is not true at all, soothe yourself into thinking what you want. In this case, think that you are a neat, clean and organized person. Once you’re back on track, continue from there and try staying in your lane of (proper) thoughts.
MORE PRACTICALLY
More practically, this exchange would look (or rather, sound) something like this in your head:
‘I am the most disorganized person. My room is a mess, I can’t stay clean, I always make messes and I can’t help but live in a disorganized house‘
‘That’s absolutely false, it’s a limiting belief. I am a naturally clean, neat and organized person. Whenever I pick up something, I always put it back in its place. Organization is my middle name.’
I know it may sound silly, but it’s the most effective ways to apply mental diets and get fast, impactful results.
I don’t know if you guys have seen ‘It, part 2‘, the 2019 horror movie based on the book by Stephen King (if you haven’t but plan to, move over: major spoilers ahead!). Basically, the Losers Club find themselves confronting the gargantous monster, but feel incredibly powerless against It’s size. However, Mike Hanlon has an epiphany. There are many ways to make someone feel small, and one of those is not giving them any power. The Losers Club starts belittling the monster, which eventually turns into a small, harmless and weird-looking baby.
This is exactly the same thing. Your limiting beliefs and negative thoughts have no power over you, if you don’t let them. In return, all your positive thoughts can have a lot of power over you if you believe in them!
PERSISTING IS KEY
Persisting in applying mental diets is, of course, the quickest way to notice a change in your everyday life. That, however, also means applying the premises even when the world around you seems to show the exact opposite of what you want.
Let’s refer back to the same example from before. In fact, let’s say you were affirming ‘I am a neat, clean and organized person‘ sitting on the floor of your room. You’re sitting on the floor because you have a bunch of clothes piled up on your chair, and there are books all around you. You didn’t make your bed, nor did your homework. Did I mention your room could use a change of air?
This situation may seem unsufferable, and tell you that you are everything BUT a clean, neat and organized person. That’s where affirming and belief really come in and make a difference.
In fact, while you are cleaning up, that’s when you want to affirm and feel that you are actually a neat, clean and organized person. Also, might as well say you are a fast and efficient cleaner. Once your room is clean, you can see that the affirmations are actually true. You are, in fact, neat, clean and organized.
THE TAKEAWAY
Let’s sum this article together, shall we?
Mental diets help you monitor your thoughts, and therefore help you decide which thoughts you should give power to. Of course, you want to pick the ones that move you forward and towards the person you want to be.
What happens when we encounter a thought that fills us with doubts, or simply makes us feel bad or makes us feel the opposite of what we want? We don’t freak out, for starters. In fact, we simply aknowledge that thought, and then make it powerless; we can just label it as a limiting belief and then move on to our productive thoughts, or soothe ourselves back on track.
Don’t feel bad for needing time to practice this perfectly, and don’t feel like you have to rush through the process. Work at your own pace, and you will thank yourself in the end. Your mental diet will need time to be perfected, and that’s ok!
♡ Thank you so much for reading! I hope we kept each other company for a while. Have a wonderful day! ♡