For those of you who may never have seen one, the picture is a record. Many of us from the older generations are turning back to them as our preferred format for listening to music. There is a certain amount of romance, nostalgia and warmth that comes from listening to a record. The tradeoff is that since they are a “last century” technology, they are very delicate. They are prone to scratches, melting and breakage. Scratches (even little ones) can be maddening because the record will “skip” and play the same few seconds over and over again. I’m not sure when the phrase “broken record” will fade away or if it already has but that’s the idea. Broken records get stuck in a pattern and seemingly can’t get out of it. Old technology needs human intervention to get “back on track” but what about us?
The first step is recognizing the “skip.” With a record player, it’s easy to hear because the same message gets replayed over and over extremely quickly. It’s annoying! However with people it is far less pervasive. The repeating pattern of complaining about your job, boss, spouse, situation, etc. comes much less frequently. So it doesn’t truly feel like a negative pattern. It’s not the frequency. It’s the consistency. Patterns get myelinated in the human brain and it makes them happen more readily and easily. This is great for positive habits and thought processes but a negative thought loop can have a detrimental effect on your day consistently.
Once you know that the “skip” is there, you need to interrupt the pattern. With a record, this may mean just skipping the song with the scratch. For a human, it’s slightly more tricky. It requires recognizing the triggers and setting a new pattern of thought or action. The record metaphor doesn’t work great here and with train tracks a hole would just be repaired. Neural pathways don’t work like that! A new train track would need to be laid to detour the train before reaching the spot of “bad track”. Inefficient for trains, necessary for humans. Rerouting your thoughts before the skip is the way to getting back on track.
The final piece is playing new music. The human mind does not deal well with a vacuum. An old pattern needs to be replaced with a new one. So create a new track to follow instead of the negative skip. It’s going to take time and effort. The skip is an ingrained pattern that will not disappear on its own. It needs to be overpowered by the new pattern. So make the new track a “hit.”
As I said above, records are old technology. So they need to be treated with care. Our minds are much older technology and they were not designed to make us happy. They were designed to keep us alive. Focusing on threats and fears made sense at one point. It still has its place but there is so much more to be excited about than fearful of. Don’t keep playing that broken record! Start playing a new track! A better life awaits and you deserve it, you deserve it, you deserve it, you deserve it, you deserve it, you deserve it, you deserve it, you deserve it! I guess not all broken records are bad.
Get back on track!
Pete
Huryk Unlimited 