Is your mind having a field day rehearsing all of the worst-case scenarios with MS? Are your thoughts constantly feeding you doubt, fears, and insecurities? Does it feel like your mind will never turn off? Day or night, it doesn't matter. The thoughts just never end. It's exhausting mentally, physically, and emotionally. My friends, your mindset cannot be overlooked when it comes to managing your health. We can't just focus on what you're feeding your body. We have to pay attention to how you're feeding your mind as well. And if your mind just spoke to you right there saying, 'Great, here's yet another thing I'm not doing, quote unquote, right. Add this to the endless list of things that I need to do better. If this sounds like your thoughts, my friends, this episode is for you. And as a side note, it's just as much for me as it is for you. I am very much a work in progress. I am certainly not coming to you suggesting that I have it all figured out. Quite the opposite, actually. I talk about the topics that have been most meaningful on my own personal journey with MS, as well as the topics that I hear,

realistic way and something that you might actually even enjoy doing. So let's dive in. And my fellow Multiple Sclerosis sisters, if you want a more personalized approach to creating your MS diet and lifestyle, check out my private coaching program. It includes a comprehensive assessment, personalized strategies, and lifestyle support. Each month, I only accept three new clients. So if you're interested, apply now at Alenebrennan. com/ coach. Now onto today's episode.

With all of the things that we do to manage MS, mindset rarely tops the list. You focus on food, supplements, exercise, but mindset, it takes a back seat. You want the more tangible practices that will make a real difference and get results fast. You definitely don't have time to waste when it comes to some woo-woo mindset stuff. You have MS and you want to stop the progression from happening ASAP. As a nutrition coach, yoga instructor, and personal trainer, I couldn't agree more that food supplements and exercise can really move the needle on your health in a big way. But I also know if you're not addressing the mindset, those efforts will be short-lived. It doesn't matter what habit you're trying to start.

If you're constantly doubting yourself or your plan, your results – again, they're going to be short-lived. You lose motivation. You start asking yourself if any of these habits are really worth doing, or if you're just depriving yourself for no reason. I mean, having MS is hard enough. Now you're punishing yourself on top of it by eating bland, boring food while everyone else around you enjoys whatever food they want, whenever they want. It's no surprise that you pretty quickly find yourself back at square one, frustrated and discouraged. It's exhausting to constantly fight against negative thoughts and fears. It's exhausting. Yet I'm willing to bet that this is the norm for most of us. More of us struggle with this way of thinking than not.

But while it may be the norm, it doesn't mean that it's how it has to be. If you allow these thoughts to run the show, they start to take root. They start forming your beliefs and influencing your daily decisions. And when they're influencing your daily decisions, that quickly adds up to negatively influencing not just your day, but your life. So I have a question for you: What could be possible for you if your thoughts were actually supporting or encouraging you? How would your life be different if you didn't constantly have these negative thoughts consuming your mind? What if you were not only able to turn the volume down on these thoughts, but what if you could switch to a completely different playlist, so to speak, one that was supportive and encouraging?

Personally, I'm like, yes, please. 100% yes. Where do I download this playlist of positive, encouraging thoughts? Is it iTunes? Is it Spotify? Is it YouTube? I want the details. I want them now. My friends, that is what I want to help us with today. Let's dive into how we can best manage our mindset so that we can nourish not only our body, but our minds too. We're going to start to no surprise with breathing. Here are some tangible ways that you can start putting this into practice. And to no surprise, we're going to start with the breath. If you've been around for a little while and listened to my previous podcast episodes, attended any of my online events, or watched any of my YouTube videos, then you know that I love starting with the breath.

You could say it's the yoga instructor in me, and maybe it is, but honestly, I do it because I find it so helpful. It's almost an immediate reset for me. I love the simplicity of it. It's always available. It's free, and it can be done in less than a minute. So let's take a breath now together. Wherever you're at, find a comfortable seated position. Maybe you roll the shoulders up towards the ears, relax them down the back, just releasing any tension in your neck and shoulders. Find a comfortable place for your hands to rest. If they haven't done so already, gently let the eyes float closed or take a soft gaze onto the floor if you're able to. And let's take our first breath together. Deep breath in through the nose. Full breath out through the mouth.

Let's do a couple more rounds of that together. Deep breath in, fill the lungs, fill the belly. Exhale out fully. Good. One more round together. Deep breath in. and exhale out longer than you think you can, releasing any tension or energy that no longer serves you. Good. Come back to your normal breath. Allow your eyes to open. How do you feel? What did it take? What did that take us? 30 seconds, maybe a minute. And within that short period of time, can you feel a shift? I can. It doesn't change the circumstances or the stressful event that you're in, but it can change your response to them. It can help us pretty quickly shift from the chaos in our minds to a more calm way of thinking.

This practice of using the breath cannot be understated. I don't know about you, but if I responded to this world from this place more often, life would feel a lot easier. Because let's face it, life is hard. Life with MS is complicated. So if there's an opportunity to ease either of these with a breath. It's worth it. So this is something that you can practice throughout your day. And you know, I'm also a big fan of habit stacking just to be more consistent with your healthy habits. So what is a habit that you already do every single day, maybe throughout your day, that you can now attach some mindful breaths to? So some examples are anytime you go to the bathroom, if you're part of the MS community, you're frequent flyers there.

You can do this throughout your day. It's not adding anything extra. It's just changing what you're doing in your day-to-day routine now. But practice this and notice. Just notice if you don't feel that reset. Again, almost immediately. And it can be with just three simple breaths. And here's the thing. When you practice this more often and more consistently, this deeper, more relaxing way of breathing,

all right. So, you might like how this feels, but say, 'all right', Allie, that feels great. But here's the reality. The negative self-talk immediately kicks back in as soon as I'm done with that last exhale. So glad you said that. Let's talk about self-talk. I'll start by saying that I don't believe that positive self-talk is just a matter of pushing away or ignoring negative thoughts and forcing in a positive thought that you really don't believe. I personally don't feel that's effective. It can easily feel like you're trying to convince yourself of something that you flat out don't believe is true. What I think is a much more effective first step, at least, is to simply interrupt the negative thought. And that can begin with the breath. That's why we started with it. But my friends, interrupting these negative thoughts, I feel like it puts us more in a position of control rather than the default is assuming that all of these thoughts that are.

And we need to interrupt these thoughts instead of building out this elaborate story or this elaborate vision of, again, our worst case scenarios. Interrupting the thought gives us the opportunity to question the thought, and that can be really helpful. I love the work of Byron Katie for this reason. She's an author and a speaker known for her work in personal development. If you haven't heard of her before, let me just bring you up to speed. Her work is rooted a lot in like self-inquiry and introspection, I would say. She helps you challenge and ultimately quote unquote transform your thoughts and beliefs, which I know can sound a bit pie in the sky right now, but hang with me. Let's just take a look. Now, this is going to be my best attempt to summarize her very in-depth body of work. But honestly, if any of it resonates or intrigues you, check out her books. She has several of them.

Okay. So here's a brief overview of her work. She begins by encouraging you to identify the thought or belief that's causing you stress, anxiety, suffering, whatever it may be. It could be something like from self-doubt to fear, resentment, frustration, whatever that thought is, she has you identify it. And then she takes you through a series of four questions:

Ask yourself if it's an unquestionable fact or if there might be a little room for doubt on this thought. So, you're first asking, 'Is this unquestionably true? Is this 100% fact?' Next, can you absolutely know it's true? So you go deeper considering whether you can be completely certain that the thought is true beyond any doubt. Next, how do you react when you believe that thought? Explore how believing that thought affects your emotions, behaviors, and interactions with others. And then lastly, the fourth question, 'Who would you be without that thought?' Imagine a version of yourself who doesn't hold onto the thought and consider how your life might change. Now, I know you may hear this and think like, 'Okay, Eileen, I don't know if this one's for me,' but hear me out. There is some validity to going through this process because I'll speak for myself here.

They are something that my mind conjured up. And most likely sprinkled in a little colorful additions to it. They started building out a story that's not 100% true. Even if something starts as a fact, we can often color it and make it a little bit more elaborate. And that is often based on our emotions. So asking yourself, 'Is this 100% true? Can you know it's 100% true?' And I love the third question, especially, how do you react when you believe this thought? Because if I'm telling myself a thought, a belief, again, whatever it is, whatever is running across my mind. And then I asked myself, how do you react when you believe that thought? I'll be honest, most time it's emotional-based. It can trigger anger, fear, resentment, stress, anxiety, a lot of different things.

So I think, wait a minute here. I'm believing a thought to be true and then reacting with a lot of emotions and showing up in this world based on those emotions. And that is where your thoughts can change your reality. When I heard that before, I was kind of like, eh, I don't know, like that feels a little bit too far out there for me. But when I look at it from this perspective, I'm like, oh, this makes perfect sense. If the thoughts in my mind that are consuming my mind start to change how I show up in this world, they start to change how I react to this world. They start to influence my emotions, behaviors, and interactions with others. Yes, of course that makes sense that my thoughts are going to influence my reality.

And that is why I love her work here because she encourages you to go back and say like, hold up, are these things even true? Because if they're changing how I show up in this world, I want to make sure that they are true. And then of course, her last question here. Who would you be without that thought? Imagine a version of yourself who doesn't hold on to that thought and consider how your life might change. That's humbling to think about how I show up based on a specific thought that isn't even true, but triggers all of these emotions. And then if I could just look at this and say, what if I were to recognize that this is not true? How would that change how I showed up in this world?

A common thought that many of us struggle with is, my family just doesn't understand what it's like to live with MS. So if I were to flip this around and believe that the opposite is true, I would ask, what if I don't understand what it's like for them to see me struggling with an invisible disease? What if I'm not fully understanding what it's like to see the same person on the outside, but depending upon the day, you're seeing me act two different ways. Some days I'm relatively quote unquote normal and other days I quote unquote don't have the energy or the strength. How are they supposed to know how I'm feeling when I look the same on the outside? The reality is when I have days that I'm again, quote unquote, normal, it's easy for them to forget and then feel blindsided when out of the blue, I'm getting frustrated because I don't have the energy and they just don't get it. This is why I love this work because just helping me to flip this single thought around is so powerful. It's true.

But what if we don't fully understand their experience of supporting a family member with MS? I would even add in the fact here that most men want to fix things. They want a solution to problems. They're fixers. So if you're a support person or your close family member or friend is a male, generally speaking, they struggle with seeing things that they cannot fix. And they might have a hard time articulating it this way, but it may come out as frustration with you. But what if they're just simply struggling with having to watch you, their family member, experience something that they can't fix? What if that's the root of it? My friends, this is by no means intended to downplay the very real challenges of us living with an invisible disease.

But in the context of our discussion today, we're exploring how we can get ourselves out of these rabbit holes of negative thoughts that aren't serving us. So I hope by sharing this example here, which I know is just honestly one of the most common thoughts and really struggles that many of us living with MS, an invisible chronic illness, deal with, that we just really get frustrated with the fact that our family doesn't get it. And they don't. But what if the opposite were true? What if we don't understand their experience? That's something that if nothing else, it makes me pause and it disempowers that feeling, that strong belief that I was so deeply rooted in that they don't get it. And it allows me to show up in a much different way. I love two other questions she asked. How do you react when you believe this belief?

Does it lead to stress, frustration, or strained relationships? How might your reactions change if you held a different perspective? This is where I think this concept of our beliefs, again, it can shape our reality. Because when she asked the question, how do I react when I believe this thought? The truth is I can respond with frustration, resentment, and anger. I'm responding based on a thought or a belief that I led myself to believe is 100% true without any other sides considered. That's not how I want things to be. And I equally love her next question here. Who would you be without this thought? Imagine a version of yourself without this belief. How would you feel? How might your interactions with your family change? For starters, I would feel less alone.

I would feel less resentful towards them. I might seek to better understand their struggles and actually try to support them or see how I can make the situation a little bit easier for both of us. It's about considering possibilities of a more balanced perspective. So as we're looking to develop a healthier mindset, start with a breath. Interrupt the thought and then ask yourself, is this really true? Is this belief that I have? running through my mind day and night. Is it true? Is it fact? And maybe just switching the words there can be easier for us because I think sometimes when you say, 'is it true?' You can kind of like justify your way to saying yes.

But when we ask ourselves, 'is it fact?' I feel like that differentiation is a little bit more helpful for me because it's harder for me to prove. Do you know this is fact? No, it's most often an assumption. Now, one thing to keep in mind, if you do start practicing this, which I really hope you do, because it can be so helpful, is when you go through these questions here. and ask yourself, 'is this true or is this fact?' And you go through the series of questions and then ask yourself, 'Who would I be if I didn't believe this thought? How would my life be different without it?' You might come through that whole sequence and realize like, yes, this is not true. This is an assumption. This is a story that I'm telling myself. It causes me to show up this way in this world,

that's always fun. Most of you will need to practice this many times over before it really sticks or even before it clicks. Like the first couple of times you try it, you're like, 'I don't know if like, I don't know that I really get this.' Keep practicing it. And again, if this resonates with you, check out her books. I'm sure she also has a ton of things on like YouTube or whatever, but definitely check out her books because it's really a powerful experience. Because when you think about the possibilities of how your life could change, if you could create a healthier mindset, it's worth it. It's worth it, my friends. Okay. Last but not least, I have to share. Sometimes it's easier to work through your thoughts, beliefs, or any challenges that you're experiencing through the help of a counselor. You know that I'm a big proponent of counseling. This can come in a lot of different ways, but I would encourage you to stay open to the possibilities of how beneficial it could be for you. If you've been kicking around this idea, maybe this is your prompt to schedule that appointment, get a recommendation,

as we're talking through the importance of mindset, we are again, we're starting with the breath. We're then interrupting the thought and this, and if you take nothing else from this, interrupt the thoughts, just don't go on this ride of this whole story that can be built out based on something that may not be true. And then I think it's helpful to go through the four questions, or maybe there was just one of them that you're like, I'm going to start with this. And I think that one of the most powerful ones, they're all powerful, but I really love the perspective of like asking yourself, how is this thought or belief causing me to show up in this world? And how would that look differently if I didn't believe this thought?

They're just really thought-provoking questions. So I wanted to share this with you today. I hope that it has been helpful for you. Again, guys, you know, this is not even the tip of the iceberg when it comes to mindset. And honestly, if this is a topic that you are interested in, let me know, send me a note, either on my blog at Alenebrennan.com. Com, or you can find me over on Instagram. I'm pretty easily accessible. So send me a note because I love to know what topics you guys like most. But if mindset is something that you find to be really helpful or an area that you need more support in, I could create a whole season on it because there's so much potential there.

My point here is: today, if your mindset is having a significant impact on you and your daily life, don't wait to do something about it. There are so many resources available to you. Use them. It can help you feel better on a daily basis, improve your relationships, including the one with yourself, and improve your health. Yes, yes, and yes, it's worth it. And always remember, I am here cheering you on to help you reclaim your body, mind, and life from multiple sclerosis. Well, my friend, we've reached the end of this episode. Pick one lesson from today's discussion and put it into action now. It's time to reclaim your body, mind and life from multiple sclerosis. And for more resources, events and programs, head over to alenebrennan. com. See you on the next episode of my MS podcast.