Rewire Your Brain with Chana Mason

Come on one lead this is George G and the time is right. welcome today’s guests showing a powerful how to Mason hot. Are you ready to do this?

Chana Mason 0:19
Yes, I am. Thank you so much for having me.

george grombacher 0:22
Oh, excited to have you on Hannah is a life and vitality coach. She’s helping people to clarify and exciting vision for their lives shift limiting beliefs create a plan of action, her newest book is inner voices. And today is her birthday. Happy birthday. Happy birthday to super excited to have you on tell us a little bit by your personal lives more about your work and why you do what you do.

Chana Mason 0:48
So I’m originally from Colombia, South America, I have such a good American accent when I speak in English because I mostly grew up in Miami. And in my early 20s, I moved to Israel, which is where I live right now I happen to be in the desert on a small vacation with my husband actually working on completing this manufacturer just doing the finishing touches on this manuscript for this new book. And, for me, sort of my core piece of how I got to where I am today is the reason that we left Colombia. So when I was five years old, five men came into my house with a gun guns and threatened to kidnap my sister’s in me, it was this like very long, ugly, many hours long episode. And my mom convinced them that if they came back the next day that she would have a lot of money ready for them. And I don’t know how but they believe her, which is a really big deal, because kidnapping happened all the time back then. And they did come back the next day, they sent this like elderly couple to come and get the cash, they were a little bit smarter than you know, we were hoping. But in the meantime, my parents had figured out how to just get all of us out of the country. Because by then these people had known everything about us, they knew all the details about us. They knew the map of our house, they just knew everywhere we went and what we did, and we just needed to flee. So we moved to Miami. And that’s where I grew up. And that was a pretty traumatic life experience. And sort of dealing with all of that. And the emotional repercussions of it years afterwards, really led me to a lot of the work that I do today helping people get out of their stuck places and into more places of clarity and joy.

george grombacher 2:34
Incredible. What a horrible experience.

Chana Mason 2:39
Yes, yeah. Not my favorite. But

george grombacher 2:41
no, that’s certainly not your favorite. So there’s the spectrum of everything in life. We all have our lived experiences, the worst thing that’s ever happened to you is the worst thing that’s ever happened to you. And the worst thing that’s ever happened to me is the worst thing that’s ever happened to me now. I’ve never been taken care of been kidnapped by by armed people. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t have trauma. That’s that’s that’s impacting my life. And I think that we all have something in our past. And how big of an impact do you think that this is playing in most people’s lives?

Chana Mason 3:21
So I have a little bit of a different perspective on trauma than a lot of people do. People have a tendency to perceive trauma as being this like, really difficult event that you went through. The thing is that the word difficult is already in and of itself subjective. And I think what makes a situation traumatizing is the story that we tell about it. So as a kid, you learned how to ride a bike. Yep. Looking back, how many times would you guess that you fell along the way in learning how to ride a bike?

george grombacher 3:56
Maybe once just kidding all the time?

Chana Mason 4:00
How many of those do you remember? None. None. Isn’t that amazing? You don’t remember any of them. And when you get when you get to ride on a bike, even if you haven’t been on a bike in the past decade, you probably just get on and you just ride with ease and your heart isn’t palpitating and you’re not sweating, and there’s no nervousness. Because every time you fell when you were learning how to ride a bike, you told yourself the story that this is just par for the course and learning how to ride a bike. Guess what, does that make sense? Yes. But if for whatever reason, you didn’t think it was okay to fall off a bike and get scraped then you might end up with a a nervous reaction to it your heart might be palpitating you know, you might sweat whatever it is, because you have a story about that fall that suddenly made that riding the bike not okay. And actually had that happen to me a few years ago. My husband and I went bike riding, and I made the mistake of not looking both ways when I cross the street and across came, you know, didn’t have a chance, like I didn’t give the card. It wasn’t the cards fault, but the car came. And I saw the car and I totally panicked. And I went flying in one direction just to get off of my bike. And I just, you know, I got some scrapes. The reality was, it was painful for a couple of weeks, the scrapes. But what stayed with me was this nervousness about riding a bike. And later, I could look back on it and see what the problem was, I told myself a story that I can’t be trusted on a bicycle, it’s not safe to ride in the city, riding a bicycle is not safe, and I’m not okay. And all of those beliefs got trapped around that experience so that every time I even thought about riding a bike, my heart would start palpitating again. And it just so happens that a few weeks ago, we went up to the north of the country. And, and I said to my husband, I want to rent bikes, because I want to get over this. And I noticed and we were we were riding bikes around the lake, it was just like flat Lake, no cars was like the safest thing. But just looking at the bikes, I noticed my heart started to flutter. And because I was nervous, I decided I had to ride the bikes in order to change my story around bike riding. And after the first 20 minutes, I had the best time I was so happy, it was amazing. Because I was telling I was literally rewiring my brain around bike riding, that I could trust myself on a bike, I knew what I was doing, I was safe, and I was okay. You know, the next step for me would be to start by writing in the city with, you know, with streets and cars and all of those other pieces so that I can rewrite that story as well. And so, you know, whatever story it was that I wrote, as a kid, I’m not safe. I can’t, my parents can’t protect me, I can’t trust strangers, my home is no longer a safe place. That you know, bad men are out to get me that was the that was the story that really messed with me for really two decades, bad men are out to get me so that even as I was going well into my teens and my 20s, I was always looking behind me if there was somebody walking behind me on the street, I’d be scared that they were coming to get me. And I had tons of nightmares about being kidnapped or raped, I had like a whole plan. If I get raped, what do I do, just like kind of crazy to be planning for something like that. And that was really the trauma was the story that I created around the event more than the event itself. And so one of the things I help people to do is rewrite their stories. And it’s cool to see people have the experience of they look back at a memory, they notice an entire emotional charge around it. And then as we rewrite the story, I asked them to close their eyes and look back at that memory again. And eventually what happens is people notice that there’s no emotional charge, it’s just totally neutral. So they literally rewired their brain.

george grombacher 7:57
I think what a two really, really good examples right there. Thank you for that. And that that really helps to make sense. Is it possible? Is it foolish to try and just get rid of memories?

Chana Mason 8:15
To get rid of memories?

george grombacher 8:17
So just to try instead of rewriting the story, just to try to like block it out? Can I do that?

Chana Mason 8:25
I mean, maybe it’s possible, I don’t know how that’s possible. From my experience, one of the reasons we remember things is because there’s a high emotional charge around that event. And, and the emotional charge is always related to the story that we have around the event. So I could sit there and say, I’m just going to ignore it, you know, the memory pops up, or the emotional charge pops up, and I can choose to ignore it. But then I miss, I miss the opportunity to learn from what those beliefs have to teach me. And this, for me is the the biggest difference between you know, I do have a meditation practice. And I truly do try to just work, you know, while I’m in meditation on just not focusing on my thoughts and just being in a state of presence. But when I’m engaged in inquiry, what I’m hoping to do is learn core lessons from the thoughts that were originally bringing me a great amount of distress. So an example of that would be like if I had the thought that I can’t trust myself on a bicycle. So the core lessons that are embedded in that are always in the opposites of that belief. That’s something I learned from Byron Katie. So The Work of Byron Katie is a core tool that I use in my practice, and that comes up a lot in my books. It’s a core tool for inquiry that I like to teach because it’s really easy to teach. And the magic of her of the work is that she introduces a concept of a turnaround of saying the opposite of a thought. So I can’t be trusted to ride a bike. The opposite of that is that I can be trying To ride a bike, and embedded in that new statement, our guideposts what I call guideposts is actually one of the chapters in my book, inner voices. And the the opposites guide us to notice all of the things that we really value, or that are true about us or about life. So it turns out that I actually really value paying attention to detail. And that’s one of the reasons that I can be trusted to ride to ride on a bike. And it happens to be that I value learning from mistakes, that’s another reason I can be trusted to ride on a bike like I don’t think I will ever across the street without looking both ways ever again. Another reason that I can be trusted to ride on a bike is because I I’ve noticed that in general, we’re safe, the road tends to be safe. And somehow we have all of this peripheral vision and and our bodies have a sensation of like, even before my you know, even before my eyes, or my ears notice things my body is already letting me know. And and it’s important for me to be in touch with my body. So that’s another value, right? So I can start seeing all these different values that the opposites are reflecting back to me. And I can ask myself, How can I live those values even more strongly than I did yesterday? Where is trying to shove that memory aside? Doesn’t give me the opportunity to learn from all of the opposites that are embedded in the thoughts that were giving me trauma in the first

george grombacher 11:34
place. Got it? Thank you. Like that makes a ton of sense. So how do I recognize things that I need to rewire? Or I ought to maybe consider rewiring rewiring?

Chana Mason 11:48
A really simple question. Okay, George, I want you to tell me think of a time that you were upset in some way you felt yucky. Let’s just put it in layman’s terms. Okay, so you don’t need to tell us anything about what those circumstances were. But um, can you just give me a location so I can put you back there if I need to.

george grombacher 12:11
I was in a office in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Chana Mason 12:14
Great. So you’re in the office in Scottsdale, and you’re feeling upset. And it might help you to close your eyes. Close your eyes and notice that upset and ask yourself the question. This is what I call the one question. What are you believing in that moment that’s making you feel that way?

george grombacher 12:36
That I’m getting taken advantage of.

Chana Mason 12:40
You’re getting taken advantage of. Okay. And you have a specific person you’re thinking of that’s doing that? Yes. Okay. So is it okay with you? If I switch the sentence a little bit to he’s taking advantage of you? Sure. Okay. And it makes for more interesting opposites. Okay. And can you tell me some of the physiological sensations you notice when you’re believing that thought? Anger? Anything else?

george grombacher 13:15
Just sort of a pit my stomach?

Chana Mason 13:18
pit in your stomach. So you got anger? You got a pit in your stomach? Great. Do you like the way that feels? No. No. So you probably prefer to feel happy and calm and have more ease in your body? Correct? Yes. Okay. So the way that you get there is actually in the opposite of disbelief. So he’s taking advantage of you the way we create an opposite. You can open your eyes if you want. The way we create an opposite is pick one word in that sentence, he’s taking advantage of you pick one word in that sentence, we’re going to say the opposite of that word. And it’s going to make an opposite of the entire sentence.

george grombacher 13:56
Taking.

Chana Mason 14:00
He’s What’s the opposite of taking, giving. Okay, he’s giving advantage to you. How’s that

george grombacher 14:09
true? giving me an opportunity to recognize that the situation that I was in was just, it was it was it was not going to get any better as chronic that I needed to find a different opportunity.

Chana Mason 14:24
Hmm, what’s another reason that he’s giving advantage to

george grombacher 14:30
making me reckon or helping me to recognize that I have I was really really good at what I was doing and I could do it anywhere and so I could didn’t need to be there. I didn’t need the situation.

Chana Mason 14:45
And is there one more reason that you can think of that he’s giving advantage to you

george grombacher 14:52
that I would never have to deal with that person ever again.

Chana Mason 14:58
Okay, so I it’s hard because I don’t don’t know the specifics of the situation. But I’m curious to know if in the details of that moment, is it possible that he’s giving you something? And that may be what’s happening is that normally when we believe that people are manipulating us, usually what’s happening is they’re making a request. And we have a difficult time saying no. Because we want them to like us. Is that true about you in that situation?

george grombacher 15:29
Yeah. Yeah, fundamentally.

Chana Mason 15:32
So he was making a request. So he was giving you the advantage to say yes or no. And you preferred to lie, rather than to have him potentially not like, that’s correct. Right. So that’s an advantage that he gave you is that he gave you the freedom to choose? Which brings us to another opposite. So watch this, he took advantage of you. What would be the opposite of he in this situation? Me? Yeah. How did you take advantage of you?

george grombacher 16:08
Well, I, I have agency I have choice. So I, I was there and I made the decisions to, to stay in a crappy situation and to be dishonest or less than honest, whatever the term might be.

Chana Mason 16:23
Um, Were there times that you compromise your values? Or just compromise yourself care? To try to make other people happy? Sure. Yeah. So so we can already see right, just in these two opposites. Notice how many values have come up. One is honesty. The other is taking care of yourself. The other is really checking in before you immediately say yes to other people and try to please their requests or whatever it is. The other is noticing how much agency you have. The other is you recognize how awesome you are. This situation actually helped you to do that. Sure. If it was a slightly less uncomfortable situation, you would have kept on pleasing and not looking in and checking in and saying, Wow, I’m really awesome. I don’t need this person’s approval, in order to recognize how awesome I am. See how all these values come up. So now I want you to close your eyes and look back at that moment in the office. Does it feel any different?

george grombacher 17:28
It does, it does feel like it was a really, really important step on setting me on the trajectory trajectory that I’m on today on doing the things I’m more interested in doing than being stuck playing some game and trying to appease and be happy in a situation that I was never going to be happy in. Isn’t that cool? Super cool. Yes.

Chana Mason 17:55
That’s right. So this really came down to like, questioning your beliefs in that moment. And being more more honest about what’s happening. And the you know, the ego wants to kind of attach and create a lot of conflict and pain because it gets to feel bigger that way. But there’s this higher part of you that actually wants more expanded experience and more expanded conscious experience. And there’s something about questioning your thinking that allows you to step back and look with more expansion and say, Ah, is there a different way that I can look at this? And do I have the humility to say, Wow, I made mistakes here, and I could learn from this and I could grow from this and then I’ll be happier if I do. So for me, that’s where the freedom comes from.

george grombacher 18:44
I love it. That’s super powerful. Beautiful. Well, Hatha, thank you so much for coming on. Where can people learn more about you? How can they engage with you? And when can they get it? Where can they get a copy of inner voices.

Chana Mason 18:58
So first of all, thank you so much for having me on. And the easiest place for people to find me is actually on my website, Hondo mason.com. That’s ch A N A, M A S. O N. And if they go to Hunter mason.com/books, they’ll find all of my books. I have a few personal growth novels that I wrote together with my husband, and a self help book hold that thought that cover some of these questions of inquiry and inner voices is is just in publication right now. And it’s all about how you can do this process that you and I just did together and dialogue how someone can do it on their own, just putting pen to paper.

george grombacher 19:35
Amazing. I love it. Well, if you enjoyed this as much as I did, show how you’re appreciation and share today’s show with a friend who also appreciates good ideas go to how to Mason calm, that’s ch a ma ma s o n.com and pick up a copy of inner voices and they get super cool that it’s something that you can go through on your own and put pen to paper and start working through these things. And also pick up a copy of hold that thought and everything else that she’s working on. Thanks again, Hannah.

Chana Mason 20:10
Thank you so much for having me. And happy birthday again. Thank you Happy birthday to me.

george grombacher 20:16
And until next time, keep fighting the good fight. We’re all in this together.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai