How's Your Mental Diet?

How’s Your Mental Diet?

When I was at school there was a large poster on the wall showing a fly on a piece of food. You could see the fly was sucking up the food in liquid form through its ‘straw’ and we were told that it vomits on the food to break it down before it sucks it up. 35 years later I am still horrified by flies landing on food. It was powerful messaging that stuck.

During the same time, smoke would seep out from under the door of the teacher’s lounge and billow out in clouds when the handsome English teacher opened the door, cigarette in hand. It was so cool, we thought, the teachers are doing it, why not us?

Have you ever stopped to consider just how much of what you think, believe, and feel has been programmed into you? It starts early, when as children we are bombarded with messages that seep into our subconscious mind and form our beliefs choices, and behaviours.

Some of this programming can be helpful—like learning to be kind, work hard, or take care of yourself. But other scripts running in the background may not be serving you quite so well, especially if they lead to self-doubt, unhealthy behaviours, or limiting beliefs.

Your Mind Is Like a Computer— And it’s always running a program

Unfortunately, there are no automatic updates. The beliefs you hold, the habits you maintain, and the emotions you experience are all influenced by the “coding” you’ve absorbed over time. This can be a hard pill to swallow because we believe we are ‘ourselves’ based on our own choices, but this is only true if we have examined and consciously chosen or updated the code.

Think about the messages many of us received around alcohol. My coding led to the belief that alcohol was integral to family gatherings, socialising, and having fun. My coding was so powerful that instead of saying no I endured vomiting and feeling horrific as a teen. As I grew older things got worse, but the code kept running. Without alcohol, my life would be less fun.

I wonder, if that poster had shown my brain (the food) being slowly eroded and consumed by alcohol (the fly) would my life story be different?

Look around you. How many messages out there are designed to keep you stuck in your program and crafted to keep you consuming? In movies, and on TV we are consistently shown that a glass of wine is the reward for a long day, that drinking is a symbol of success, and that it’s "normal" to use alcohol to unwind or binge drink at celebrations. What about the films where alcohol doesn’t work out so well for the hero? We see someone wasting away, rushing to the bottle shop with shaking hands, drinking a bottle of neat spirits in one go, and being rushed to re-hab for some ‘tough love’.

We Have Been Programmed With This;

Alcohol is desirable, fun, and helpful in all scenarios. If you’re sad, happy, celebrating, or suffering alcohol can help. But there’s a caveat - if you can’t control how much you drink and ‘drink responsibly’ then you must be a powerless ‘alcoholic’.

Big Alcohol has thrived for decades on this successful PR-ogramming campaign.

The truth is, much of what we accept as “normal” is simply code and conditioning—messages we’ve been fed so consistently that we accept them as truth without questioning.

But this program doesn’t make sense. It’s an oxymoron, because how can we responsibly consume an addictive substance?

A Lancet study by addiction researchers ranked alcohol fifth in dependence potential, behind heroin, cocaine, nicotine, and barbiturates. However, when looking at overall harm to users and society, alcohol ranked number one, due to its widespread use and social consequences.

Whilst these other drugs may be more addictive, alcohol is coded as acceptable and integral to everyday life, from work events to baby showers.

When we decide to wake up to our programming we take our power back. We ask do I want to be a sheep, and blindly follow the herd or do I want to be in charge of programming my life story?

Autopilot vs. Conscious Choice

When we recognize that we have been programmed, we can choose to rewrite our code. We refuse to allow external programming to dictate our reality. When we recognise what’s been going on behind the scenes, we decide to question the choices we’ve made, knowing that were never truly our choices to begin with.

This is the difference between living reactively and living intentionally.

How to Reprogram Your Mind

If we want to take control of our mental programming, we need to become aware of and deliberate about what we consume and what we reinforce.

Here are some tips.

1. Take An Audit of Your Inputs – Pay attention to the messages you are exposed to daily. What are you watching, reading, and listening to? Who are you spending time with? What beliefs and behaviours are being reinforced?

2. Question Everything – Don’t accept things at face value. Ask yourself, Is this true? Does this belief or behaviour serve me? Where did I learn this? By questioning your current programming as an adult, you can start to dismantle outdated, and untrue limiting beliefs.

3. Design a New Mental Diet – Whether it’s social media, news, entertainment, or conversation, be mindful of what you ingest. Just like junk food affects your body, toxic, unhelpful, and fearful messaging affects your mind. Throw out the mental junk food and be more intentional about what you allow into your precious mind. Surround yourself with content, people, and experiences that reinforce the mindset you want to have.

4. Challenge Old Codes – If you notice negative self-talk or habitual behaviours that don’t align with who you want to be, interrupt them. Stop, pause and question, is this how I want to react? Is there a new code I want to write here? Then do the new behaviour consciously, repeatedly until the new code sticks.


Final Thoughts: You Are the Programmer of Your Own Mind

The most powerful realization you can have is that you can be in control of your programming. You don’t need to be a passive recipient of conditioning, at the mercy of others who want to control how you think, feel, and behave. You can choose what to accept, what to reject, and what to rewrite.

Once you become conscious of the messages influencing you and you decide that you don’t want to live life on other’s terms, you find the freedom to design your own programs, exactly as you want them to be.

If we don’t there can be a hefty price to pay.

Sadly Mr. Brown, the handsome English teacher, and my personal favourite, died of lung cancer aged 55. My parents both passed away aged 69 and 74, with drinking being one of their favourite pastimes. My friend died of alcoholism, aged 48.

As for me? I struggled with alcohol and mental health for 25 years.
(And I have 12 Shoo Away fly devices in my kitchen cabinet).


Love Sarah