Janna Holterman 0:09
Let's get to it. We're going to be talking about mirror neurons and why they're relevant to you and what you need to know about them in the context of because we're continuing on with our theme for October of basically being the crap of yourself. So why are we so self-critical? What has you know created this concept in our brains that we need to nitpick things that we need to focus on what goes wrong, and then making ourselves responsible for those things that go wrong? And so if you missed the last episode 87, check that one out because it talks a little bit more about like what is actually happening in your brain. And then today we're gonna talk a little bit more about the neuroscience side of the mirror neurons. So mirror neurons basically are exactly kind of like as they sound. We want to connect with others, we want to be more like others, right? If you're part of a group, you want to be like those in your group, so that you are accepted, so that you are cared for, so that you are loved, right? It is part of our human nature, the way that we are programmed and designed to want to be in community with one another, right? And so we naturally tend to connect with those who are we are alike, right? Like we want to connect with people that we relate to and connect to, and part of the way that we start to develop these connections with people is through mirror neurons, which is why when you meet with somebody and you can kind of start connecting with them immediately. Part of that is their energy that they're projecting out that we are subconsciously reading from them, and a lot of it has to do with mirror neurons. So mirror neurons is literally us mirroring other people based on like mirroring their emotions, mirroring their mannerisms, mirroring their sayings. Right? Think about a time where you had maybe like a newer friend and they said like a stupid saying, right? A stupid thing. I remember, you know, like way back in like I don't know, I think it was like early high school. My friend literally started saying like "whatev, whatev, and I'm like, that is so dumb. Like, can you not just say like whatever, or like why are you even saying that? Like, and she used to say it all the time, and I was like, "Oh, this is so annoying! Like, why do you say that? And then guess what? Guess what? Guess who started saying "whatev" as a joke? And then guess who started saying "whatev" in like real context without realizing it, and then being like, "Oh my god, I can't believe I said that. So this is how it works, right? Think about when you start talking to somebody with an accent, and then unconsciously you're like mimicking their accent. You're like, oh my god! I hope they don't like think I'm like making fun of them. No, it's literally mirror neurons that is wanting you to present yourself as similar to that other person in order to be accepted, so our mirror neurons work on so many levels. As I quickly mentioned, right? It helps us connect emotionally. Somebody who is going through something devastating, you're going to see them being emotional, and you're way more likely to be emotional too. You're watching a movie; it's emotional. The characters are emotional. Now you're like bawling your eyes out, and you're like, I'm so invested in this mirror neurons. All of these things are based on our mirror neurons. We are picking up what the other people are experiencing, thinking, feeling, saying, and we are starting to reflect it back to them so that we can have deeper connections and deeper, really like safety because we are part of the tribe and accepted, and therefore won't be rejected and won't be you know put out into the wilderness and like that. Therefore, our brains and our nervous systems think that we are safe, but here's some of the issues with mirror neurons. If we're beating the crap out of ourselves, and then we go and connect with other people who are beating the crap out of the cap crap out of themselves, we start amplifying one another.
Janna Holterman 4:42
We start to bring that level of beating ourselves up higher and higher because it's like like the sound is like bouncing off and getting louder and louder and louder because instead of just having like one speaker amplifying the sound now we have like the two speakers amplifying it and then it's like adding a subwoofer and now you can have like a full club scene level of like vibration and music happening, and so we went from just having that single sound coming right, like a single speaker, portable speaker, and then you have two, and then you have like adding the subword and all this, and we start to amplify it and get louder and louder and louder and louder, right? This is what happens with our self criticism. So if you're going into a situation and you're feeling not good enough, right? You're like, like I like shouldn't have done that thing earlier. Like, if I, you know, had just got, if I just figured this out sooner, or if I just like meet met that mentor, like, you know, a little bit sooner, then I wouldn't have made these mistakes. And like, you're just beating yourself up. We're in the spiral. We're in the spiral in our brains, and then you go and you connect with a friend, and unbeknownst to you, they're also beating themselves up. They're like, I shouldn't have done that thing. I I said that thing to my coworker, and like she probably like thinks I'm crazy, or she like thinks I don't like her now, and like I shouldn't have said that. Like, what is she gonna think about me? Like, what are like, what is she gonna tell everybody else because I said that thing to her and I really didn't mean it? And like, okay, so you're both like coming in, beating yourselves up in your brains. You might say the nicest stuff to each other in person, but the fact that you're both beating yourself up in your brains starts to connect and starts to amplify both of your beating yourself up experience. The craziest shit is that not only does this actually happen with your you being in person with somebody, it happens over the internet. You connecting with somebody, you texting with somebody, you literally watching somebody else's social media video, and they're beating themselves up, and you're beating themselves up. You watching their social media video, your mirror neurons start picking up what they're putting down subconsciously, and starts to amplify your experience. You watching a movie that is probably like you know a little depressy and dramatic and like the they're not really like like I don't know like the the woman is like sacrificing herself and like not taking care of herself and putting herself last. You're subconsciously picking that up and what is that doing? That's reinforcing your belief systems of you not being good enough that you're, you don't have what it takes. That you should be working harder. That like all of these things. So where I really want you to be aware of is, if you are unconscious, you are not paying attention to what is happening in your brain, in your emotions, in your nervous system, to the people around you, the content you're consuming, it will start to take over with that self-criticism. Right, that is where your brain naturally goes. We kind of talked a bit about that, but we talked a bit about that last week's episode. Your brain is naturally negative. It is a protection mechanism. It is the default setting for your brain. And if you're not aware, you're not conscious, you're not picking up and like noticing these habits, patterns, how you tend to think. What's going to happen is you're going to connect in with those other people, and you're going to amplify the fuck out of each other, and now you are like both at like level 10 out of 10, beating yourselves up. And where is that leaving you? As leaving you feeling like trash, right? Like how draining and exhausting is it if you were to have somebody standing behind you, yelling the things that you say to yourself at you, right? Like we'd be like, "Oh my God! Like I could never handle that. But we do it all day to ourselves.
Janna Holterman 8:51
We're constantly berating ourselves, beating ourselves up, finding all of the evidence of how we're not good enough, how we haven't been good enough, how we don't have what it takes, how we'll never figure it out, how we like all the shoulda coulda woulda things that we should have done and said, and all of these things uses so much mental, physical, emotional energy, and which means that we don't have the capacity to do what we want, and it is like next to impossible to motivate yourself to do the things that you want to do when your brain is subconsciously telling yourself, "Well, you can't. You don't have what it takes. You can't figure it out. You fucked it up the last time, so you're probably gonna fuck it up this time. So why even bother, right? It's not gonna make a difference anyway. Our brains are so sneaky, but the more you understand this, right? I want you to understand what mirror neurons are doing. So number one, you can start being a little bit more cognitive. Cognizant, you're aware, right? You're gonna be a little more aware of like what is happening, right? So we want to be like, oh, I noticed, like every time I talk to this person, like I just walk away feeling like trash. Like I'm like, okay, curious. I'm already high in the self-critical level. They must be high in the self-critical level, and then we're like connecting our energy, and then we're just amplifying our self-criticismness. Now, this is not being like, oh, you need to cut yourself off from everybody, right? That's not the goal. We are humans having humans human experiences, but what the goal is to be able to give you the tools, knowledge, and resources to be able to be around those people and say, "Oh, my mirror neurons kicking in. But what do I know to be true? What is like? How do I actually feel about myself? Like, what are my skills, my tools, my knowledge, my resources? Because you can reprogram the way that your brain naturally thinks. We have this beautiful thing called neuroplasticity, which means our brains are moldable. We can change neural connections, and so we don't have to accept that default setting. We can say, "Oh, yeah, I have these mirror neurons. This is what's happening. I can feel it. I can notice it. And this is what I want you to start with. I want you to start with noticing what's happening, right? Noticing, hey, I connect with this person. I feel this way. Hey, I watched this show. I listened to this true crime podcast. Like, how was I feeling after doing that? I realized this was happening to me so much, where I was like, you know, like the Reddit streams or like the people who like tell the stories that are from right of like you know the crazy shit that happens to them, like the worst case scenario of like you know partners being horrible or the like crazy bridezillas or all these things, right? I used to be like so fascinated by those stories, right? Like this is like a human nature. It's like watching TLC and being like, you know, psychologically this is just so interesting because, like, why did they make those decisions and like, like, how do they choose this, right? Like, this is that was my brain being like, oh, this is like so interesting, like, you know, this crazy stuff that happens, and like, why would they make those decisions, and what were they doing, and like, how did they get to this point, right? But recognizing when I was listening or watching those like replays of those Reddit stories of like things that happen to people of crazy situations, how is it making me feel? That's the thing, right? Like, oh, I was starting to think more dramatically and like think worst case scenario, and like get sucked into like, well, what if that would happen to me? Like, what am I going to do in that situation? And creating all of these like crazy scenarios in my head of like how I would handle these like hypothetical situations that haven't even happened to me. But that's just the way our brains are. But realizing that our brains can't tell the difference between real life and our imagination, right?
Janna Holterman 12:48
If we think a thought, your brain, body, nervous system, emotions can't tell the difference between that actually happening and you just sitting there and doing, you just sitting there and like thinking it through, which is a very, very powerful tool that we can use for our benefit. But it's also a very powerful tool that can be used against us, right? We have to have that awareness of like, okay, what is happening? Why is that happening? I'm feeling a certain way. What am I making that mean about me? Where am I going to go from here? And so, with mirror neurons, that's the default setting. This is just where your brain is going to naturally go, you're going to start mirroring, mimicking people for the purpose of that safety and security of people who, you know, if they like you, then they are going to protect you. And so we have to have that. Like, okay, that's my, that's the autopilot. That's what's going to happen. But I can overcome that. I can think beyond that, and recognizing how much influence the things that you are consuming really create on how you are feeling. Yeah, you know, if you're constantly watching all of these like dark shows and movies and things, that is going to impact how you are thinking and feeling about yourself, and so every once in a while, sure. But if that's all you're consuming, all you're watching, all you're reading is all of these things that are making you feel worse about yourself. Your mirror neurons are like, oh yeah, this applies to her. This applies to her. This is more evidence that I can use, and your brain is gonna start like pulling shit from those movies or social media and all these things to fuel us evidence of how you're not good enough, how you don't have what it takes, all of these things. And so I really just kind of want you to use this podcast episode as a cool. My brain does this thing. I need to be aware of it. But I also want you to use this podcast episode of like, all right, maybe I just want to have a self audit time of like, okay, like what, how do I feel after I scroll through social media? How do I feel after I connect with these people? How do I feel after I watch this show, this movie, this thing? Like, where am I at? Like, how am I treating myself in this context? Okay, is this supporting me? Is this benefiting me? How is it negatively affecting me? And that's kind of where I want to go into the cost. What is the cost of the inner mean girl? And this is something that I really think is so interesting because most of us are looking at like how you know being being hard on myself is how I've gotten this far. I've accomplished what I've accomplished because I'm hard on myself. I need that like deadline adrenaline to get myself to function. Otherwise, I would never do anything, right? Because I'm like lazy unless I have a deadline, and then I like do a million things. So, what if that's not how you have to function. What if fight, flight, like anxiety isn't required for you to get shit done? Like, what if you could do what you needed to do and actually feel like, wow, I am making a difference. I have a fuel for purpose. Right? So incredible. How much would you actually find joy and fulfillment and like get to experience your life because right now, how much are you having joy and experience? Because if you're beating yourself up to get to where you need to be, or at least quote unquote where you think you need to be, are you enjoying the journey? Are you enjoying when you make it there? Are you enjoying any part of that? Like, what's the point? What's the point, right? And if we can understand the cost of beating the shit of ourselves, like if we can really see how it is actually affecting us, and that is possible that there is another way to do it and actually create more and feel better. Why wouldn't we want to do it? And that's actually why I created a masterclass.
Janna Holterman 16:51
So october 13, we are diving into this, and the replay will be available. If I was gonna say, I'm pretty sure this is gonna this is gonna drop the day after. So the replay for the masterclass, the cost of the inner mean girl will be available, and this really is diving into kind of understanding like what is happening in your brain, why is it happening, and what is it actually doing to you. The reason is so important to know the cost is because your subconscious brain thinks that being being a toxic bitch to yourself is the only way to get what you want, and if we expand this to a new perspective, a new way of looking at it, we can get our subconscious brain to see that there is another way that actually is going to make us feel a hell of a lot better. So, I look forward to seeing you there. Well, at the replay. Otherwise, I will talk to you all next week.
