We get issued at birth with the greatest supercomputer ever designed.
 
The problem is that we don’t get issued with any instructions on how to work the supercomputer. We all have to flounder around using trial and error to figure it out, which can lead to disastrous consequences.
 
In the worst case, a malfunctioning supercomputer can cause us incalculable damage.
 
Thinking the wrong thing can do more damage to our wellbeing, our health, and our happiness than someone or something deliberately setting out to harm us. 
 
Life is the training manual for learning how to operation these computers we all carry around in our heads. Unfortunately, this process takes decades.
 
It might take us into our fifties or beyond before we master the basics so we can actually start living productive, effective lives. 
 
Some people never figure it out. They spend their lives miserable and destroying themselves and everyone around them.
 
This is a really, really stupid way to run the world, but I don’t make the rules.
 
So today I’m issuing everyone with an instruction manual for your brain. These techniques will make sure our onboard computers are functioning the way they ought to. These instructions will allow us to correct any errors or malfunctions that may pop up. 
 
Think of your life as a car you’re driving down a road. It’s up to you to get behind the wheel and steer the car where you want it to go.
 
If we got into a car and smashed our foot down on the accelerator pedal without bothering to steer, we would probably wind up sinking into the bay, not to mention threatening life and limb of ourselves and everyone around us.  
 
To operate our lives, we have to steer.
 
Think of the human body as a high-performance racehorse that needs proper nutrition and exercise to function at its peak.
 
We can also see our bodies as cars. Our bodies need the right fuel, the right maintenance, the right tire pressure. They break down and become unusable if we neglect them. The same thing happens to our bodies. 
 
If we had a computer that didn’t work right, we might say a few bad words to it. Then we would take it to a programmer and get it fixed so it did what we wanted it to do. 
 
If a car coughed, spluttered, and lurched down the highway belching black smoke from under the hood, we would take the car to the repair shop.
 
We wouldn’t get the car back until the mechanic fixed it—and I mean really fixed what was wrong with it and returned it to its proper state of functioning.  
 
If the mechanic tilted their head to one side, listened to us describe what went wrong with the car, and said, “How did that make you feel?” we would want to sue them for fraud. We would take the car from mechanic to mechanic until we found someone who could actually fix the damn thing. 
 
We all have things going on in our brains that work against our best interest. Our negative self-talk, outdated beliefs, and self-sabotaging doubts interferes with us living our best lives. 
 
We watch other people whizzing past us on the highway of life while we limp along the shoulder in half-dead jalopies strapped together with duct tape.
 
Our cars billow smoke across the windshield so we can’t see the road ahead while others cruise past us pumping music from their high-performance sound systems. We watch these people waving and smiling from their windows and it makes us feel even worse. 
 
Today is the day we get our cars and our onboard computers fixed so they actually work. 
 
The first step it to recognize that all this trash in our heads is slowing us down and even stopping us from living our lives.
 
A lot of this garbage needs to be eliminated. Other parts need to be repaired and corrected. Fortunately for us, it can be. 
 
Our thoughts, beliefs, feelings, doubts, and ideas as really just habits. That’s what our thoughts are. They’re habits like every other habit in our lives.
 
Repetition over time locks our brains into these entrenched ruts. We keep thinking the same things over and over again year after year, even when we know these things aren’t true.
 
These thought patterns become so habitualized that we don’t even recognize the patterns that keep those habits in place. 
 
Let’s take out our magnifying glasses and analyze a random thought I know a lot of you suffer with. Here is the thought we’re going to analyze.
 
“I’m worthless and everyone would be better off without me.” 
 
This thought is extremely counterproductive to a healthy, thriving life. It is poisonous and it is completely untrue. It’s a bald-faced lie and yet so many of us carry this around with us.
 
We spend year after year believing this and repeating it to ourselves. Why? Do you even realize how tragic that is? 
 
I could spout off a whole laundry list of other thoughts, ideas, notions, and doubts we tell ourselves.
 
“I’m ugly.” “I’m unlovable.” I’ll stop there. You get the idea. 
 
The thoughts we want to eliminate and reprogram are all either blatantly untrue, they’re supported by flimsy or nonexistent evidence, or they’re leading us to a conclusion that is against our long-term wellbeing. These are the criteria we’re going to use to identify thoughts, feelings, and beliefs that need to be changed. 
 
These thoughts and others like them are all habits. They’re mental habits.
 
Maybe our parents or someone else told us this in a way that the thoughts took root in our minds. Maybe these toxic people pointed out evidence they said supported these beliefs. 
 
How the habit became ingrained does matter, but it doesn’t matter nearly as much as breaking these habits.
 
We break these habits exactly the same way we would break any other unhealthy habit like smoking and drinking too much. 
 
How do we break habits? We dissect them down into pieces. We dismantle the habit into its support components.
 
We need to understand each segment in a continuous train of thought that brought us to the conclusion that we are worthless and that everyone will be better off without us. 
 
That conclusion is the endpoint of a sequence of other thoughts that carries us to the conclusion. 
 
Think about the support habits and entrenched lifestyle routines that keep someone smoking cigarettes year after year.
 
Maybe the person grew up in a house where their parents smoked. Maybe the person surrounds themselves with friends who smoke.
 
Maybe the person buys cigarettes as a matter of routine each time they stop for groceries or gas.
 
The person has to set aside a certain amount of money in their weekly budget so they can afford to buy cigarettes. They go through a series of steps that make smoking frictionless and inevitable. 
 
Now apply the same logic to our thoughts. We started out with a certain thought pattern that may have been implanted some outside source.
 
Now we go through a set routine that keeps the thought pattern going. We consistently focus on the evidence we choose to believe proves that the conclusion is true. 
 
We dwell on every tiny mistake or stumble. We magnify every awkward moment and turn that into more evidence to convince ourselves that we are worthless, that we will never amount to anything, and that WE are the problem that needs to be solved to protect the world from everything that is wrong with us. 
 
We do this while ignoring the evidence of our achievements, talents, relationships, and strengths. This is the evidence that we ARE valuable, that people love us in spite of our faults, that our lives are something good and holy. 
 
Each of us has the tools and screwdrivers and soldering irons necessary to fix these computers in our heads. First of all, we need to roll up our sleeves and take the thing apart. We need to expose the wiring that is interfering with our operating systems. 
 
Next, we trace exactly where our thinking is malfunctioning. We identify the lies and manipulation other people used to screw us up. We attack those thoughts and replace them with the correct programming that serves our best interest. 
 
Our thoughts and feelings are systems we put in place to make our brains function in a certain way. Thoughts and feelings are blocks of code made up of many lines, each one an idea or thought on its own. These lines combine to form a single mental process that carries us to a conclusion, an outcome, or a life function. 
 
All we have to do is go through the same process of habitually repeating the opposite thought or belief to replace the old one.
 
We got like this by thinking the negative thought again and again for years. Now we have to do the same thing in reverse.
 
We need to hold up and focus on the evidence that we are valuable, that we are loved, and that we have something priceless to contribute to the world and the rest of society.
 
This evidence is all around us—in every facet of our lives. We just have to look for it. If it isn’t there readily available where you can see it, you can create it.
 
All you have to do is accomplish your goals, be kind and loving to those around you, and start living your life on purpose in a way that proves to yourself that you deserve to be here.
 
This process isn’t easy, but it’s a whole lot better than living in misery with all these horrible thoughts in our heads. These thoughts can either wreck our lives or build us into something happy, beautiful, and thriving.
 
Each of us can and should take it upon ourselves to make sure our brains are running the right programs.
 
Mental illness, negative self-talk, or other malfunctions are all the end-stage symptoms of an operating system infected with viruses or programming errors.
 
We can reprogram these out so our brains function properly and bring us the fulfilment and happiness we all crave. 
________________
All content on the Crimes Against Fiction Blog is © Theo Mann. You are free to distribute and repost this work on condition that you credit the original author.

Lost somewhere in the mists of fantasyland dwells the elusive unicorn who can eat as much as they want of whatever they want whenever they want.
 
This mythical creature doesn’t have to worry about their health, their weight, or their appearance. 
 
The rest of us have issues with food. Everyone reading this has body image issues, weight problems, and eating disorders.
 
We’re constantly at war with ourselves over eating too much or too little, weighing too much or too little, or thinking we’re eating or weighing too much or too little.  
 
Nearly every blog article or self-help outlet begins the discussion on food, weight, and body image with the idea that we should all just love ourselves a lot more.
 
That’s all really wonderful, but it doesn’t do much to improve our health. It definitely doesn’t help if we have an eating disorder. 
 
So what are we supposed to do about it? 
 
I struggled with anorexia for twenty years. Then I had three kids and struggled another twenty years to lose the weight I gained when I was pregnant.
 
So whichever side of this issue you’re on, take this as a message from someone who has been where you are now. 
 
Let me paint you a picture of a healthy attitude toward food. 
 
Let’s say we bought a prize racehorse worth $50million.
 
We would make absolutely certain that the animal got the right amount of the right kind of food at the right times of the day.
 
We would probably pay a lot of money to hire a veterinary nutritionist to tell us exactly what, when, and how much the horse should eat.
 
We would weigh every meal down to the microgram. What the food looked and tasted like would be so far down on the priority list that they wouldn’t even show up on our radar.
 
We would make sure the horse got exactly the right amount of exercise, not too much and not too little, balanced with adequate rest, to ensure the horse performed at its peak.
 
We would give the horse a comfortable place to sleep so nothing disturbed it and so the horse would feel relaxed and well taken care of. 
 
Why would we go to such lengths to do all this? Because we recognize the horse’s value. We would want to protect our investment and make sure the horse could run its best race.
 
Now let’s apply the same logic to ourselves.
 
We don’t go to the same pains to ensure that we get the right amount of the right kind of food so that we stay in the peak of health.
 
Why don’t we do this? Because we don’t value ourselves.
 
We think we don’t matter, that it’s too much trouble, or that we don’t deserve that kind of care, attention, and effort.
 
Disordered eating is a form of self-sabotage that keeps all our other problems going.
 
If we’re already overweight, we tell ourselves that one more donut won’t make any difference, so why not?
 
We tell ourselves that one more day of slouching on the couch won’t make any difference, so we might as well put off exercising until tomorrow.
 
We tell ourselves every lie in the book. Meanwhile, the negative health consequences of eating this way keep piling up and getting worse as we age.
 
Our bodies become less able to cope with the stress of dosing ourselves every day with toxic poisons.
 
These substances don’t just fail to provide the nutrition we need. These foods actually strip away any nutrition that we do consume.
 
They rob us of the building blocks we need to live. That’s why our bodies break down and stop working.
 
A healthy approach to food treats us and our physical needs the same way we would treat a high-value racehorse. It treats us as our most valuable investment. 
 
Food is not a form of entertainment. It is not a form of recreation. 
 
Food is not a carnival ride of sensations to constantly stimulate us with adrenaline rushes of excitement.
 
We do not eat food for pleasure. Food is not what we do when we go out with our friends or what we do when we’re bored.
 
It isn’t there to give our hands something to do while we watch videos.  
 
It isn’t a reward for surviving our stressful lives or to make us feel better about our how worthless we feel.
 
Food is a tool. The purpose of that tool is to maximize our performance, both mental and physical, and to keep us alive and in the peak of health.
 
If food doesn’t accomplish that, it isn’t doing its job. It would be better for us not to eat at all than to eat foods that doesn’t keep us healthy and alive.
 
There is no magical barrier between our brains and the rest of our bodies. The same blood that flows through your brain also flows through every other part of your body, including your gut.
 
Serotonin is the chemical most anti-depressants try to mimic and the majority of our serotonin is produced in the gut.
 
What happens in the brain affects the rest of the body and what happens in the body affects the brain.
 
If we have any mental health problem at all—which is most people reading this—our first project should be to start eating correctly. 
 
Depression, anxiety, body image issues—they all come down to what we put in our mouths.
 
What we put in is what we get out. Food is the foundation of everything. Garbage in, Garbage out. 
 
Food is not our friend. Food is a tool. 
 
Food is not optional. What we eat, when we eat, and how we eat are not optional, either. 
 
Athletes, dancers, celebrities, supermodels, bodybuilders—all the people whose bodies we admire—they all treat food as a job.
 
These people aren’t out there eating whatever they want. No way. They count every calorie going in.
 
They don’t eat trash. They weigh their food down to the microgram and account for every macronutrient.
 
These people wouldn’t dare to treat food as anything else because everything they do depends on what they eat. They can’t eat a bunch of trash and expect to get the result they want. 
 
They value the result so highly that they make certain they eat accordingly. They treat food as a job because it IS their job. 
 
I can hear the protests now. Some might argue that this approach robs eating of all its pleasure. I would ask just how much pleasure we’re getting from this kind of disordered eating. 
 
Eating compulsively or unconsciously doesn’t give us any pleasure from our food. This kind of disordered eating is exactly the thing that is robbing us of getting any pleasure from our food.
 
If you went out and stuffed your face with a candy bar right now, it wouldn’t give you any pleasure. It wouldn’t make you happy. You would get a few seconds of a nice taste in your mouth.
 
You’ve probably tasted that same candy bar a million times before. You could probably get exactly the same feeling of pleasure by NOT eating the candy bar and simply remembering what it tastes like.
 
Eating it won’t do anything for you except to make you ashamed of losing control of yourself.
 
Disordered eating habits definitely aren’t giving us any pleasure if they’re causing us mental illness or unhappiness. Anorexics definitely aren’t taking any pleasure in food. 
 
Disordered eating habits make hate our bodies and feel terrible about ourselves. This feeling isn’t worth the few seconds of pleasure we get from putting something sugary in our mouths.
 
We can take far more pleasure by valuing ourselves. What could be more pleasurable than biting into a crisp, juicy tomato or a ripe strawberry?
 
We can experience a rush of gratitude when we put this food in our mouths and truly appreciate the taste for the joy that it is.
 
We can get more pleasure and genuine fulfilment from that than we would from cramming a whole chocolate cake into our mouths.  
 
The energy, well-being, and pride we feel from being healthy and active gives us far more pleasure than eating a whole pizza at two o’clock in the morning. 
 
Expressing gratitude for our food is another essential key to changing our attitude about what we put into our mouths and why.
 
I love the scene from The Road Warrior (1981) where Mad Max is sitting next to his car using a spoon to eat dog food out of a can. He finishes eating and throws the empty can to his dog to lick out.
 
This is what food is. It’s there to keep us alive. That is its only function in our lives.
 
Imagine we were prisoners in a concentration camp. We would get maybe two small bowls of rice a day and maybe some vegetables if we were lucky.
 
We would feel so unbelievably grateful for that food. We would cherish and keep track of every grain of rice.
 
We would get far more than our current allotment of calories—and it would be enough.
 
We wouldn’t resent not getting more. We would be too relieved and happy to get our daily food. We would thank God every time the prison wardens put the food into our bowls.
 
We could all feel that way toward our food right now. We could experience that level of bliss, gratitude, and appreciation every time we sit down in front of our meal to eat.
 
We wouldn’t care what the food is. We wouldn’t care if it’s a certain number of calories less than what our entitled brains thinks we deserve.
 
Now imagine what that prisoner would think if he or she could see us stuffing our faces with all this trash.
 
Imagine what that prisoner would think if he or she saw how dangerously overweight we are and we’re still out here stuffing ourselves as fast as we possibly can with the absolute worst poison money can buy.
 
We are all so unbelievably lucky to have good, nutritious food in front of us to keep us healthy and alive.
 
Changing our broken relationship with food requires a key change in perspective.
 
We need to realize the food’s true role in our lives and fully appreciate what a blessing it can be—but only if we treat it with the respect it deserves.
 _____________
All content on the Crimes Against Fiction Blog is © Theo Mann. You are free to distribute and repost this work on condition that you credit the original author.