A firewall is a computer that many businesses use to protect their internal computers. A firewall sits between the Internet and the internal network, so all Internet traffic has to go via the firewall. A firewall provides a checking and filtering service. This serves many purposes, including:
· It allows safe or trusted network traffic through.
· It stops hackers or other unwanted network traffic from reaching sensitive internal computers.
· It can stop internal users attacking the internal network (as many hacking attacks come from inside the company!).
· It alerts people when there is an attack or suspicious activity.
Why am I telling you about firewalls? One way to help clean up your internal dialogue is to install a checking and filtering service in your mind. I call this a mental firewall.
Fortunately, installing a mental firewall does not need any form of surgery. It relies on assertions and visualization. Here is the basic process of setting up your mental firewall:
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Check the diagram on page 18 for an overview of the different parts of a neuron |
· Imagine a set of unused neurons in your brain now have the role of your mental firewall. They immediately start to grow out dendrites (the detectors) and axons (the messengers that create the alert in your mind).
· Visualize the dendrites growing out into your frontal lobe, where most conscious thinking occurs. They grow out and around some of the other primary nerves, such as the acoustic nerves where sounds (such as voices) enter the brain. These dendrites bring back information on the messages traveling through those areas, and your mental firewall checks this information to see if it should give you an alert.
· Also visualize the axons wiring themselves back into your frontal lobe. When your mental firewall detects something it needs to alert you on, these axons fire. When they fire, they interrupt your thoughts. Those thoughts may be starting to think about the content of the message that triggered the alert.
· Set up your alert. Your alert could be a red flashing light in your mind, with a buzzing tone similar to a fire alarm. When you hear it, mentally say “stop!” Practice a few negative statements, and seeing and hearing the response in your mind.
Now that you have your mental firewall in place, it doesn’t do much until you provide it with rules. The rules control what the firewall will and won’t alert on.
By default, your firewall allows though anything you don’t have a rule on. The rules that trigger an alert are deny rules. Examples of the kinds of statements that you want to set up a deny rule for may be:
· Internal thoughts such as “I’m hopeless,” “I forget everything,” “I crack under pressure,” or “I make poor radio calls.”
· External messages such as people saying “you can’t do that,” “that’s impossible,” “you’ll never finish,” “that’s stupid.”
The process of configuring follows the same principles as the shunt technique. Here are the basic steps:
1. Choose the negative thought or message that you want a deny rule for. Also choose a replacement assertion. For example, if the negative thought was “I’ll never finish this,” the positive replacement assertion may be “I finish what I start.”
2. Breath out, hunch your shoulders, get in a low state and repeat the negative thought in your mind.
3. Visualize your firewall triggering an alert, and the mental alert going off. See a red flashing light going off, hear a buzzing sound and say “stop!”
4. Now breathe in fully, pull back your shoulders and sit up straight. Smile, and say the positive replacement assertion from step 1.
5. Lastly, affirm the role of your mental firewall by finishing with an assertion such as “My mental firewall is working and checks all my thoughts.” You can drop this assertion once your firewall is working without you consciously thinking about it.
You can use this technique in many ways. You could use it to help oversee your own internal dialogue if you have many self-defeating thoughts. You may want to try it if you have people around you who do not support your goals. It could also be useful in sports where the competition uses negative comments as a strategy against you.
My last comment though is a small caution. Only set up deny rules for unconstructive thoughts and criticism. Make sure you allow through helpful thoughts, criticism and suggestions. A simple example involving flight training would be to deny self-defeating thoughts such as “you will never be a pilot.” However, you should allow through helpful or important suggestions from your instructor, for example. Examples might include “you need more training” or “to be a successful pilot, you need to do X, and you are not doing it yet.” Blocking out those kinds of thoughts may result in you taking longer to reach your goal, or not reaching it at all.