Hi Brooke,
I am a longtime listener of your podcast even before Scholars and am a huge fan of your work. Learning the model and your other practices has changed so much for me and doing the work of managing my mind has made my life a much better place to be. I am on an annual vacation with extended family right now and I have to say the difference between the experience we had last year, where I thought myself the victim of everything everyone else did, versus this year where I manage my mind and am free to be myself while everyone else gets to do the same is like night and day! So much better!

On this vacation, I’ve been able to focus a lot on my thoughts around food. Going off my protocol for some of the easy-to-hand sweets has given me the opportunity to really explore what I’m thinking when I make that choice. I’ve been writing a lot of models to try and understand it, and have come up with one that relates to all buffering – eating food that doesn’t serve me, procrastinating, binge-watching shows – basically any behavior I do to facilitate going unconscious:

C opportunities to buffer (food exists, tv exists, distractions exist)
T Everything is a struggle. Going unconscious is the only way to get a break from the struggle.
F Fearful, weak (also victim mentality? resentful?)
A Buffer
R Buffering makes everything worse (gain weight, feel terrible in my body, work doesn’t get done, feel terrible in my mind for letting myself down), and everything is more of a struggle.

So I think that this struggle thing is a really powerful, underlying thought I have that I didn’t know I believed… everything is a struggle and unconsciousness is the only way out. It seems like the obvious thought to try to get to instead is that nothing is a struggle, but I can’t buy that at this point. Instead, I have some other thoughts that I was going to try out in models:

1. Everything is simple. Maybe not easy, but simple.
2. I am a badass superhero who can handle everything.
3. I know what to do and I am up to the task.
4. Hey brain! I see what you are doing there with the whole struggle thing! But really… is this very moment a struggle? Is the struggle real or just a thought? Is anyone shooting at you right now? Then maybe the struggle is optional.
5. Feelings are just vibrations in my body, thoughts are just sentences in my mind.

What do you think about these thoughts? Do you see some as more useful than others? Any further suggestions about how to make progress rooting the “Everything is struggle” thought out of my head?

Thanks so much for your work and glad to be with you and scholars on this adventure!