How Unconscious Contracts Impact Happiness
How do unconscious contracts impact happiness? In this episode of Your Superpowered Mind, join host Kristin Maxwell and neuroscientist Sarah Peyton as they discuss how relational trauma from our childhood can result in continuing patterns of self-criticism, self-sabotage, and anxiety. They also tackle the power of using resonant language grounded in the neuroscience of the default mode network. This language can undo unconscious contracts that keep us safe and lost simultaneously. Tune in and discover more about how unconscious contracts impact happiness.
Kristin Maxwell:
Hello, everyone. Welcome to Your SuperPowered Mind. I am Kristin Maxwell, and in this show, we explore the process of transformation and give you tools and strategies that you can use to transform your own life. Today, I am excited to be talking to Sarah Peyton to understand unconscious contracts and what those are, and how they impact us.
Sarah Peyton is a neuroscience educator whose goal is to help people understand the effects of relational trauma on their brain and how you use resonance to change and heal anxiety and depression. She is the author of a few books, including Your Resonant Self, Guided Meditations, and Exercises to Engage Your Brain’s Capacity for Healing. She is also a certified nonviolent communication trainer with other very interesting interests.
And I’m really excited to talk to Sarah because I love understanding that in many cases, what’s going on with us around depression, anxiety, and all such things are not a sign of character weakness or a flaw, but there’s actually something going on in our brain and how it’s been shaped or how we’ve shaped it, and that there’s something you can do about it. Anyway, welcome to Your SuperPowered Mind, Sarah.
Sarah Peyton:
What a pleasure to be here. And you can’t see me, but I’ve been nodding my head right along with you.
Kristin Maxwell:
Good. I’m hoping I’m capturing the people and what they do. You never know.
Sarah Peyton:
Yes. And we have some shared interests in this idea that we get to transform and we get to discover our own superpowers.
Kristin Maxwell:
Yes. I do love that because I think so many people when they’re struggling, feel real like there’s something wrong with them and that they just can’t fix themselves. And this is what I love so much about this more increased understanding of the brain and how it works is that, well, obviously, you get to explain it, but there are patterns and things that we can undo. So the first thing I want to ask is the question I always ask which is, what superpower did you uncover as the result of mastering your mind?
Sarah Peyton:
Well, my very first effort to master my mind was the first book, the Your Resonant Self book, which you referenced, and it’s all about the neuroscience of self-compassion. How does our understanding of trauma open the door to us being able to heal? And I started traveling all over the world before the pandemic and talking to people, and teaching this material.
And we came up against this really interesting thing, where people would refuse to have warmth for themselves out of integrity. I was like, integrity. What the heck? And so that led me to the work that’s become the Your Resonant Self Workbook, the work with unconscious contracts, where people say to themselves, “I will not be warm with myself in order to make sure that I accompany my mother, who was never warm with herself.” For example, that’s what it ends up being once you start to dig in. Or “I will not be warm to myself in order to punish myself so that I become a good person, no matter the cost to myself.” These are contracts we make when we’re little kids, and we continue to try to live them out, and they do get in the way, as you might imagine, a little bit of our ability to be really effective in our own minds.
Kristin Maxwell:
Yes, I can imagine so, and I’m really excited to dig into this because I am noticing, in my working with people too, how much they punish themselves. And so this is a really intriguing idea. We are going to take a quick break before we get into the conversation. I will let people know they can find you and your books at sarahpeyton.com. And I will put that in the notes also as well, so people can go there and click on it, and be taken there. And you can also go and check out SuperPower Experts if you also want to see some of our really cool community offerings, workshops, and programs that we have. Hang on. When we come back, we will be talking more about unconscious contracts. One minute.
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