Blog | Dr. Amy Johnson

Letting a Mind do it’s Job

If you’ve read Just a Thought (now available in the US, by the way!), you know why I find it so important to see what minds do.When we see, we don’t take it so personally. We get to be awake to it even while it’s happening.When we see, we realize it’s love and intelligence whether

EP167: Minds Dramatize

The narrator exaggerates. It can be so dramatic. You’re not just feeling a little grumble in your stomach, you’re about to die of hunger. You’re not just coming up on a busy week, you don’t know how you’ll handle it all–it’s going to be horrible!These are examples of how a mind loves to add color commentary.

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Presumed Identity

Lucy asked, “Doesn’t the fact that my mind is always creating this identity, doling out these warnings and fears, mean there must be something to them? Why else would my mind go there so often?”“What if it’s just the opposite?” I asked back. “If fear and insecurity are innately, deeply who-you-are, why would your mind

EP166: Minds Think You’re Never Good Enough

Your mind will never say “Okay, you can rest now. You’re perfectly good enough right now. There is nothing more to add or improve upon.” That’s just NOT what minds do. Brains have evolved to look for ways to keep us safe and alive. In the absence of many actual threats to safety, the story has

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EP165: Minds Problem Solve

Minds are always looking for problems to solve. This works out well for them given that they are also always creating problems. They create the problem and the solution.Can you sense how seeing this is incredibly valuable?If you believe that your mind’s problem solving activities are necessary–that minds are solving actual problems that require actual

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Outside of Your Head, Nothing is Happening

Shhh…Be quiet. Find a right-now moment. Now. This one.What’s happening right now? What’s happening before thought?Before the narrator jumps up and starts narrating this right-now moment, what’s actually happening?Anything?Nothing?That’s what I find too. Before thought, in right-now, nothing is happening.The narrator in your head is the source of “things happening”. It tells a story about

Tension

This is Bean.And this is how Bean likes to relax, in a full on sprawl, often (though not in this picture), draped over the air conditioning vent.One thing I always notice about my dogs is how deeply and completely they relax. They seem to have no problem falling limp, not an ounce of tension in

EP164: Minds Compare

Your brain is a big ole’ know-it-all. Its job is to keep you alive, and the more it knows, the more assumed certainty it has, the better it can do that job. It’s a know-it-all because it loves you and it wants to do well by you. One of the ways minds scramble for assumed certainty

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I’m Not Proud of Myself

I’m unbelievably grateful that I am no longer caught up in the binge eating habit that felt so powerful for eight years.I’m grateful that I no longer have panic attacks, near-constant worry, and so many irrational fears and insecurities.But when someone asked me recently if I was proud of myself for leaving these behind, the

EP163: Minds Worry

All minds do the same things. The details and content may vary slightly, but the tricks a mind gets up to are universal. The next five episodes of Changeable will feature 5 of these things all minds do, based on five chapters in my upcoming book: minds worry, minds compare, minds problem solve, minds think