Melissa Wolak: How to Spend ‘Brain Dollars’ Mindfully
Melissa Wolak: How to Spend ‘Brain Dollars’ Mindfully
Have you ever thought about your brain like a bank account? I sure hadn’t until I paired up with the fantastic Melissa Wolak. Melissa has been in the brain game for years, and I believe we share the same superpower in translating what is happening in the brain into truly applicable, easy steps for changing lives through mindfully noticing your mind.
We’ve been friends for years but I had never heard Melissa speak about draining your brain bank account and budgeting your brain dollars. Pair that with her Star Wars analogies and her super real, honest and aware mom game, and you’ll be so glad you listened!
About Melissa Wolak:
Melissa Wolak, MS, CCC-SLP guides motivated individuals to transform their lives by changing their thoughts, lifestyles, habits and brain health. As a holistic mindset and transformation coach and speaker, she provides education and empowering strategies to support functional, healthy lifestyle changes, productivity and wellbeing to live in more alignment. These changes also decrease the effects of chronic stress and optimize the brain’s potential while preventing cognitive decline and disease. She earned her Bachelors and Masters Degrees in Communication Science Disorders and is earning her brain health coach certification and an advanced mindfulness practitioner certificate. She has 20+ years working with clients in the education, wellness and performance industry with additional training in the areas of Brain Health, Food as Medicine, Memory, Mindfulness, Anxiety and Stress Management.
You can find Melissa Wolak on all the socials and on her website. melissawolak.com
Episode #8: Melissa Wolak: How to Spend Brain Dollars Mindfully
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In this Episode of The Rooted Family Podcast...
Holistic practice is incorporating mental, physical, spiritual, emotional, cognitive, social, really connecting the dots because the mind and body are so connected and we're really seeing that many illnesses. (10:30)
We need to be taking care of our brains as much as we do our car. (15:41)
What do I need? Am I feeling foggy, right? Am I feeling sluggish? Am I feeling overwhelmed or burdened or is there a lot of tension? Do I have a headache? So learning to listen to what the brain is communicating is very powerful. (16:33)
And the brain is wired to keep us safe. And so it does have a negativity bias and a filter. So it's often scanning our environment for what could go wrong. And it's in survival mode, which now we hear quite a bit. (18:27)
We actually did use this with our treatment of people with brain injuries and I thought, well wait a minute, why are we only using this framework for people after their foreheads have been injured and their brains are healing. (22:30)
Because if I spend my brain dollars on cleaning up your room right, then I don't have the brain dollars necessarily to schedule your play dates or yeah. And that's where they go, oh wait a minute. (23:51)
But then I say, all right, well let's look at the positives. Those deposits, what are they? And not really, that's a cognitive task in itself. (26:38)
And you know, I kind of think of that force field that comes up around beautiful blue lights that allows me to still be present with people. But it just gives me that room to feel what's best for me to choose my action stops to make those conscious decisions right before I over commit (34:23)
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This Episode's Question:
Now that you’re thinking about your brain in terms of deposits and withdrawals, what are you going to do differently?
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