Healthier patterns Tag

Blink VuMu – Creating Healthier Patterns

I wrote about the technique of interrupting overthinking using ‘Blink VuMu’ a while ago, and many of you have found it helpful.  Since then I have realised that there are many more uses to this technique than just ‘overthinking’. This article explains the broader applications of this technique and some ways of incorporating it so that you create healthier patterns in your life.

The concept of Blink VuMu is that you blink to create a pattern interrupter in any of the automatic patterns you are running.  This might be anxiety, it could be a strong feeling that overrides your logic, or it could be your critical inner voice telling you unhelpful things.  Once you have interrupted the pattern, then you can ask yourself the important curious questions of whether the pattern you are running is valid, and if the answer is yes, whether it is useful.

The next step is to then ask yourself what is more useful, or the most useful pattern you could adopt instead.   Another question that can be helpful to ask yourself is ‘What would this look like if I had already solved the problem?’

By asking yourself these questions you create new pathways and approaches that are more helpful, and are more connected to the reality of the world, rather than the stories we can create in our imagination and react to.

In a step by step format it looks like this:

Step 1) Blink wildly for 5 seconds (count back from 5-1)

Step 2)  Get curious – How am I doing this?

Step 3) Ask yourself the following questions

       Q1) Is this Valid? YES/NO

       Q2) Is this Useful?  YES/NO

       Q3) If not, what would be a More Useful, or the Most Useful response I could offer right now?   Or, if I had solved this problem, what would it look like?

The more you practice this approach, the easier it is to interrupt your thinking, check the validity of your feelings, and stop the inner critical voice from running the unhelpful patterns.

If you would like to explore this further, you may find this video explanation useful – Blink VuMu – a technique to create healthier patterns.
You may also like to book an appointment with me to learn how to apply this to your life and create a new path forwards.