An Invitation – And How to Use the Helpful Control Room in Your Mind

With a no-strings, no-cost invite to mindset training on assertiveness to celebrate our one-year anniversary.

Photo credit: phil_bird at Depositphotos

Hi and welcome to your fortnightly free post from ‘Something More’. I’m Caroline Ferguson, mindset trainer, speaker, therapist and your companion on this wander down the lanes of mindset and personal leadership – with the odd story and bit of life musing thrown in.

I’d like to share a fun and powerful visualisation technique with you.

When I was training to be a cognitive behavioural hypnotherapist, one of my tutors (thanks, Avy 🙂) introduced me to the concept of the control room of the mind. It instantly caught my imagination – I could think of so many ways to make it work.

What is the control room of the mind?

It’s a mind transformation technique that uses imagination and focus to help you gain greater control over the way you think, feel and behave. The way it works is that you imagine there’s an instrument panel in your mind, with various dials, levers, knobs and switches. By adjusting the settings, you can achieve changes like reducing your stress and anxiety levels and boosting your productivity and resilience.

The control room of the mind help build self-control and is excellent for developing the number one life skill of self-awareness, as you get to know your emotional triggers.

How to use the control room of the mind:

1. Decide on what outcome you’d like from your session in the control room. It could be reducing an uncomfortable feeling, such as anxiety, anger or hurt. Or it could be dialling up something you want more of, e.g. confidence, courage or being able to get things done. Give yourself full permission for it to work.

2. Take yourself to a quiet space where you won’t be disturbed for ten minutes. Leave your phone in another room or, better yet, turn it off. Make yourself comfortable and close your eyes.

3. Imagine there’s a control room in your head. Does it look like the instrument panel of a modern fighter jet? Or a steam-punk construction from the film Back to the Future? Mine’s a bit like the junk tardis built by Matt Smith’s Dr Who, with chunky levers made from kitchen utensils, clicky dials and knobs that light up (I told you this was fun). Is it bright or dark in there? What can you smell and hear? Is it cosy and warm, or metallic and clanky?

4. Now visualise the instrument panel. Each button, switch, lever, slider and dial represents something about you: Emotions. Thoughts and beliefs. Behaviours. Abilities. Habits. Physical sensations. There could be a dial for STRESS, a lever for COURAGE and a switch for OVER-EATING. A set of sliders adjusts qualities such as BRIGHTNESS, STRENGTH, and SPEED. There’s an ENERGY BOOST lever, a STOP switch and a SAVE button. Personalise your control room to suit your needs and make it as supportive as possible. You can add new controls as you need them.

5. Notice what’s going on for you. What emotions are you feeling? How are your energy levels? How would you describe your mental state? Now focus on the issue you want to deal with. What needs to change, in terms of emotions, thoughts and behaviour, for you to get the outcome you identified in point 1?

6. Adjust the relevant controls on your instrument panel, e.g. if you want to feel less anxious, lower the ANXIETY lever and turn up the CALM dial. As you move the controls, vividly imagine your stress level reducing and feelings of peace increasing. Try turning the dials back up, then down again. Move the sliders, tweaking for brightness, energy and strength. As you adjust the controls, imagine them having a direct impact on your feelings, thoughts and bodily sensations, until you reach the state you want to feel. Experiement with installing new programs, such as CONFIDENT SELF or ACTION TAKER.

7. Lock in the changes by pressing the ‘SAVE’ button. Even if you later move the controls to deal with another issue, the settings are saved for this particular challenge and you can recall them whenever you wish by pressing REDUCE ANXIETY on your shortcut panel. You can also create an imaginary app to access helpful states when you need them, e.g. during a meeting or a tough conversation.

8. Tell yourself you’re done and imagine exiting your control room. Open your eyes and reorient yourself to your surroundings. Don’t rush. Notice how you feel, mentally, physically and emotionally. What, if anything, has shifted? When you’re ready, move on with your day.

9. Visit your control room regularly. The more you practise, the better you’ll get at using the controls and creating positive change. Remember to imagine as vividly as you can, adding details from all your senses. The important thing is to take ownership of the space and accept that it can help you adjust your inner world.

I’d love to know how you get on with this exercise. I absolutely love it and find it not just effective, but it also re-energises me and lifts my mood. If you already do something like this, please do share in the comments.

Our next live mindset training is on Weds 28th August. The topic is how to be respectfully assertive.

Normally these monthly sessions are only for paying subscribers, but this will be a special one as it marks one year since I started this Substack. That’s 52 weeks of consistent posting, putting Something More in the top 5% of all publications in terms of consistency – woo hoo!

To celebrate, I’m opening the live mindset training session to all subscribers, both paying and free. The recording will only be available to paying members, though, so if you want to learn how to be respectfully assertive (a very useful life skill), you’ll need to attend live.

The session will take place at 8pm UK time on Wednesday 28th August. We’ll look at what it means to be assertive, and run through some effective tips to help you develop your own assertiveness in a respectful way.

These monthly live sessions provide real value for paying subscribers so please do take this opportunity to try my mindset training. You can ask me anything during the Q&A. I’ll send out a Zoom link shortly before the day.

If you’re not yet a subscriber and would like to attend this mindset training session for free, hit the button:

Thank you for reading. Take care and see you soon,