Dr. Shadé Zahrai

Do you believe that you can control things?

And I'm not talking about control everything because we know a lot of life is uncontrollable.

But do you believe that you have some degree of influence or that life is happening to you because of external forces or other people or society or the government?

If you have an external focus, external locus, you will focus on things outside of your control.

What other people think, what other people do, what other people say, what the government is doing, what the media is doing, what your neighbor is doing, what your brother is doing, the future, the past, things that you cannot control.

And then how do you feel when you're focusing on those things?

You feel powerless.

Why?

Because you are powerless.

When you have an internal locus, you acknowledge that you can influence the outcome.

You can shape your path.

Again, not everything is controllable, but you focus on what you do have control over.

Your thoughts, your feelings, your interpretations, your actions.

That is it.

And when you focus on those things, guess what?

You remarkably feel more powerful because you're focusing on things you can do.

We also know when people get stuck.

So where Bruno was...

When he was in that external locus, we see a lot of activity in the emotion centers of the brain, very little activity in the prefrontal regions, which is what we need for rationality and solutions and logical thinking.

So if you ever find yourself feeling like you're complaining, feeling like a victim, and I'm not talking about real victims.