Last week I took my daughter to her annual checkup at the pediatrician. As soon as the nurse said the word “shots”, my daughter completely lost it. Smiles and happiness turned into tears and anger in an instant. She cried, yelled, argued, bawled, resisted, complained, and grimaced. The nurse was flabbergasted at her response. I signed the paperwork and she left us alone so my daughter could change into a gown. “You planned this appointment on a day that worked for you. You didn’t consider me. You only think of yourself. You didn’t tell me I had to get shots. I can’t get THREE shots and go to gymnastics. My arms are going to hurt. I’m going to do terrible at practice. They’ll move me down to the bad team and I won’t do well at my competition next week. This is all your fault.” This went on and on and on. Our pediatrician completed her checkup in minutes due to my daughter’s lack of cooperation. It then escalated to the point she almost punched the nurse while giving her the shots as I held her firmly in my lap. It continued after the shots, as we waited to leave, and into the car for the long drive to gymnastics. Almost an hour and a half in total.
No matter what happens outside of us, we feel because we think.
We feel because of WHAT we think.
This may seem simple in theory because it is. The challenging part comes next. Many of us understand these principles intellectually, as a theory, but allowing them to penetrate our core is where we struggle. The ultimate goal is to have them sink down deep, deep into our being and become who we are…completely shifting our brain patterns from what was habitual and repetitious by replacing them with new, intentional, conscious thought patterns.
This work of intentional thinking and feeling isn’t going to be easy. There’s NOT a simple process that shows you exactly what to do and how to do it. There’s no 30-minute infomercial guaranteeing you overnight results. If you’re looking for an easy solution, let me save you hours of searching and hundreds of dollars by telling you there’s NOT one. I know, because I searched too. I scoured the internet looking for the magic words that would change my life in an instant, ONLY to finally recognize that life-altering change comes from making life-altering changes. It’s the ONLY WAY. There’s no product to buy, no sentences to repeat, no one-and-done solution. The ONLY way to feel better is to do the work. To learn what I’m teaching you here. To get down to the basics. To stop searching for the quick fix that doesn’t last. To dig your heels in, decide you’re tired of gimmicks that don’t work, and commit to creating real change by actually making changes.
Having said all of that, please know that what I’m teaching you here WORKS. I’m not spending my day writing this email to convince you of something for my benefit. I’ve already done the work to create the life I was longing for. I’m offering this gift to you simply so you can experience the same transformation I’ve had.
I want you to wake each morning knowing you can connect with your teen with ease by handling everything they throw at you without skipping a beat. I want you to know when your head hits the pillow at night you showed up in your life as the woman and mother you’ve always wanted to be. If you apply what I teach you, your life will completely change and you’ll feel better in no time.
By all accounts, the doctor visit I shared above could have been “challenging.”. Most parents would have lost their cool. Yelled, argued, attempted to control their child and their behavior to try to control their own feelings. But not me. Both nurses looked at me with concern and doubt. I looked back at them with compassion and understanding. They returned my gaze with wonder. How could this mother NOT be irritated, angry, or frustrated by her daughter’s behavior? And yet, I wasn’t. I was sincerely 100% NOT bothered by her behavior.
Sentences in our minds create our feelings.
Knowing WHAT we’re thinking is EVERYTHING.
Years ago I would NOT have been capable of showing up as I did.
Absolutely NOT. I would have lost it. 100% LOST my cool.
So, how did I get here?
I KNEW my daughter’s outburst had NOTHING to do with me. It had everything to do with her. Her thoughts were creating her feelings. My thoughts were creating my feelings. How we felt drove our actions, including what we said and did.
I chose in the moment to watch my mind. To allow it to do its thing and then to think with intent about the story it offered me. “She shouldn’t act this way. This is ridiculous. How was I to know she’d get shots? I didn’t know. I REALLY didn’t know. She thinks I did, but I didn’t. She’s had shots before. What’s the big deal? She survived her flu shot before our trip to London. She didn’t cry then. Did I think of myself first? No. Do I sometimes? Yes. Did I plan this to suit my life? Maybe. Could I have asked her what day she’d like to go to the doctor? Yes, but I didn’t. Maybe next time I will. I can’t believe she’s crying this hard. She must really be scared or frustrated. I’m so sorry she feels this way. I want to help her. I want to love her. It’s all ok. Nothing’s gone wrong here. She’s having to get shots and she doesn’t want to. I frequently resist things I don’t want happening to me too. I can understand this. I get it. I see her. I feel for her. I feel for me. She’s ok. I’m ok. I’ve got this.”
I allowed my mind to run wild and then I took control. I took note of the sentences in my brain. I breathed them in and let them go. I thought with intention. I worked to envision myself dropping her off at gymnastics later that afternoon. To show up now so I could be regret-free then. And I did.
Now, my friend, here’s what you really want to know. How do YOU get there? How do you keep your cool in a circumstance that seems anything but “cool”? We start with the basics.
First, we must know what we’re thinking.
As we grow up, we become familiar with the unique way our brain speaks to us. Our internal language, our inner voice, becomes who we are. We don’t question or examine it because it’s always just been there. It is what it is. It’s what our brains do. Hence, we allow it to think without further attention or guidance from us. We rarely contemplate our thinking as we prefer instead to focus on the thoughts we could think if the outside world were different. So, we become fixated on changing the world instead of understanding why we’re choosing to think the way we are. Eventually, we become so accustomed to our thinking and the way our brain speaks to us we’re almost oblivious to it. Our thoughts have become so natural and comfortable to us, so repetitious and patterned, we rarely pay attention to what our minds are telling us.
Soon, we’ve completely taken our thoughts for granted.
This is where we must begin.
We MUST become the watcher of our thoughts.
We MUST know the sentences that repeat in our minds.
We do this by thinking about…what we’re thinking about. Yes, you read that right. We must think about what we’re thinking about. We need to become aware of our thinking. The words, phrases, and sentences we say inside our minds. The meaning our minds attach to the circumstances we experience. The average human has 60,000 thoughts per day. Our job is to start paying attention to them. To notice them. To be curious about them. To familiarize ourselves with them. To write them down. Notice them while you shower, while you drive, while you watch tv, while your teen is talking, while you’re unloading the dishwasher.
This watching will result in the discovery of a wide range of thoughts. Thoughts we like, thoughts we dislike. Thoughts we’ve thought for years and thoughts we’ve had for the first time that day. Just notice them. Don’t judge them. Write them down. Pay attention to them. Be curious about them.
Examples: This is ridiculous. She shouldn’t be acting this way. I can do this. He doesn’t respect me. Nobody listens to me. I never get it right. I don’t want her to do that. I’m a great mom. He should help out more.
Second, we must understand our thoughts are NOT facts.
We assume our minds are thinking what they’re supposed to think. That our minds are relaying the news, or facts, of the world to us through our thinking. That we’re perceiving the world as it is. That we’re seeing it correctly, factually even. This is where we can get ourselves into trouble.
No human thinks in facts.
Thoughts create our perception of everything in our lives, including ourselves. They create our reality. Our viewpoint, our perspective, our opinion. All of this thinking is unique to us. It’s subjective. Your thinking is what makes you “YOU”. No two people have the same thoughts. No two people perceive things exactly the same way. Our thoughts are simply that…thoughts. They’re not facts. We don’t perceive the world in facts. We perceive the world in thoughts.
No human speaks in facts.
We accept words spoken by others as truth due to our belief that what others speak IS truth. We believe that truth equals fact AND facts are truth. But facts and truth are different. They are NOT the same. Humans speak their truth, but their truth isn’t factual. It’s simply their view of the world. Their perspective. Their opinion. They speak their truth and we take it in as truth. We accept their words as is. They sink into our minds. We absorb them. Repeat them. Make them our own. Unknowingly we accept their opinion as truth. We’ve now accepted opinion as fact and we’ve made it our fact. Our truth. This REALLY matters because we live our lives through our truth. Everything we think, feel, and do comes from our perceived and accepted truth.
Knowing how to separate circumstances (facts) from thoughts (story/opinion) is vital. Remember, everyone in the world must agree on it for it to be a fact. Thoughts change from person to person. You, and every other human on the planet, thinks in opinions, not facts. Your brain’s perspective on the world is never factual. It’s opinion and opinion only.
Examples: You’re beautiful. She’s smarter than you. You’re stupid. You’re a loser. You don’t do anything right. You’re shy. You’re not good at math. You’re amazing. I love your hair. You’re the best.
Third, our thoughts are always optional.
As we age our brains create powerful thought patterns. Repetitious thought patterns that feel true, natural, and comfortable. These thoughts become the ingrained base rhythm of our internal essence that we don’t separate from who we are. These thoughts feel like they’re just YOU. They arise with little effort and seem instinctual, responsive, and automatic.
Your brain creates thought patterns through the use of neural pathways. The more you think a thought, the stronger the neural pathway becomes and the easier it is to think a particular thought. Our thinking becomes instinctual and automatic because we’ve repetitiously thought the same thing over and over. But, just because we’ve created strong neural pathways doesn’t mean we don’t get to choose what we think. All thinking is optional. No matter the circumstance your thinking about it is AND will always be completely optional. It’s a choice. You get to choose what you think about what you’re experiencing. You get to choose what to believe about yourself, others, and the world around you. The steps necessary to reprogram your thinking is something I’ll address in future emails.
Examples: She shouldn’t cry. He needs to control himself. I wish he wouldn’t throw a fit. Life isn’t fair. Nothing works out for me. Her life is easier than mine. They’re always traveling everywhere. We’re poor.
We want to feel better. We want to feel good.
We feel because we think.
We feel because of WHAT we think.
To feel better we need to know what we’re thinking.
Your work this week is to understand what’s going on in your brain. Use the following questions to gain powerful insight:
Am I aware of what I’m thinking? If so, what are my thoughts? Write them down.
If not, what can I do to improve my awareness?
What might be holding me back? What might I not want to discover?
Do I hear myself think? Do I hear my internal voice? What does it say?
What are the sentences my mind repeats often?
What do I notice about my thoughts?
| Remember my daughter that said she was going to perform terribly at her next gymnastics meet due to the shots in her arm? Just three days later she received her highest scores of the season in all events and won All-Around for her age bracket. The best part, though, was how she looked at me through the open car door window as I dropped her off at gymnastics after our trip to the doctor, “You’re the best mom ever. I love you SO much.” Her eyes had apology seeping out of them and I knew she’d learned something valuable that day…her mom was someone she could trust to be there for her and she’d always be loved unconditionally. These moments are worth all the thought work it took to get me there. One day you’ll be there too, my friend. I promise. |
