Okay now that we have:
accepted what we have been given, and
become aware of how we really feel about it,
Let’s decide what we really want.
Here you are looking at the brain dump on your paper and fully aware of how you are feeling and what thoughts are making you feel that way. Right there you have tons of knowledge and a much better understanding of yourself. And from that place you get to see if you want to feel these feelings.
Often when I see where I am I have 3 choices:
Feel these negative emotions and just feel them. Which is a skill I teach all of my clients.
React to the situation with all of these emotions which may be negative.
Change the way I am thinking about the situation to feel different emotions.
Let’s dive into the last two.
I want you to ask yourself what will happen if I react to these emotions. Think all the way through the situation. If I am mad and react in anger I typically raise my voice or say things that are hurtful. If I am feeling rejected I tend to act in a way that shuts the person out and rejects them. It is amazing how we tend to mirror others actions when we are reacting. If I feel attacked, I typically defend which is actually me attacking back. The list goes on and on. You look at your page filled with how you feel and spend the time going through each emotion and how you tend to react when in that emotion.
Ask yourself, “Do I want to act this way?”
You might be shocked when you respond to yourself with a yes. But own it. I want to act this way and I know it is because of the way I am thinking and has nothing to do with the situation at hand. I am creating this by staying here reacting to my emotions. Because once you see that you are creating this, you own the results of it. So if you raise your voice, yell, defend, and say things you didn’t want to, you just know that you chose to do it and that someone or something didn’t make you act that way. THIS IS HUGE!
Own the way you act. Know that your actions come from your feelings and decide how you truly want to feel.
Listen, when I choose to feel my feelings and let it run its course, I typically don’t go to reacting. I just feel and let it go. I am more easily then able to choose how I want to act.
But, when I don’t take the time to feel my feelings and just react to them, I typically end up blaming someone for the way I acted, or how something went down.
“Well if she wouldn’t have said that, then I wouldn’t have acted that way.”
“If he wouldn’t have led me on, then I wouldn’t be in this place.’
“If….., then I wouldn’t have…..” See how many times you catch yourself doing this.
So, what if you answer no to not wanting to react but you want to change.
Then here is what you have to do.
Find the thought that makes you feel a certain feeling.
Look at the thought and see if you can tweak it a little and feel differently.
My favorite phrase to start with is “And that’s okay.” So your thought might be, he didn’t pick me and that’s okay. He is acting weird, and that’s okay.
My other favorite thing to see is my thoughts that say he/she should or shouldn’t do something. See if you can change it to, this is how they acted and I can think about it however I want to.
Play around with different thoughts and see how they feel.
Once you find one that you truly believe walk through how that thought makes you feel and how you act when you feel that way.
Decide if that is how you want to act and then replace the old thinking with the new thinking.
It is from this place that you have changed the way you acted and created for you what you truly wanted.
You just taught yourself how to behave differently than you would have on autopilot.
This is the work of coaching.
This is going in and deliberately finding the thoughts that are creating the unwanted behavior and believing new thoughts that help you behave the way you want to.
All of this is available to you if you just put in the actual work. When I take the time to sit down and put pen to paper and think through all my thoughts and look for where I am struggling and decide to feel or change them or react to them, I am living much more intentionally.
If this at all is interesting to you but you think you might need some help, this is what I do.
I coach people through all of this and help them get started in coaching themselves.
Book your free 30 minute Before & After session today. I can’t wait to see what you want to create with your life and how thinking differently can get you there.
