Epidsode 3: Change Your Thoughts - Change Your Life

Last episode we introduced the idea of circumstances not controlling our lives. I hope you have taken some time to think about how this can be true in your own life and are ready to learn more! Because today we are talking about how powerful our thoughts are and how they create the results of our lives. Thoughts are how we describe the circumstances around us and how we make sense of our worlds in the form of a running commentary/story in our own mind. Thoughts tend to have plenty of adjectives in them that are describing what is happening around us - Thoughts don’t just contain themselves to describing the present - I have found that thoughts love to jump forward to the future and make lots of predictions about what can and will go wrong - Unmonitored thoughts are more likely to be negative than positive. I like to remember that the people who survived the calamities of the past with all of the dangers, famines, wars, plagues, and just regular old problems were the ones who were good at noticing danger and then avoided it. They were the ones who lived to reproduce - according to Darwin’s theory of evolution their offspring would receive the benefits of their adaptations which in this case are the negative awarenesses that the survivors had. In today's world there are not many lions, tigers or bears to watch out for , but that does not stop our brains from combing through every situation and possibility to warn us from danger - These warnings come to us in the form of our thoughts. Thoughts are also good about going back into the past and assigning all kinds of stories and explanations about past events to make us feel all kinds of feelings in the present. Your brain has something to say about most anything you notice - as we go through this podcast today pay attention to what you are thinking about this information. It will have a story for you. Something else that is fascinating to me about thoughts is that We tend to believe most every thought we think. Partly because we have thought our own thoughts so many times that we don’t question them, and partly because our brains are wired with a confirmation bias. I could talk about thoughts all day long because they are so fascinating and we learn so much about ourselves and others when we get curious about what our thoughts are and why we think them. I don’t have to believe every thought I think, or every thought I hear spoken, but I can almost always learn something from every thought about myself or about the person speaking it. Once we think a thought - we set off a chain of events that will eventually create a result in our life. The thoughts we think manifest in our bodies as literal vibrations of energy, like you ring a bell and sound waves emanate from it- that is what a thought is like in your body - this vibration of energy is what we call a feeling or an emotion. I was delighted to learn that the latin word for emotion which is “emotere” literally translates to "energy in motion" AS the energy or emotion vibrates through our bodies, we have effectively created a fuel for our actions. Specific emotions create a specific fuel which creates specific actions. This means that we don’t do happy actions when we are sad, and we don’t do angry actions when we are peaceful. When we think thoughts that create the energy of anger - we do actions that are angry like stomping, cursing, yelling, hitting, or growling.. When we think thoughts that create the feeling of hope we do things that are hopeful. Hope filled actions are gentle, kind, consistent, calm, and measured they are typically small and simple things that add up over time. The sum of our actions that we do or do not do based on the energy of how we feel that are created by the thoughts we think, create the results of our lives. This domino effect of thought - to emotion - to action- to result is happening over and over in our lives with every single thought we think - it is rare that we catch the thought before the feeling , action , or result when we are first catching onto this - but you can probably tell me results in your life you are not happy with today - or feelings that you feel frequently that you don’t like, or things that you do that you have been trying to stop or things that you don’t do that you have been trying to start. The diet industry makes millions telling you the things to do and not to do to create the result of weight loss - the problem with this is that we can recite correct actions until the cows come home - but until we change the thoughts we think and create new emotions - the actions will only change for small bits of time - this is what happens when we write knuckle anything - we control actions but fail to recognize that the real power lies in changing our thoughts. As I shared with you the story of Viktor Frankle in the concentration camp - you will remember that he noticed that all of the people living the same horrible circumstance thought different thoughts about it? The thoughts they dwelt on even had the power to make the difference between life and death in that circumstance. Thoughts are no less powerful in our lives today. If circumstances where in charge of what we think - then all of us would have the same result to every circumstance that we have in common - this is just not the way it works - This is why becoming aware of what we think about on the daily is a game changer! If we want to create different health, financial, or relationship results in our lives we need to change our thoughts and then the actions will fall into place with much more ease than before. If we want to have more peace in our life - it’s the thoughts. More or less of any feeling in our life - it’s the thoughts. Change your thoughts and you will change your life! Most of us walk around believing that the results of our lives are created by the circumstances which is why we get so focused on trying to change the people and things around us. If we are unhappy with anything in our life, it must be the circumstance that is creating that - so we must change circumstances to change the things we are unhappy with. The problem with this - is that most circumstances are out of our control because they involve other people or entities - and when we try to control other people we are in a losing battle. We will never be in charge of what other people do or how the universe operates around us - never - to accept this is the beginning of peace - and to understand that we can control what we think about it is the beginning of power. If you have areas in your life that you are not happy with, this is your call to start asking yourself what you are thinking in regards to these spaces? A great way to become aware is to start a thought download practice at the end of each day. Set the time for 10 minutes and ask yourself what you were most worried or bothered about that day? See what your brain has to say by writing out every thing that crosses your mind . Do not edit yourself - just write!. Ask yourself what went right that day before you finish and tuck yourself into bed with a reminder that things are going well. The next morning you can glance over what you didn’t like about the day before and decide to pay attention to those same thoughts creeping into your day. Researchers believe that we think 60k thoughts a day and 90 percent of them are repeats from the days and weeks before - if you are stuck on something negative that is not serving you, chances are it’s going to tell you the same thing over and over again until you notice it and challenge it. Your job is to catch whatever the negative thoughts are - and ask yourself if this is a fact or thought? If it is a thought - do you want to keep thinking that thought, or is there something that is more true, that feels better? Catching one negative thought today and challenging it today and tomorrow and the day after that is a sure fire way to lighten the negative load you carry. When I drop the negative thoughts that weigh me down, I feel so much better. I really do love my life more when I choose to think about it with optimism and hope. Today, I hope that you can see you have more of a choice in this regard than you might have known before you listened. This information about thoughts has been around for a very long time - Marcus Aeurelis is quoted as saying “ The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts: therefore, guard accordingly.” Hopefully today you learned something new or remembered something that you already knew but needed a good reminder. Maybe there is someone else in your circle of friends that also could use a reminder about the power of their thoughts. It would be awesome if you would share this episode with them and let them know you are thinking about them. Thanks for spending your time with me today. I know there are so many ways you could be spending it. I am honored you took some time to be with me. I would be even more honored if you liked this enough to subscribe to my future podcasts and find out next week how to think a new thought. A like a share and a comment would be awesome too! Talk to you soon!