Thoughts: 50% happy, 50% not
I've talked on instagram quite a bit about doing thought work and changing our thoughts to something that is more helpful and beneficial. I am concerned that in talking about this, I may have painted a picture, or given an idea that isn't accurate or helpful.
Thought work is work, and sometimes it is hard work. We can choose to think whatever we want. The problem with our thoughts is we often give our thoughts free rein. This is thought work - to choose our thoughts intentionally instead of by accident or by default.
This is truth.
Like all truth, this can be misunderstood. I want to be very clear and precise about what doing this work means, or rather brings to us. The shortcut way of thinking about this is when we realize what our thoughts are telling us, and what emotions and actions these thoughts are driving, and that if these are negative, all we have to do is change our thoughts and we will be happy.
This isn't how it works though. This misunderstanding leads to an unrealistic expectation that we can always be happy. Does that sound like a fairy tale? Does it sound like the world you live in. Let's face it, this world is hard and unfair. It's full of accidents, diseases, and people that have the ability to choose to act however they want. This leads to many of the circumstances that we often think of as hard, or negative. If we stop at a superficial "I can change my thoughts to think a happy thought, and everything will be fine and I will be happy" we will be sorely disappointed and we will quickly give up on thought work as something that doesn't work.
Brook Castillo, who founded The Life Coach School has said many times that life is 50/50. 50% of the time, we're happy and life is relatively smooth. But 50% of the time, life is not easy or smooth. This means that a significant amount of our lives we are experiencing negativity.
First, remember our feelings, or emotions, come from our thoughts.
So what happens when we simply try to change our thoughts to a happy thought?
Knowing the answer to this is crucial, because this is what we have been taught already. Most of us, from very early on, have been taught to resist negative emotions. Crying may be the best example of this. As toddlers, we are told to stop crying. As kids, we don't know how to express emotions, so we often cried, screamed, yelled, threw temper tantrums, or had any number of other behaviors where our parents told us to stop. Rarely were we ever taught that it's ok to feel and express these emotions. The consistent message was to suppress these, they were bad or wrong.
When we try and just have positive thoughts, we do the same thing. We don't experience that emotion, or the thought that caused it. We resist, bury, and push it away. But when the hard days of life hit, as they assuredly will, we don't know what to do, other than suppress and resist. And we are much more practiced at this than thinking happy, positive thoughts.
Can you see how this won't work.
In recognizing and choosing our thoughts, it is much less about choosing a happy thought than it is about choosing a thought that is helpful. Let me give an example.
Most of us do not like taking tests. We think and feel some type of stress, anxiety, or other negative emotion about taking a test. Remember final exams? How helpful do you think it would be, if you had to take a final exam in Algebra and this was causing you anxiety, to choose a thought "I love algebra. It's my favorite and i'm going to ace this final"? Pretty unrealistic right?
Here is something that is more beneficial to think: this Algebra final is difficult, but I can do hard things. Or, this Algebra final is leading me to have anxiety, but that's OK. It's just my brain misinterpreting that final as something dangerous, something to be avoided. But it's really OK. It's not going to hurt me. It may not feel the best, but it will soon be over, and I can handle it.
When we acknowledge the negative thoughts and emotions, and don't try to suppress them, that negativity begins to slowly lose power over us. We begin to see that our brains were misinforming us, and our bodies. We see that it's true, we can deal with these negative thoughts and the resultant emotions. We begin to lose the fear we have about those things, and we begin strengthening our self confidence.
I'll talk much more about this in the future, but I just wanted to be very clear up front that I am not simply saying just think a positive thought.
It is so much more than that, and doing the work the correct way will give us much better, and much more satisfying results.
Thought work is work, and sometimes it is hard work. We can choose to think whatever we want. The problem with our thoughts is we often give our thoughts free rein. This is thought work - to choose our thoughts intentionally instead of by accident or by default.
This is truth.
Like all truth, this can be misunderstood. I want to be very clear and precise about what doing this work means, or rather brings to us. The shortcut way of thinking about this is when we realize what our thoughts are telling us, and what emotions and actions these thoughts are driving, and that if these are negative, all we have to do is change our thoughts and we will be happy.
This isn't how it works though. This misunderstanding leads to an unrealistic expectation that we can always be happy. Does that sound like a fairy tale? Does it sound like the world you live in. Let's face it, this world is hard and unfair. It's full of accidents, diseases, and people that have the ability to choose to act however they want. This leads to many of the circumstances that we often think of as hard, or negative. If we stop at a superficial "I can change my thoughts to think a happy thought, and everything will be fine and I will be happy" we will be sorely disappointed and we will quickly give up on thought work as something that doesn't work.
Brook Castillo, who founded The Life Coach School has said many times that life is 50/50. 50% of the time, we're happy and life is relatively smooth. But 50% of the time, life is not easy or smooth. This means that a significant amount of our lives we are experiencing negativity.
First, remember our feelings, or emotions, come from our thoughts.
So what happens when we simply try to change our thoughts to a happy thought?
Knowing the answer to this is crucial, because this is what we have been taught already. Most of us, from very early on, have been taught to resist negative emotions. Crying may be the best example of this. As toddlers, we are told to stop crying. As kids, we don't know how to express emotions, so we often cried, screamed, yelled, threw temper tantrums, or had any number of other behaviors where our parents told us to stop. Rarely were we ever taught that it's ok to feel and express these emotions. The consistent message was to suppress these, they were bad or wrong.
When we try and just have positive thoughts, we do the same thing. We don't experience that emotion, or the thought that caused it. We resist, bury, and push it away. But when the hard days of life hit, as they assuredly will, we don't know what to do, other than suppress and resist. And we are much more practiced at this than thinking happy, positive thoughts.
Can you see how this won't work.
In recognizing and choosing our thoughts, it is much less about choosing a happy thought than it is about choosing a thought that is helpful. Let me give an example.
Most of us do not like taking tests. We think and feel some type of stress, anxiety, or other negative emotion about taking a test. Remember final exams? How helpful do you think it would be, if you had to take a final exam in Algebra and this was causing you anxiety, to choose a thought "I love algebra. It's my favorite and i'm going to ace this final"? Pretty unrealistic right?
Here is something that is more beneficial to think: this Algebra final is difficult, but I can do hard things. Or, this Algebra final is leading me to have anxiety, but that's OK. It's just my brain misinterpreting that final as something dangerous, something to be avoided. But it's really OK. It's not going to hurt me. It may not feel the best, but it will soon be over, and I can handle it.
When we acknowledge the negative thoughts and emotions, and don't try to suppress them, that negativity begins to slowly lose power over us. We begin to see that our brains were misinforming us, and our bodies. We see that it's true, we can deal with these negative thoughts and the resultant emotions. We begin to lose the fear we have about those things, and we begin strengthening our self confidence.
I'll talk much more about this in the future, but I just wanted to be very clear up front that I am not simply saying just think a positive thought.
It is so much more than that, and doing the work the correct way will give us much better, and much more satisfying results.
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