Episode 64 - You Are Not Your Thoughts

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Episode 64 - You Are Not Your Thoughts

Hello, my friends.

How is everyone today?

Summer is in full swing here and I love it.

It's beautiful where I live and it's that part of summer where it hasn't got too hot and everything's just green and lush still.

And the wild flowers are just beautiful in the mountains.

It's just beautiful.

There are signs of new life everywhere that come because of spring.

It just got me thinking as well.

My daughter's getting ready to have her baby any day now and we're just so excited about it.

And it's just another reminder of the beautiful gift and power of creation.

And I am getting so excited to meet this little person.

When I sat down to write this podcast, I prayed to know what would be good to talk about.

The thought came to me “soundtracks”, and I knew right away what I wanted to talk to you about.

Recently, I've been having this interesting experience.

I'll be going through my day and something will happen and then the words of a song will just pop into my head that go along with what's happening.

It's been really weird.

It just shows me that music is a powerful thing,

Is there a song that you know all the words to?

You could probably remember where you were and when you first heard that song.

You've listened to it many times in the years since,

And it's a soundtrack that plays in your head on repeat,

And a lot of times these songs kind of encompass some of our values the way we live,  our characteristics, and our character.

This is like our thought patterns.

We all have ideas, concepts, and images that play in our minds.

This power to think is a gift from God.

The beautiful thing is, we are free to choose how we use our power to think.

The way we think greatly affects our attitudes and our behavior.

And as I teach here, our thoughts create our emotions which fuel our actions, which ultimately create our life experience.

Our ability to think truly is powerful.

So what do you spend your days thinking about?

What would you say dominates your thoughts?

These thought patterns are, what author and speaker, John Acuff, calls our “mental soundtracks.”

We have listened to these soundtracks for most of our life and they are creating our life experiences for good or bad.

But just like when a song comes on the radio or on my iTunes, that we don't like, we can do the same thing with our thoughts.

We can change the channel.

We all have these streams of thoughts that begin with You- or I-form when addressing us,

That inner monologue that runs 24/7, all year long.

So for example, thoughts like, “you shouldn't eat that” or “you're too fat.”

In the book, Solve For Happy: Engineer your Path to Joy by Mo Gawdat, he teaches that this voice that we have in our head is not just talking to us,

It is us.

He illustrates this in his book by sharing a study that was done in the 1930’s by a Russian psychologist, and I'm gonna butcher his name, Lev Vygotsky.  Vygotsky found out that the part of our body that contains the vocal cords occasionally shows the slightest of movements even when we're not actually talking.

And then later he built this entire theory around thinking and speech indicating that this inner monologue that we have is nothing but an internalization of the external speech we use to talk to others.

So what this means, according to Mo, is that we're not really talking to ourselves but our brain just happens to use the best tool it knows to talk to us.

Our minds are always trying to process the world around us and then it tries its best to make sense of what's going on.

Our inner dialogue is this flow of suggestions that help us decide what we're going to do next.

The truth is, we don't have to listen.

I think so many of us hear that voice in our head and we believe we have to listen to it.

But the truth is, we can question the ideas that come to us, the thoughts that come to us, and we can choose to do something different.

So we are not our thoughts.

We are the observers of our world.

Many times, these repeated thoughts, or soundtracks, aren't helping us in our relationships with others or with ourselves and we aren't enjoying them.

They aren't helping us to create a life we love because we're just overthinking.

In John Acuff's book, Soundtracks: A Surprising Solution to Otherthinking, he shares a quote I love.

“The antidote to overthinking isn't more thinking. The anecdote is action. You don't think you're way out of overthinking. You act your way out. You retire broken soundtracks. You replace them with new ones and you repeat those so often they become as automatic as the old ones. Those are all actions.”

I love that.

When I learned that I am not my thoughts and that I could choose to think differently, everything changed for me.

I could notice my thinking without judging my thinking and then I could decide whether I wanted to let those thoughts go or if I wanted to keep them.

So, if you have a certain soundtrack playing on repeat in your mind, the good news is you don't have to keep it.

You have the power to choose something different for yourself.

So how can you begin to change your soundtracks?

That's what I want to talk to you about today.

I want to share with you a little tool that will help you do just that.

So, the first step is to observe what you're thinking to get some awareness,

It's about slowing down and noticing the thoughts you are thinking.

There might be a thought that might be causing you a problem— or a few thoughts or many thoughts.

Notice what thoughts are causing you a problem.

A good way to know if a thought is helping us or not is by how we feel when we think it.

So, the next step is to notice what we're thinking and then pay attention to  how it's causing us to feel.

We want to get curious and question this thought,

John Acuff suggests asking three things of your thoughts.

And I love these questions.

Is it true?

Is it kind,

Is it helpful?

And if the answer is “no” to any of these, it's time to let that thought go and find a new soundtrack.

I recently was listening to a podcast with the guest, Sharman Thorn Grimmer.

I don't know her but I loved listening to her and her thoughts.

She does a lot of the same work as I do and she shared the name of her tool that is basically what I just shared with you.

I love the way she phrases it because it's really catchy and it just helps it stick in your brain—at least for me.

I wanted to share with you the way she phrased it.

I'm going to give credit to her because  she's the one that I heard it from.

So,  you catch it then you check it and then you change it.

So let's go through all of these,

We want to catch a thought and look at it,

We want to hold it and pay attention to it.

We're going get some awareness around this thought.

Then we want to get curious and ask these three questions,

Is it true?

Is it kind?

Is it helpful?

And then we're going change it if we want to.

So, let's start with this example.

Let's say you have a thought like, “ you are fat.”

We want to ask ourselves and get curious about this thought.

First of all, we know that this is probably a problem thought because of how we feel when we think about it.

I pause and consider these three questions.

Is it true?

Some people may say that it is true because the obesity index, or whatever you call it, shows that this certain weight means you're overweight or you're obese or whatever.

But there is so much emotion tied to the word “fat” and it really is subjective because if you look at two people that are the exact same size and weight, one's going to think they're fat and the other one's gonna think they're fine.

So it's subjective.

It's a thought.

Then, is it kind?

Is calling ourselves “fat” kind?

Does it encourage us or motivate us?

Maybe it will for a minute because of some increased willpower in that moment.

But sooner or later, that willpower gives out.

And we will never, I've said this many times on this podcast, we will never shame ourselves enough to change.

So is this soundtrack, “you are fat” going to help you?

The third question is, is it helpful?"

Does the thought, “ I am fat,”  help us to do differently?

I would say for me, no.

A soundtrack like this keeps me stuck in a loop of negative self talk and it doesn't help me create and stick with different behaviors,

These three questions are critical.

Once we can question our thinking then we can look if we want to change it or not.

What will serve us better?

We can even borrow thoughts from other people to help us change our soundtrack.

So, for my example, thoughts like “ I have a body” or “I'm grateful for my body” or “I love my body” are just as true or more true.

Then we can follow with something like “so I'm going to take care of it.”

This soundtrack can help us live in the present moment and make choices that align with our thinking,

We can replace the old soundtrack of” I am fat” or” you are fat” with “I have a body and I'm going to take care of it.”

How do you feel when you think those two different thoughts?

My guess is one doesn't feel great and the other probably feels a little more hopeful.

So, let's look at another example.

It could be with our relationship with someone else,

We may have a son and we have a thought that is “my son is ruining his life.”

Now, let's get curious about this soundtrack.

Is it true?

It may be true.

But I'd like to ask this question as well.

What else is true?

We might not be ready to let go of the thought that “he's ruining his life.”

We are going to play with that a little bit here.

What else is true?

Son is making choices that are affecting his life in a certain way but is it ruining his life?

Could it be that his journey is his journey and it is  exactly what he needs to experience while he is here on earth?

Could it be that this path will actually help him get to where he needs to be?

Could it be that this is how he will really learn who he is and who the Savior is?

What if it is exactly how it's supposed to be?

I know sometimes that can be hard but I want you to focus on what else could be true.

The second question, is it kind?

Does the thought help us feel good when we think this way about our child?

Do we feel love for our child when we are thinking he's ruining his life?

Maybe.

But does it help us want to connect with this child?

What are we focusing on when we think that our son is ruining his life?

Are we focusing or seeing any of the good about our son?

Is it kind to think that about our son?

And finally, is it helpful?

I want to really emphasize here.

I don't mean that we need to love all the choices that other people make, especially the son that we think is ruining their life.

We are not going to love their choices and that's ok.

Of course, we won't.

The truth is, our son is making certain choices in his life and that's where he is right now.

That is reality.

Viewing it as he is ruining his life may not help us show up as our best in this relationship,

We may withdraw.

We may withhold feelings of love—which I would say we are the ones that feel those,

not them.

We're hurting ourselves.

We may only be focusing on his faults and his flaws.

We can't see the good.

And again, showing up in a way that only creates greater disconnection.

So, what could we change this soundtrack to?

Maybe, “he's living his life” or “this is his journey” or “he's here to learn and to grow” and then we could add “I love him.”

Again. it isn't about agreeing with his choices but letting go of a soundtrack that keeps us stuck in trying to control someone else,

We're finding a soundtrack that sets us free to be more of who we want to be and it breaks the chains of resistance—it frees us to be our best selves.

So we are shifting from a thought like “my son is ruining his life” to “my son is living his life and I love him.”

Pay attention.

How do those two soundtracks feel to you?

This is the tool that I wanted to share with you today to start changing the repeated soundtracks that are keeping you stuck in feelings such as resistance, frustration, anger, self pity, blame, or shame.

The point of changing the soundtrack isn't always to feel happy or excited or joyful.

But maybe it's peace or relief or calm.

It’s going to feel better than the shame and the resistance and the blame.

So there are the three steps,

Catch it.

Find that thought that is causing you a problem.

Catch it so that you can look at it and get awareness around it.

Step number two, check it.

Ask yourself questions.

Get curious.

Is it true?

Is it kind?

Is it helpful?

Step three is to change it.  Once you're aware of your soundtrack and how it is keeping you stuck,

you have the power to change it to something else because you are not your thoughts.

What could you replace your old soundtrack with?

Again, the surest way to see if it is one that you want to keep is to pay attention to how you feel.

Do you feel good with this new soundtrack?

What emotion comes up for you when you practice playing the new soundtrack?

If you feel better, it's probably a keeper.

So, that's all I have for you today.

Mentioned in the podcast:

Soundtracks: The Surprising Solution to Overthinking by Jon Acuff

Solve for Happy: Engineer Your Path to Joy

Inklings with Emily Belle Freeman Episode 3 - Week 2 (Featuring Sharman Thorn Grimmer)

If you are ready to take these concepts and apply them to your circumstances, I would love to be your coach.  

Click on the following links to learn more about Seasons Coaching and my Seasons of Joy Community Facebook Group.

Are you ready to take what I teach to a deeper level?  I would love to be your coach!  Click HERE to learn more about my Season of Creation 12-Week Coaching package.

To contact me about speaking to your group or business, email me at jill@seasons-coaching.com.

Have a joyful week!