We are always thinking. The weird thing about thoughts is that they are usually not obvious, concrete statements in the way that talking is. You generally don’t hear your brain blatantly announcing, “I look so ugly today!” in so many words. Rather, it’s more of a gentle impression in which you suddenly find yourself feeling ugly. Most of the time, you don’t even realize that your brain offered that thought to you and that you bought into it—you just automatically believe it.
When you become aware of your head’s tendency to bully you, you can catch it in the act. I call it babysitting my thoughts.
See if you can notice your thoughts. Listen for them. Watch them closely. If they’re too subtle to detect, then you can try to focus on your feelings instead. I don’t know about you, but sometimes my feelings are at level-ten huge and overwhelming, which at least means they’re often easier to observe than my thoughts. I can be crying on my couch for what feels like no reason, but if I take a moment to look deeper, I can usually figure it out. Maybe I start to realize that I’m crying because I’m feeling hopeless. If I gently keep asking myself where that hopeless feeling came from, I can usually trace it back to a thought I had earlier in the day. Our thoughts create our feelings, so it’s good to get into a habit of noticing our feelings and then following them back to our thoughts. In doing this, we are reverse-engineering our emotions.
I want to give you some practical pointers on how to babysit your thoughts. You can learn how to become aware of the thoughts you are thinking and catch the bad guys, then escort them out of your head. Like any new habit or skill, this takes practice, but if you give yourself the time and be patient and persistent, you’ll get the hang of it.
First, when I realize I’m feeling bad, I think, “Oh, crap, I feel bad.” I freak out for a second, and then I start investigating. I ask myself, “What was I just thinking about? What made me feel like this?” After I ask myself this, I can usually connect the dots.
“Oh, I was just obsessing about my pores in a magnifying mirror and comparing myself to the girl in the movie I saw last night, who was totally flawless.” After I’ve identified the culprit, I can then choose an objective, informed version of reality instead of just buying the crap that my head serves up sometimes.
“So, brain, you’re telling me that because my pores are big that I should feel ugly today? Hmm…I don’t know if you’ve actually considered this, but that chick in the movie had a whole team of professional assistants making her skin look flawless on screen. I, on the other hand, just woke up. So maybe that’s not a totally fair comparison to make, yeah?”
And just like that, you can create some space between your thoughts and the truth. Again, this takes practice, and your brain’s not just going to magically shut up with one telling-off, but it’s so, so worth the effort.
Here are the steps on how to babysit & reform your thoughts:
- Begin paying attention to what you think.
- Catch the bad thoughts as they come. You’ll know they’re bad if they make you feel bad.
- Take a moment to celebrate—you got one!
- Examine the culprit. Is it true? Where did it come from? What would you rather believe/think?
- Replace the lie with a new statement of truth that is based in reality.
Continue this rhythm of “catch and replace” and watch how things begin to change.
Whatever you do, please don’t believe everything that you think. Your head is doing the best it can, but it’s not always very kind, or helpful, or true. Make your head work for you by teaching it the thoughts you want it to serve up automatically instead of the stuff it naturally tends to autosuggest.
You can be whoever you want to be. For real. The only reason you won’t is if you let the limiting beliefs in your own head take over. I know that’s not fun to think about; it’s easier to blame luck or the economy or our upbringing on our lack of progress. But the truth is that your happiness or lack thereof is overwhelmingly a product of what’s inside your head. If you aren’t where you want to be, examine your beliefs until you find the toxic mindsets that are poisoning your efforts. Eliminate those, replace them with the truth, and see how much better you begin to feel.
Yes, you will encounter obstacles. Ones that make you feel like you can’t possibly succeed. But if you can beat your brain at its own game and figure out how to get it to prop you up instead of beat you down, all of your challenges will seem more manageable. Don’t let brain chatter hijack your joy, or your life.
What are some false beliefs you’ve been living by?
This is an excerpt from Turn Your Pain Into Art, which can be found at www.arielbloomer.com as well as on Amazon.
