You Chose How You Think!

I know, hear me out before you judge this statement one way or another.

If you choose your actions, words and thoughts, you are in control. You’re sitting at the cause. If you don’t choose your actions, words and thoughts, you’re sitting at the effect.

Sitting at effect means you have no control; you're totally powerless to change anything. The first thing I establish, when working with clients, is to get them sitting at the cause. At cause you’re in control, you can make changes, small ones, big ones.

Don’t misunderstand, sometimes things, events, stuff happen to us and we have no control over them. However, we do have full control over how we react and deal with it.

We control our actions, words & thoughts in reaction to all situations and circumstances. You have the power to choose your reactions.

Now, let's flip this process. If we can control our thoughts, we control our words and therefore our actions. Ever heard the saying, " You are what you think?

Let’s take a common situation: a driver cuts you up on the way to work. You can choose – yes, it’s your choice- to give them the power over your emotions and get upset, angry, and cross. You arrive at work, what a bad start to your day, you share your anger and injustice with everyone in the office. They had just had a lovely start to their day, but some, who also sit at ‘effect’, will pick up on this anger and then go back to a time when it happened to them. They now feel angry too. They gave the power of their emotions to you!

You get home and still carry that anger, unjustly sharing it with your spouse, partner, or family. Meanwhile, the chap who cut you up did not mean to; he was rushing to get somewhere, not concentrating on the road, and his mind was elsewhere. He doesn’t give you a second, though. He’d had a good day and is pleased to share his day with his family.

So, let's look at the situation from a different perspective. He cuts you up, you bib the horn, as you do, he puts his hand up in a wave gesture. You decide, yes, you chose, you decide to take that wave as a ‘sorry mate’ gesture. It’s totally irrelevant what he meant by the wave – how you take it is what matters. You take it as an apology, smile and carry on with your day. You arrive at work ready to start your day in a positive state. Your day starts well. All day, you handle everything, choosing how you will react. You go home and enjoy some family time.

Same situation, two totally different outcomes.

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t this point, you're probably saying, "ok, Jan, I hear you, but it’s not always that easy," and you would be right; it takes a little practice. Let me tell you, it’s worth it: being in control of your emotions is so much more powerful than being in a constant state of helplessness to them.

This is designed for everyday mindset support. If you’re dealing with deeper mental health challenges, please seek the right professional support alongside this.

Reframing (more on this useful NLP tool on my website) is one of the most positive tools to start with. When something happens which is beyond your control, press pause and ask yourself, “How do I choose to react to this?”

You have been made redundant. Do you fall apart and blame your boss, the economy, moan that life’s not fair, etc.? Life is not fair, and the sooner you accept this, the fairer life becomes.

A reframing thought process could be: “This sucks, the timing is not great, but it could be worse.” Trust me, any situation could always be worse. Look for the positives; there will be some. It was time for you to move on anyway, it’s a chance to move in a different direction, retrain, upskill or take a little time out. There is nothing wrong with feeling emotions such as sadness, anger, and grief; all are genuine emotions. Bottling them up is known to lead to stress and may have other effects on our health. Holding onto these emotions is not good for us either.

Please get in touch if you have emotions you need to let go of. Time Line Therapy ™ is very effective for this.

However, there is a big difference between feeling an emotion, accepting the situation, and choosing to feel a different one. Yes, you feel angry at losing the job, but then choosing to feel helpless won’t help you secure another job. Be angry, then choose another emotion to replace this. Sit at the cause of your next step, not the effect. The power to choose is always yours.

I put a series of clips on social media, all featuring horse riders clearly having a great time, and deliberately paired them with a very powerful, positive soundtrack. I asked people to drop a word or two about how this video made them feel. To me, there was only one answer: everything in the video, including the soundtrack, was positive, upbeat and joyful. I expected to see words like warm & fuzzy, excited, fun, very happy, and proud, and these words were all there. However, words like 'worried, sad & 'isolated' also appeared. Every rider saw the same video and heard the same music, but each had the free choice of how to feel. Some chose happy, some sad.

Sound harsh?

Maybe their situation is tough or heartbreaking, I hear you ask. My question at this point is this… Is it better to be totally hopeless? Powerless? Consumed by your thoughts, by sitting at the effect of your circumstances? Or to have the power to deal with those same circumstances?

One choice will leave you powerless; the other will empower you to make changes.

The question I now have for you is, what would you choose?

Are you happy with your choice?

E&O Excepted – written by a human

janjwilson.co.uk

E&O Excepted – written by a human