Free Tool For You!
I have to tell you about this concept during this busy Christmas season!
I learned about it from a couple life coaches specifically Brooke Castillo of www.thelifecoachschool.com and
Corinne Crabtree of www.phit-n-phat.com.
My garden coach mentor Nicole Burke of www.gardenary.com reminds us often that our brains are our best garden tools!
The concept goes like this:
-something happens, that's a fact
-a person has a thought about that something that happens
-that thought leads to a feeling that courses through the body
-the feeling leads to actions that either help or harm the person or the people around them
-the actions creates a result either a positive or a negative or a negative or even a neutral result.
From these coaches I have learned that the only thing we have direct control over is our thoughts about things that happen. And that our thoughts determine everything else about what goes on and actually how our lives are lived. It sounds similar to what you've heard as a serenity prayer but it really it's so true and the way we manage thoughts determine our outcomes in situations and in life in general.
What I've learned is that we have about 60000 thoughts per day that just pop up in our brain unconsciously that we're just not aware of and out of that number about 80% of those thoughts we have had every single day.
I've also learned that our brains love to protect us and keep us safe and they don't like change and our brains throw fits if we try to change.. It's almost like they're their own entity altogether! I've learned we can manage our brains.
I appreciate how Corinne Crabtree talks about our unsupervised brains running around like a toddler with a knife. How do you like that imagery?!? Supervision of our brains means we have to know what our brains are thinking and that involves a little bit of journaling.
Everyday journaling is best but even if it's done once a week will help. We get these thoughts from our brains down on paper and then we look at them. We decide what are actual facts we're thinking about and then we figure out the thoughts we're having about those facts. We decide whether those thoughts are helping or hurting us and others overall and whether we can modify those thoughts slightly to create a better feeling in our body OR can we change the thought slightly or altogether. Can we reach a thought that makes us feel much better about the fact and is more helpful to be our best selves?
Here's a recent example I can give of some thought work I did around a situation that happened yesterday.
Backstory: I am down in Arkansas visiting my youngest son. I had rented a car and we drove about an hour away from where he lived. We were going over railroad tracks and suddenly it felt like there was a flat tire. When we pulled over into a parking lot it was not a flat tire, the tire itself was broken, and at an angle under the car that it shouldn't have been.
Facts - can you identify them? (Facts are so indisputable that everyone agrees on them.)
Thoughts - if you were in this situation, what thoughts would you be having about it? (They might include judgements)
Feelings - if this was happening to you, what feelings would arise? (Shoot for one word feelings. Use the site wordhippo.com for help pinpointing feelings)
Actions - if you felt these feelings, what actions would you take? (Inaction counts as an action)
Results - what would happen if you took these actions? Would you like the result?
Let me ask you which part of this scenario is fully within MY control? If you said thoughts you are absolutely correct. That's why it's so important to me to evaluate the situation after it happens and write out what my brain was telling me about the situation. I can then analyze the thoughts. By doing this regularly I'm getting into the habit of identifying thoughts going through my head as events are taking place.
The result of me managing my thoughts around the situation yesterday resulted in rest, patient waiting, trusting the processes and the people on the other end of the phone line, trusting also that God knew what was going on. While waiting I was able to enjoy a Christmas parade in warm weather with my youngest son while seeing lots of smiling, laughing families enjoying it as well - living as normal lives as I've seen in a long time.
To be honest, when I realized the tire was broken, I started panicking and didn't know what to do. My breathing became shallow, my heart raced and my brain couldn't focus and I just didn't know what to do. I stood there repeating "oh my god" "what do I do?" I was stuck in these thoughts my brain sent out. My 21 year son stepped in and guided me on what to do and my thoughts started shifting to:
I'm so glad that my son can help me.
He's really grown up down here.
I'm glad my cellphone has a good charge.
I'm glad that people on the other end of the line sound confident and know what to do.
I'm glad they will deal with the car and we just have to figure out how to get home.
Good thing it happened now and not the day I had to drive to the airport.
Luckily it's dry and mild temperatures.
Hurray - he has a friend who will come pick us up.
This is postive thinking but it's not. It's consciously deciding on thoughts I can live with about circumstances that happen. These thoughts I chose helped me feel better and show up as a better person. I've been practicing this thought mangement for at least a couple years now and wanted to share with you as well. It's so helpful to me!
This method can be used up and down the process, like starting at feelings we don't like or like. We can move up to thoughts we are having and decide to keep, modify or replace them. We can start at a not great result and move up the list....We can examine actions to determine the feeling and thoughts we had about - for bad and good results.
So here's a recap:
Fact/circumstance
--->Thought about fact
Feelings from thought
Action from feeling
**Result from action**
Fact
Thought
Feeling
Action
Result
FTFAR
I hope you are coping well during this seasin and enjoying loved ones both near and far! I'm sending my love and support to all of you!
Growth comes from learning and growing just a little more each day!
(Thanks to Justin Rhodes's podcast linked from his email today for inspiring me to write! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/what-i-learned-from-kurt-cobains-relentlessness/id1565700147?i=1000544372266 )
#learnandgrow
PS - does this sound like what my mom used to refer to as “psychobabble”? Well it's also Biblical: Phil 4:8, 2 Cor 10:5, Col 2:8, Rom 12:3, Rom 7:23, Ecc 12:14, Job 34:21, Matt 12:36, Heb 12:14. Joyce Meyer can give you more on any of her Stinking Thinking lessons!
https://www.joycemeyer.org/todaysshow
Let's be the best selves we can!