One of my classmates at the Life Coach School starting talking about things as BLC (before life coaching). I love it because it’s so true; we see everything differently now. BLC, this headline would have infuriated me. So what? Seriously?
Infidelity
Divorce
Addiction
Losing a job
Kid’s choices
Medical Diagnosis
Death
Disconnected Marriage
Special Needs Child
Disapproving Mother-in-Law
One of my biggest paradigm shifts ACL (after life coaching) was when it finally clicked that circumstances are neutral. I can already hear you arguing with me. My brain argued as well. How can any of those things be neutral? Here’s what I mean: they are neutral until we have a thought about them. It’s our thoughts that make them negative or positive.
Infidelity is neutral. One person might be completely devastated by the news that their spouse cheated on them. Another person, who is unhappy in their marriage but is afraid to leave it, may be elated because now they have a reason to leave and can feel justified. Another person may feel relieved because they’ve been cheating too and now they don’t have to feel guilty anymore. If the infidelity (the circumstance) caused the emotion, all of us would have the same emotion.
The difference in these people is their thoughts about the affair. When I say “so what?” I mean “what are you making it mean?” What are your thoughts that are causing you to feel the emotion you’re feeling?
Here’s another infidelity example: I have a client going through a divorce involving infidelity right now. She’s heartbroken. She told me “when it was good it was really good.” But the infidelity was happening long before she found out about it. She thought things were really good while he was doing the same things that she thinks are making her feel awful right now.
If it was the infidelity causing her negative emotion, she would’ve felt that negative emotion when the infidelity started. Since she didn’t know about it, she didn’t have a thought about it, and her marriage was “really good.” After she found out she had lots of thoughts. Her thoughts are causing her heartbreak, not the infidelity.
Why is this important? Because after she’s processed her grief and is ready to feel something different, she can. We can’t control other people. Oft times we can’t control our circumstances. But we can control our thoughts. Knowing that our thoughts create our emotions means we have the power to feel differently anytime we want to.
That doesn’t mean she should just hurry and change her thoughts so she can feel better. She may want to feel grief for a while. There is power in allowing your emotions. But knowing your feelings are created by your thoughts means you have the power to feel better whenever you want to. It also means you can write your past any way you want to.
What do you want to make it mean?
How do want to feel about it?
It will be better when I’ve lost the weight.
It will be better when my kids are a little older.
It will be better when I’m married.
It will be better when I’m married to someone else.
It will be better after I’ve graduated.
It will be better when we’re out of debt.
It will be better when I get a new job.
Stop. It won’t be better. Would you like to know why? Because YOU will be going with you into that new place. Why did I feel pain in both of my marriages? Because I went with myself into my new marriage. My thoughts created my feelings, not my circumstances.
If you think everything will be better when you lose the weight you’re kidding yourself. You’ll get there and realize you still don’t love yourself and you’ll wonder what the heck went wrong. And then you’ll probably put all the weight back on because you didn’t deal with what was causing the overeating in the first place.
The only reason things aren’t amazing right now is because of the way you’re thinking about it. Here is some of the best advice I can give you: learn to be happy exactly where you are right now, and only then decide what you want. Don’t leave a marriage until you’re happy in that marriage. Don’t leave your job until you’re happy in that job. Don’t make any decisions because you think it will make you happier. Circumstances don’t create happiness. Thoughts do.
Our brains are always on the look out for danger. We aren’t being chased by tigers in our day-to-day lives anymore so our brains think a lot of things are dangerous that simply aren’t dangerous. What that amounts to is our brains looking for the negative in every situation.
If you don’t learn to manage your mind, that next thing that you think is going to fix everything isn’t going to change anything at all. Your brain will just find more negative things in the new circumstances.
So what does this look like?
If you want to lose weight, learn how to love your body exactly as it is. Understand that you are perfect, worthy, and lovable exactly as you are. And then decide if you really want to lose weight. Just because you can. Just for fun. Just because you want to take care of yourself. But not because you hate your body and you’re desperate to feel better.
If you’re miserable in your marriage, learn to love your spouse for exactly who they are. No expectations. No manual. No conditions. And learn to love yourself in the same way. And then decide if that’s the kind of partner and the kind of life you want. Don’t leave because you’re desperate to feel better. The circumstance isn’t what’s making you miserable, it’s your thoughts. And those thoughts will be going with you into your next relationship.
If you’re wishing your kids were older and didn’t require so much attention from you, focus on all the amazing things that their age offers right now. Don’t let your brain run around like a toddler with a permanent marker. Choose to look for and focus on what’s good about their age now. What advice would your future self give you about this time? Otherwise, when your kids actually older, you’ll still be finding all the negative things and still wishing for something different.
It will be better when you decide to think about it a different way. That’s it. If you keep chasing a change in your circumstances to feel better, you’re always going to be left disappointed and confused as to why it didn’t work the way you thought it would.
What do you wish was different? Can you be happy with the way it is now? Schedule a FREE mini session with me and let's work through it together!
I was sitting on the couch one afternoon, reading a book, and waiting for my new husband to come home. We’d only been married a couple weeks. We were still in that glorious honeymoon phase and I was loving it. My first marriage had been void of physical affection for years so this relationship had been a breath of fresh air. The kids were coming in and out, bustling around and as I sat there, anticipating his arrival, I felt content.
While we were dating, our hellos and goodbyes had always been affectionate. And that’s the way I wanted it. I had been so starved for physical affection I wanted an embarrassing amount of PDA in my life. So when my husband came in the door and barely even acknowledged my presence, a pit started to form in my stomach. He talked to the kids, he started making a snack, he just got busy doing “the things.”
The way I’m describing it, it doesn’t sound like that big of a deal. Sounds completely normal right? I agree. But at the time, it didn’t feel that way. And I certainly wouldn’t have told the story this way. My brain started making up stories… and I believed them. All he did was come home and not greet me the way I wanted him to and I was ready to believe our marriage was going to fail. Seriously!
He should always kiss me hello and goodbye.
I should be his first priority.
If he loved me he would want to spend more time with me.
A good husband would take out the trash without being asked.
He should tell me he loves me.
This, my friends, is a manual. I had a manual for how my husband should behave and how he should treat me. When he followed my manual I felt loved. When he didn’t follow my manual, I felt pain.
Here are a few more examples of manuals. Do any of them ring true for you?
Parents should love their children.
Wives should want to have sex with their husbands (or vice versa).
He should be respectful.
She should remember my birthday.
He should spend less time at work.
He shouldn’t watch so much tv.
She should be on time.
Most of the time we don’t even tell the people in our lives what’s in our manual. We just expect them to behave a certain way. We expect them to treat us a certain way. They should just know. Sometimes we do tell them, and then we tie our emotional well being to whether they comply or not.
Think of someone in your life that you want to change. What would you like them to do differently? Why do you want them to behave this way? How would you feel if they did everything on your list?
Come back tomorrow and I’ll share the secret to getting exactly what you want.