why we think, feel and act the way we do

One of the coolest things about life is learning! I am fascinated by our minds and how they work. I am learning about how our thoughts create our emotions and influence our behavior and outcomes. We were never taught this stuff in school so when you first learn about how your mind actually works and the consequences that can follow, you’re like “What the WHAT?!” That’s ok. You’re in good company. We’re all learning here.

|The Basics
There are three aspects - thoughts, emotions, behaviors - that interplay and influence each other in our lives. However the area where we have the most power is our thoughts because they are almost always the foundation of our emotions and the behaviors we take because of them. The good news is that we can learn to have greater control over our thoughts thus giving us more control over our emotions and our behaviors.

In every moment of our lives, our brains are processing our experiences by taking in information through our five senses. When you experience anything in life, it is interpreted by your brain, which means in a split second your brain compares what it is taking in through your senses, which tells it what is going on in your experience, to everything else you’ve ever experienced. It’s trying to make a snap judgment of:

• What is going on?
• What does it mean?
• How should I feel about it? What should I do?

The brain has evolved to very rapidly interpret everything you experience and it’s so good at it that you don’t even notice it’s happening.

That is, until something happens that causes your mind to interpret a situation as negative.

Your brain will choose a perspective or belief about a situation that creates an emotional reaction in your body. This emotion is unpleasant, so it’s noticeable. Your body then reacts to this emotion, which is actually caused by the thought triggering your body to release a number of brain chemicals, often referred to as neurotransmitters. Your brain is like one big chemical factory and there is a different neurotransmitter that is responsible for every emotion you can feel. Neurotransmitters are found to be intimately involved in our emotions and moods. For example, something threatens you and your brain interprets the situation, which then triggers the hormones that shoot throughout your body inspiring you spring into action. Or someone tells you they adore you and you’re flooded with all of those yummy, feel-good chemicals. Those are your neurotransmitters in action, doing exactly what they are supposed to be doing.

But sometimes, these emotional reactions get out of whack with what’s actually happening. You can feel anxious for no reason. Something small happens that can make you overreact and furious. You’re sad even when you’re doing something that usually makes you happy.

What is happening is that your mind has learned a pattern of thinking that is faulty. Your brain is interpreting situations negatively, even when they’re not negative. Your mind is judging situations around you. Your mind is judging you or others. What you don’t realize is that you have unconscious irrational beliefs that are impacting your perspective. Irrational beliefs that you aren’t even aware of. Your brain was doing what it does best - trying to interpret your world in a way that protects you. Unfortunately, as you have been living your life, your brain has been programmed by the world around you. By those around you. Your thoughts have become influenced by the actions and opinions of others. Your core beliefs were adopted from the beliefs of others. And because you weren’t aware of any of this, your mind became trapped by its own faulty beliefs. Your thoughts run around all frenzied and you were never taught how to catch them.

But you know what? It happens to everyone. Our human bodies and brains didn’t come with an owner’s manual! The good news is that there is a solution and it is a simple one. You can become more aware of this process. You can change your thought patterns and beliefs. You can reprogram yourself. You can become conscious of the unconscious thoughts and behaviors that you e been operating from. You can choose to experience more positive emotions and less negative ones.

You have this power to control your own mind - a power that we have been blind to for our entire life. But you can take that power back. You can change. Let’s talk about how.

|Let’s Look At Our Emotions

The best place to start a discussion about how thinking works and impacts our lives is to look at our emotions.

Let me ask you a question.

“Should emotions be trusted?”

Some people say, “You should always trust your emotions.” Other people say, “Feelings are irrational and can’t be trusted.”

So, which is it?

They’re BOTH wrong.

Our emotions and feelings are neither right nor wrong. Your motions are simply your body’s reaction to what you are THINKING. Your belief system and other unconscious thoughts are happening on autopilot all the time and this is what causes your emotions. That’s why sometimes you have NO IDEA why you feel the way you do.

Here’s an example of why emotions are never either right or wrong, because they’re just reacting to your thoughts.

Think about something that you really, really wish you had, but that you don’t have. You may feel unhappy because you don’t have it. But that’s not true. You are unhappy because of the THOUGHT of not having it.

I’ll prove it to you. Have you ever been happy while not having this thing you want? Yes or no?
If you didn’t have it but you didn’t care that you didn’t have it, could you be unhappy? Yes or no? If you didn’t have it but were doing something else that kept you from thinking about it, like going down a roller coaster, would you be unhappy about it? Most likely not.

So, as you can see, not having what you want doesn’t make you feel bad. Thinking about it does.

|Where Do Emotions Come From?

Sometimes our unconscious mind and senses are picking up cues from our environment that trigger our emotions, such as reading a person’s body language or facial expression, having an automatic physiological response or sensing danger and having an automatic fear response. However, most of the time it is NOT the outside world or the situation that is happening that causes our emotional reaction - it is what we’re thinking. It is the mental filter that the situation passes through - aka, our interpretation - that then causes our emotional reaction to the situation.

We take a situation which leads to our interpretation (or a thought) about the situation. That thought then leads to your emotions about the situation.

The important thing to understand here is that psychological research over the decades provide evidence that we actually do have control over our thoughts. And since we have control over our thoughts, we have control over our emotions. It will be challenging to realize this and think that we can actually do this because we are so used to thinking one way, but it is a skill that can be learned. Here’s the process: Recognize the emotion. Identify the thought that comes with the emotion. Change the thought. Change emotion.

|But, How Do I Change the Thought?

Once you notice that a thought is happening it becomes conscious. Now that you’re aware of it, you can then choose to change it. Your mind will try to automatically interpret a situation, but now that you’re paying attention to it, you can choose a different interpretation - a different perspective. There’s your power, baby! This is great news because when you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. Even in the same situation or with the same facts, if you change your viewpoint, your experience of the situation will change. Here is a pretty common yet simple example: Is the glass half full? Or is it half empty? Same situation, but people will see it differently because of their different perspectives.

|Why Does This Matter?

This matters because you want to feel better. We all want to feel better. If you can change your perspective of a situation, you will change your emotional reaction to it. But wait! There’s more to it than that.

Your emotions are the driving force behind your behaviors because the decisions you make are based on how you feel. As you get better at being aware of your emotions and your thinking, you’ll be able to make decisions from a place of control. You might feel a certain way, but instead, you’ll use your cognitive processes to choose to act from a place of rational thought. But, you know, we are human and since we don’t have a manual on how all of this thinking works when we begin our human experience, we are not at this place yet. At least not all the time.

Here’s where we are now.

Your thoughts lead to your emotions which then leads to you making a decision. And from your decisions, come your actions and behaviors.

I’ll say it louder for the people in the back (and again to get it to stick to my brain): The behaviors you exhibit and the actions you take are a direct result of your thoughts. So, if you are experiencing behaviors you don’t like or have been doing things you aren’t pleased with, your thoughts are to blame.

If you can’t yet see the behaviors or actions you’re doing that aren’t serving you, look around at your life at the results you’re experiencing. Have you been having any problems at work? Are there struggles and problems in your relationships? Have you experienced anything unpleasant? Are there are things you want that you don’t have?

On the positive side, what aspects of your life have you managed to create that you want, enjoy or love? The reason I ask is because I’m going to take this one step further. Read on.

Your thoughts lead to your emotions. Your emotions lead you to make decisions. From your decisions come your actions and behavoirs. And it’s those actions and behaviors that will lead you to your results and outcomes.

That’s right, your behaviors and actions are what determine the results and outcomes you experience in your life - both the wanted ones AND the unwanted ones. It’s all on you, love.

So, in conclusion, by changing your thoughts, you can literally transform your life. Literally! Did you know that YOU are THAT powerful?

xx