Stop Worrying About Changing Your Thoughts
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So we’ve talked about why your thoughts feel so true (even though they aren’t) and how your thoughts create your entire reality.
Once people become aware of their own thinking and realize that their thinking is creating their entire experience, they often get into a big rush. “Alright, I get it! I’m creating all my own misery! Give me some new thoughts to think!”
They can even start judging themselves for the thoughts they have today. “Ugh! Why am I thinking that same old stupid thought again? Why can’t I stop punching myself in the face?”
You’ve become aware of your own thinking and how it creates your whole reality. You’ve realized that you don’t have to accept the automatic thoughts your brain keeps sending up, and that you always have a choice. But if you use this knowledge to beat yourself up, then all this has done is introduce a new way for you to feel bad about yourself.
Here’s the most important part of this entire process — more important than finding old thoughts or brainstorming new ones or doing the work to believe something new.
What is your relationship with the version of you that’s 100% stuck in the old thinking?
Here’s what most people think their options are, with Old Thinking You:
Agree with her
Replace her
And when they don’t want to agree with her anymore, but they can’t seem to replace her, they add on a few more options:Shut her out and resist her
Distract themselves and avoid her
Judge, berate, and talk down to her
Guys. As always. You have more options. Let me tell you two of my favorites:Learn more about her
Let her hang out as long as she wants
As an example:
I have a weird thing where getting positive feedback makes me anxious. (Negative feedback makes me anxious too, of course. As does a lack of feedback. I have many opportunities to feel like something is going wrong.)
Recently, a few different people have said really lovely things to me, and it has made me incredibly uneasy. “Something is about to go wrong,” my brain tells me. “Stay vigilant. The other shoe is going to drop.”
After a day or two, I realized — “Oh, shit. ‘Something is about to go wrong’ is not a fact. That’s a thought.” And once I realized that, I could trace out its effect on me.
What are the facts? — Circumstance: People said these words to me
What do I think about those facts? — Thought: “Something is about to go wrong.”
When I think that, how do I feel? — Feeling: Anxious
What do I do & not do when I feel that way? — Actions:
Question everything I’m doing
Imagine different scenarios in which things go wrong
Do more work to prevent those scenarios from happening
What is the effect on me? — Result: I find lots of things that could go wrong. I reinforce my theory.
Of course. As always. What I believe I am merely observing, I am actually creating. What I think is “a real possibility that exists outside of me” is actually a fear that I made up in my head and that I am making real in my life.
As soon as I trace it out, there are now two people in the room. There’s Aware Me, who sees this model for exactly what it is: just one way to look at a totally neutral situation. And there’s Old Thinking Me, who believes this thinking 100%, feels this feeling 100%, and thinks every single action is life-or-death necessary.
So how am I going to interact with Old Thinking Me (OTM)? Let’s play it out.
Agree with her: You’re right. Something is definitely going to go wrong.
OTM: See? What did I tell you?? Now let’s play out even MORE worst case scenarios!Replace her: Everything is actually going well though! Let’s be happy! Everything is fine!
OTM: Yeah, no. Disagree. Let’s keep being anxious. Being happy is dangerous.Resist her: Stop this. Stop this line of thinking right now.
OTM: Definitely not. This is really important! We should think about this even more!Avoid her: If I watch enough TV / eat enough food / do enough work / [insert distraction of choice here], then I won’t have to hear you!
OTM: *simmers under the surface, waiting to jump out again as soon as I stop*Talk down to her: Listen, you idiot. You’re being totally irrational, and you’re ruining my life. Can you just sit down for two seconds and stop making me miserable?
OTM: No! I told you! This is really, really important, and if you’re not going to listen to me, I’m just going to get LOUDER.
Your automatic brain is like a small child who is completely convinced that they have something very important to tell you.
But their communication style is…
Not so much like this…
…and a lot more like this
So you can try to shut her down or get mad at her or avoid her. But she’s convinced that her message is critical to your safety. So she’s just going to keep mashing the buttons until you listen.
So let’s approach this differently.
Learn more about her: Hey, what’s up? Why is it so important to get anxious when people say something nice?
OTM: Because we love getting better.
Aware Me (AM): Wait, so getting positive feedback = stop getting better?
OTM: Oh! I had assumed so, but…I guess not? I guess we can also look at what’s working and build on that! And keep testing the assumptions around what works — what works for some may not work for others, and so we can still stay flexible.
AM: Oh interesting — so is that what’s important then, staying flexible?
OTM: Yes, totally. I just don’t want us to get stuck in some rigid “early level” thing that worked once or twice. I want to keep evolving to the next level and getting better and better.
AM: Well, I think we have lots of room to do that, even when we get good feedback. We don’t ever have to stop trying to get better. We can do that any time you want.
OTM: Okay, that makes me feel more comfortable.
AM: Great!
OTM: Wait, also I have another point.
AM: Go ahead.
OTM: It’s a little weird HOW happy you get when people say something nice to you. I wonder if that could be a false flag for you at some point. Like, are you being nice enough to yourself? Why does someone’s feedback affect you so much? Maybe you need to anchor to your own standards a little more. There are probably going to be times when someone says something you’ve done is really shitty, but you think it’s good and you should stick with it. Just a thought.
AM: Wow, that is…actually a great point. I…yeah. I didn’t even realize that. Okay, I’m going to think about that a bit more…
OTM: Okay cool thanks.
AM: What else? We’re still feeling a little queasy over here. What else are you thinking about?
OTM: I don’t know, man! I’m just scared! I’m scared of failing! Scared of getting up on a big stage and having thousands of people looking at me! I’m scared of looking really, really stupid!
Let her hang out:
AM: Hey, I get it. It’s really normal to be scared. You can sit here and be scared as long as you want.
OTM: Really?
AM: Yeah. I mean, it was really uncomfortable when I didn’t even know why we were scared. But now that you told me — I get it! That’s pretty normal. So just hang out as long as you want! You’re all good.
[Btw, this did not just pop right out of my brain. It took probably 60+ min of writing, staring, thinking, walking around, and feeling generally stuck before I figured out what my brain was trying to tell me. I’ve just condensed it and cleaned it up here.]
All of which is to say, my friends–
The point of all this “looking at your thoughts” stuff is not to “think better thoughts” or “be happier” or “feel better” or “be more zen.”
There’s only one purpose to all of this. And that is to learn to be your own friend.