YOUR THOUGHTS CREATES YOUR FEELINGS

26 Dec

Your thoughts send a signal to your body to release a certain set of chemicals which causes you to feel a certain way. We call this our emotions.

Our emotions then send a signal to the brain which confirms the thought that we just had, which causes us to think more similar thoughts. This lets the body know to release more of the same hormones which increases the feeling.

Now we are in a thought-feeling loop. We call this a state of mind. Our thoughts are triggering our body to feel and our body is triggering our mind to think.

If this loop goes on for a few days we call it a mood.
If it goes on for a few weeks we call it a funk.
If it goes on for a few months we call it an attitude.
If it goes on for years we call it a personality trait.

Have you ever caught yourself going down the rabbit whole with a cascade of negative thoughts? Well now you know how that loop works.

The best chance to kill a monster is when it’s small. The better you become at catching yourself early, as soon as you feel the emotion starts creeping up the bigger your chance is to break the loop.

How to do it?

Take a few deep breaths. Close your eyes and involve one of your 5 senses:

Touch
Smell
Hearing
Seeing
Tasting

Focus for just a few seconds on the furthest away sound that you can hear. Shift your focus to the closest sound, this is usually your own breathing.

This helps you to shift your focus to the present moment instead of the movie of the past or future that you are playing in your head. It neutralises your thinking and from here you can intentionally make a decision on how to move forward.

I invite you to come up with one thought that is easy to remember and that generates a feeling of self support that you can practise when you catch yourself being caught up in your mind. Write it down, practise it daily and every time you feel irritation, fear or anxiety building up remind yourself about this one thought.