Day 22: Choose your thoughts before they choose for you
Day 22 - Choose Your Thoughts Before They Choose For You
Did you know that our minds generate 60,000 to 70,000 thoughts per day? Did you know that you can actually take control of those thoughts?
You can do this by being aware of your thoughts and feelings and then disciplining those thoughts before they take root and change your biology like we talked about yesterday, your life, or the life of those around you.
“We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world.” - Buddha
“You are free to choose, but the choices you make today will determine what you will have, be, and do in the tomorrow of your life.”- Zig Ziglar
Controlling our reactions
Overwhelming or negative thoughts and feelings are a normal occurrence in the human mind. Those thoughts and feelings may not be your choice, but your reactions or behaviors are.
When we allow ourselves to get caught up in these thoughts and feelings they start to control our mental and physical states and we become victims of our own doing.We are choosing to believe what your thoughts are telling us rather than choosing to seize those thoughts and bring them into submission.
The more you focus on a thought, the stronger the thought becomes.
Buddah says - “What you resist will persist”. When a thought comes to your mind, try to acknowledge it and accept that you are experiencing the thought. Be mindful of the thought, capture or seize the thought, and then bring that thought into submission to the truth.
Sometimes we don’t realize we are even thinking a thought until we have started feeling an emotion or reacting in a certain way. If you start to feel fear, anger, or worry etc. or perhaps react in a self-destructive way such as overeating or drinking too much alcohol, try to trace that feeling or reaction back to the thought that triggered the feeling or behavior.
Once you have identified the thought that triggered the feelings or reactions, accept that you had the thought. Once you acknowledge that you had the thought you then are no longer an unwitting participant of automatic thoughts and behaviors.
Meet your thoughts with curiosity and kindness, be thankful for the thought. Reframe your thoughts, for example “I hate this quarantine” to “this quarantine is uncomfortable, but I am going to find something to do with my extra alone time."
Sometimes our thoughts are not our own thoughts.
Perhaps the thoughts were influenced from our parents (remember transgenerational trauma) or perhaps the people we are spending most of our time with.
Our minds are like a sponge, if we spend time with certain people we will start to think like them and vice versa.
Oscar Wilde once quoted, “Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation”. If you are spending time with negative people what is that doing to your thought life?
Step #19 in our journey together
1. Seize your thoughts and bring them into submission:
When you experience a negative emotion or feeling, or you are reacting negatively, try to trace those feelings or reactions back to the originating thought. Accept and acknowledge the thoughts that you are having and then meet the thought with kindness and thankfulness. Lastly, Reframe your thoughts. Then fill your mind with the truth!
And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. - Philippians 4:8
2. Be in the present moment
Find what brings you to the present moment, a place of silence and stillness, then stay with it. Experience just being without excessive thoughts.
You are the only one who knows what gets you out from under an obsessive thought life and into the present moment. For some it is prayer or meditation, for some it is time alone in nature, for others it may be while gardening, dancing, yoga or making music.
"Freedom comes as our life in thoughts diminishes and our
experience of the present moment predominates."
- Ekhart Tolle