How to choose what you think about
And not let your thoughts think you
Although it doesn’t seem like it, our thoughts are products of our minds. Your mind evolved to think thoughts. If it didn’t do its job, you’d be in really bad condition. People would be talking about you in hushed tones and in the past tense.
I know it doesn’t feel that way.
Let’s imagine a situation.
Let’s say you walk into a room full of people you don’t know. The host has insisted you must meet these most wonderful people!
Uh. Yeah.
You ask what you should wear.
“Oh, any old thing. It doesn’t matter!”
So you show up to an event where everyone else is wearing business-not-so-casual attire and you are in jeans and a Def Leppard teeshirt you’ve had since the band was popular.
You paste a smile on your face and set your mouth to Polite Small Talk Mode.
Meanwhile your brain is a freight train freewheeling out of control.
“How do you do? Isn’t Brigit’s backyard lovely?” (I look like a homeless woman walked off the street!) “Oh, I’ve known Brigit for years. Do you work with her?” (My hair’s a mess. Everybody’s staring at me.) “How interesting! Where did you go to school?” (Condescending! Was that a sneer? Nobody wants to talk to me.)
Those me-bashing, terrified and anxious thoughts feel like 100% The Truth. The Way Things Are.
You are on that crazy freight train and it doesn’t even occur to you to try to slow it down, let alone step off.
But the truth is, you are the engineer. You are pumping the fuel to it. You built the train. You laid the tracks.
You can choose what to think about.
While your mouth is saying the right things, you could tell yourself you are the Queen of the Universe and they are all overdressed.
You could do that, but it doesn’t work. It’s only helpful to think thoughts that are true. “Queen of the Universe” isn’t true.
You are a human being, not a block of wood. You can’t carve that block any way you prefer. People don’t work that way. You want to fit in and be “the same but different.” That’s how human beings are wired.
What you can do to slow that mental train down is think about how you are feeling.
If you are embarrassed, upset, or frightened, think what’s true:
“I am feeling embarrassed.” “I’m feeling a little angry at Bridget. “Meeting new people makes me feel a afraid.”
Don’t say “I am embarrassed.” You are no such thing. You FEEL embarrassed.
“I’m a mess” is a thought. Just a thought. No thought is necessarily true. You can guide your thoughts to something that feels just as true but slows down the mental freight train.
“I feel embarrassed,” is true but not inflammatory. “I’m a mess” adds gasoline to the engine and is just another way to express your embarrassment. “I’m a mess” adds to the embarrassment. “I feel embarrassed” is just stating and acknowledging what is.
And you can choose which thought to think.
I’m not talking about affirmations here.
I’m a huge fan of Pinterest and it’s the downtown district of Affirmation City. The problem with almost all affirmations is that they are just not true. Telling yourself that “I am rich” when the bills are due and the bank account is empty is a lie and your brain knows that.
But I’m a huge fan of positive self-talk. Positive self-talk doesn’t necessarily mean happy talk. I mean helpful thoughts — thoughts that give you confidence, serenity and emotional stability.
The example I gave above is someone struggling to think differently on the fly. That’s not very wise. It’s better to think about these things beforehand and practice identifying how you are feeling without judgment. There’s no particular way you are supposed to feel. The girl in my example is not supposed to be serene and collected in an embarrassing circumstance like that. Embarrassment is a rational response to sticking out like a sore thumb and not in a good way.
Acknowledging feelings and allowing them to just be is a more helpful way to deal with situations where you feel knocked out of your comfort zone.
And oddly, the more you deal with being outside your comfort zone, the bigger your comfort zone gets. Eventually, perhaps, choosing skillful thoughts will allow you to be in your comfort zone wherever you are.
