Hi guys! Welcome to Episode 361 of the wildly successful lifestyle podcast! So are you a watcher? I hope after this episode you will be. Now I’m not talking about being a creepy watcher of other people. I’m talking about something waaaaaay different from that.
Have you ever driven to work and don’t have any idea how you actually got there because you’re on autopilot you were so in your head. So lost in your thoughts? It’s scary isn’t it? How about having full conversations with someone in your head arguments and conflicts that are made up or maybe subtle unconscious thoughts about your weight or your hair or your looks in general…all without really being aware of those thoughts they are just looming all the time.
We do it a lot. Get so lost in our thoughts that we are completely in our head and on autopilot in the outside world.
I had an experience recently that reinforced I have lots of work to do. So, I have a pretty similar routine every single morning. I get up wash my face brush my teeth then I go downstairs and I turn on the lights the way I want them around the house because why not be in the most beautiful surroundings possible if you can right? Any way then I start my coffee and start getting out my turkey bacon and eggs to cook and I do all of this in silence. Just waking up I like the quiet because it’s so peaceful. but with the quiet depending on what’s going on sometimes it can mean the thoughts in your head become pretty loud. Most of the time they are just back there and we are unaware of them but when it’s quiet, it allows them to be noticed by you.
We have automatic thoughts that sometimes are so crazy you wonder where they came from…but those thoughts They’re always there we just aren’t usually noticing them. Ok so this certain morning my thoughts were on my upcoming family reunion that my aunt has put together. So I’m going through my morning routine on autopilot and I am completely lost in my thoughts about seeing everyone and how it was going to be. I was Just gone totally lost in my head. To the point where I put the egg carton back in the refrigerator before I even got any eggs out, so still lost in my thoughts I go back to the refrigerator and get the carton of eggs back out only to realize I actually had gotten two eggs out afterall and had already cracked them into the bowl… this is bad and all of a sudden I literally wake up and I’m like “what are you doing??!!” You are completely lost in your head.
I was so lost in my thoughts I don’t remember doing any of that. And then I started noticing the thoughts I had been having. And they weren’t good. I was having conversations with a certain member of my family and I was letting them know how I felt let me tell you. Oh man. I told you guys I still have work to do there, if you listen regularly. But once I stepped back and I noticed and I watched what just happened in my head I realized I really need to do some more thought work on this. Now, I also gave myself credit for noticing it and then changing the direction of my thoughts but seriously… our thoughts will have us ready to take someone on even though they may not have done a thing….am I right?
The quiet allowed me that revelation that I was creating a problem in my head with a family member. If I had music playing or the news on or the tv going I would never have been aware of that thought conversation. It would be there I just wouldn’t be aware of it. Think about that if you always are needing to have background noise are you maybe running from your thoughts? Are you afraid to be alone with them? I know it’s scary but it’s also important to be aware, otherwise those thoughts just stay jumbled up creating tension and pressure.
We have thoughts about everything we see all day long. It’s hard to look at something without having a thought about it. But I think it’s harder to be aware of the thoughts we’re actually having. And those thoughts are the reason we feel the things we do, and those feelings are the reason we do the things we do. And the things we do are what gives us our results in life. That’s everything. And the scary part is….most of our thoughts we aren’t aware of like my conversation with my family member…if I hadn’t put the eggs away weirdly would I have become aware of my negative conversation or would I have just rolled right into enjoying my breakfast that I made not knowing I had planted seeds of a possible confrontation?
That’s why I think it’s a really really good idea to be able to know what’s going on in your head. When studies show that we have 70,000 thoughts a day 80% of which are negative… I think that’s good to know. No wonder we walk around mad, or hurt, disgusted with ourself or scared all the time. Our brain is literally doing that to us and we don’t even know it. Why am I having an argument in my head with someone over something they did 5 years ago or why am I having negative thoughts about someone I love and what is that doing to my life?
We have thoughts about our partner. We have thoughts about ourself. We have thoughts about our job or our friend or our family ALL THE TIME. And if 80% of them are negative it’s no wonder we feel miserable more often than not. It’s because our thoughts are affecting every single thing we do.
That’s why we have to become a watcher.
Forget being a watcher of social media, you’ve got enough entertainment going on in your head for a lifetime of social media content. Of course most of it you wouldn’t want to put out for the world to see. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Being intentional and becoming aware allows us to counteract those negative thoughts but in order to do that we have to know we are having them .
That is why why we need to become a watcher. A watcher or of our own thoughts. You are separate from any of your thoughts. You are not your thoughts. But the results you get in your life are in direct correlation with your thoughts.
I said in episode 360 we often think our way out of goals but we also can think our way into arguments, depression, super anxiety, hatred, fear, without it ever hitting the intentional part of our brain so that we know can change it.
We wonder why we aren’t attracted to our partner but our subtle thoughts are constantly focused on their faults so of course we aren’t wanting to be romantic with them when we have spent the day beating them up in our head or picking them apart in our head.
We wonder why we don’t want to fix ourselves up and really dress ourselves up when we have spent the last 20 years telling ourself how fat we are and how disgusted we are with our body or hair or skin so why bring any attention to it by dressing up, we just want to hide.
We wonder why we’ve lost joy in our work when we have subtly been hating on our boss and our coworkers for the last year to the point where we can’t wait to find a new job.
It all goes back to our thoughts. But so many of our thoughts are automatic. Does that mean we are doomed to a life of misery?
No it does not. Because the more intentional you are, the more aware you become of those thoughts. They aren’t going to go away, but your ability to see them and deal with them can get better every single day and they can be softened. The more intentional your thoughts are the less your automatic thoughts have a chance to cause you problems.
So when you’re feeling a certain way about something, notice the reason why. It has everything to do with your thoughts about it and nothing really to do with the thing. Things are neutral until you have a thought. Situations are neutral until you have a thought.
I’ll give you an example. You find out a friend you used to have died a year ago and all of a sudden you’re really sad. Your friend has been gone for a year without you being sad so it’s not the friend dying, it’s the thought you had about it that makes you sad. Now, not saying it’s wrong to be sad, of course you are going to be, I’m just making a point that it wasn’t the event because until you had a thought about it you weren’t sad.
You are separate from your thoughts. The more you are aware of that the better it is that you can watch them and notice how they are affecting you. I’m glad I had that weird experience with my eggs because it woke me up to the thoughts I was having but it also told me I have work to do in challenging the thoughts that are not serving me.
That work is done through meditation which does more for observing my thoughts than any other thing I know. The work is done in your journaling where you can set an intention for the day and also put your thoughts on a course of gratefulness. And the work is done in what you allow in to your head..the content you read, the shows you watch and the people you’re around.
Most people have never tried to watch their inner thoughts. Partly because they don’t even know it’s a thing. But you’re not most people. You’re working on being the best version of you that’s possible. I know that because you keep coming back here and we are doing that together.
My challenge to you today is to at least once this week catch yourself creating something in your head that isn’t going to serve you and lightheartedly acknowledge it and then process how that will affect you if you keep thinking it, that’s a good thing to know. And then come up with your own plan to start being more aware of those 70,000 thoughts you’re having. How can you become more intentional? How can you become more grateful? How can you become more of a watcher? Not in a creepy way. Share this with 3 people you love I love you guys, I’ll talk to you in a few days.
