Hi guys! Welcome to Episode 384 of the Wildly successful lifestyle podcast! Have you been questioning your thoughts? I hope so.
I talked in episode 383 about not believing everything you think. I mean we have on average 50,000 thoughts a day 85 % of which are negative. This is universal. So it behooves you to not believe everything you think, we would all live in misery. In face most of us do. that’s why I’ve been so inspired lately to talk about the thoughts that hurt us but that we can change.
If we couldn’t change something, I wouldn’t even want to talk about it, what good would it do? why worry about it? I say this all the time… never tell someone they looked bad in the dress they wore to the party yesterday. It’s not fair, There’s nothing they can do about it, it’s done. But we can dissect that a bit. Who says they looked bad in the dress? Just because someone thinks the dress looks bad doesn’t make it so. Just like we can’t believe every thought we have, we also can’t believe every thought someone else has. A lot of times we judge ourselves by the projections of other people. How often are you living for the eyes of other people? How often does what you do change based on what others say? How often does your perception of yourself change because someone else suggested you were a certain way. Opinions of others can be powerful influencers. That’s why we have to be strong and aware of who we are deep in our core. We have to have no doubt that we are powerful and strong just as we are. Never allow anyone to suffocate your light. Never allow anything to suffocate your light.
For the last year since my big sisters husband died I’ve been trying to visit her once a week. She means a lot to me and I want to see her thrive. One week she seemed a little disgruntled and when she got out of the car with my mom I mentioned to dad that she seemed like she was struggling. My dad proceeded to say, he said it in a loving way that I was enabling her and coddling her which makes her act differently around me. Now. When your dad says something, I don’t know about you but you tend to believe it. So I just assumed that was true and I thought of the things I was doing. How could I change so that I’m not enabling her? My mind started racing as to if I was weakening her instead of helping her. This all went through my head. So as I usually do when I’m having a problem I bring this up to my husband Eric who is always wise and very logical and level headed. He’s full of good advice. So I told him dad says I’m enabling Heather and I’m the reason she acts bad sometimes.
To which Eric says “I don’t think you enable Heather”. Which kind of surprised me but also deep down felt true. I realized it had never even occurred to me that what my dad said wasn’t true, I just believed it on it’s face and got to work thinking I needed to figure out how to stop enabling her so that she’s self sufficient. Eric then started listing the ways he and I both had been helping her get back on her feet, not in a way that weakened her at all but in a way that she felt loved and supported also like she can handle life without her husband of 30 years who took care of everything while he was alive . He then asked me if I had asked my dad what he meant by that. How was I enabling her? I said no, I just accepted it as true. But now after talking it through with Eric, I realized it’s not true at all. Someone else’s perception of you means nothing unless you take it on. Even if it’s someone you love and trust.
Even if 10 people say it. It doesn’t make it true. When the Covid vaccine was being pushed, I felt like my body was healthy and could handle Covid without a chemical injection. That’s how I have l’ve always been. But if you declined that vaccine you were selfish and dangerous, a murderer even some said. But I didn’t take that on because just because people were screaming it didn’t make it true.
Just because someone else says something it doesn’t make that true either even if you trust them. It could be the news, your favorite scientist, your doctor or your dad.
Remember your gut instinct is more valuable than anything you have. If something doesn’t feel right, it probably isn’t. We don’t have to believe everything we hear even if someone we trust says it.
I guess trust but verify works here too.
Just like it never occurred to me to question what my dad said because I trust him Sometimes it never occurs to us to question groupthink either. Very dangerous. Look at history.
If you find this to be the case for you….a good question to ask is this “Is this true and how did I come to that conclusion? Did someone else talk me into it? Or did it feel right to my core? When my dad said I was enabling Heather, I never even thought to question it even though it felt off to me, which was a red flag, somewhere inside it didn’t feel true.
Our inner guidance system is always giving us clues. Ok? But we have to be aware that we have an inner guidance system that is always on our side, and is always guiding us to the path of least resistance to what we ultimately want. The more in touch with that inner guidance system, the better.
Where we have to be careful is when we are in situations where maybe we aren’t used to it being ok that we think something different so we just go along to get along. Is it ok for you to think something different from your family or your friends or possibly even half the country? If there’s something in your gut telling you to do or not do a thing. Are you strong enough to listen? Are you strong enough to say I realize you think that but I think differently.
For me…. Growing up, questioning things really wasn’t an option in our home. I didn’t get to make my own decisions about life, about who I hung out with, what was right and wrong, what was appropriate and not, those were all made for me and I wasn’t to question it. So when I’m back with my mom and dad where that was the norm my entire life until I left home, it’s easy to fall back into the habit of just accepting what you’re told as true when that’s basically what I did growing up. My dad even told me once growing up you have to just trust in the religion even though your eyes might see something f different. So blindly trust something that doesn’t feel right to you. That’s a weak position and it’s not something I want to practice. But here’s the interesting thing. Because I was raised the way I was, when I got to school, which was public school, I was so different because of my religion that I had to be really strong in order to navigate being different all through school. I became impervious to peer pressure. I had no choice but it built me into who I am today and I’m happy about that. I wouldn’t change it. It built me into someone who could leave a religion that wasn’t easy to leave by design, because I strengthened my core belief that I’m strong inside. All of that has served me very well. But even through all of that, I never stopped wanting approval from my mom and dad, I don’t need it anymore but there’s a part of me that still wants it, so this is an area where I have to remember that I could fall back into old habits of accepting someone else’s perception. I’m not very susceptible to groupthink because I was raised to be ok with being different but I can still be swayed by what my parents think, I know that now.
Eric was raised differently. He had a lot of autonomy. His parents were very loving too but he had a lot of leeway on what he did, who he hung out with, what was right and wrong. He was learning from a very young age to trust himself and that you question things. And that’s what he does and it has served him very well.
When someone we love and trust says something, it’s easy to accept that as true without even considering there could be another explanation or considering maybe it’s not true at all. When a group thinks something it can be easy just to go along to get along even though your gut is saying “this doesn’t feel right”.
It’s our job to navigate what’s true and what’s not true for us. It’s our job to question the thoughts we have that don’t serve us. It’s our job to question the things other people say that don’t feel right. Deep in our core we all want to stand up for what’s right, but sometimes it’s easier not to.
Why do we love those movies where the main character goes with his gut which goes against the grain and he ends up winning? We love it because deep down we all wish we had the courage to do it.
You don’t have to accept every thought you have as true and every opinion given as true. That’s not your job. Your job is to be so in touch with your true essence that you know the difference and then to stand up for what you know is right no matter the cost.
My challenge for you this week is to get really really good at hearing your inner guidance system. Stop drowning it out with distractions. Start spending more time in silence, in nature, in meditation. Our mood shouldn’t be swayed by every opinion we here or every passing headline. This is our work. Share this with 3 people with an inner guidance system. I love you guys, I’ll talk to you in a few days.
