Hi guys! Welcome to Episode 428 of the Wildly Successful Lifestyle podcast! What’s up out there? Welcome to all my new friends and hello again to my old friends. I hope this finds you happy and healthy. I read this week that the key to a happy relationship is two happy people. That’s so true isn’t it? Immediately you might think that is meant for couples. But I would like to present that it is actually meant for ANY relationship. If you are a happy person, finding a happy relationship could be as easy as spending your time with another happy person.
I told you in the last episode that we just got home from being on a boat in the Caribbean for two weeks, sailing around, island hopping, which is the closest thing to heaven I can think of. It’s our favorite vacation by far. We sail with 3 other couples on a 48 foot catamaran. You might think oh wow, how does that work being in close quarters with that many people for that long? Well we’ve been doing it for 10 years and every year just seems like it gets better and better. The 8 of us get along very well with no drama other than the crazy situations you can get it in on a vacation like that, getting caught in a rain storm on the dinghy on the way back to the boat from dinner, we have a dinghy that we all ride in to get back and forth to the island from our catamaran, so if it is storming we try to wait it out but that doesn’t always work just right, or the times when something goes wrong on the boat and we are all bailing water out of the bottom of the boat at 4 in the morning, somehow we always do it with tons of laughter and a lot of fun even when the situation doesn’t seem so fun, there we are having fun. Part of that though is each person has to be responsible for their own attitude, their own happiness. No-one in that crew expects anyone else to be something they aren’t, no-one expects anyone else to wait on them, no one likes drama for the sake of drama, no-one needs all the attention on them to feel seen. No-one is relying on someone else to make them happy. We are all just pretty much happy people in general. It’s a rare group. It makes it easy to have fun when everyone you’re with is happy with who they are. Now we are all human and I know every one of us still have to deal with thoughts that come up, at least the girls, we talk about it sometimes. We each have to handle our own thoughts. We were hiking once and one of the girls said at one point the three other girls were hiking in the front and she was in the back and she had the thought of “why am I back here by myself again?” And then she said she caught herself and said “because you just have to get up there and so she did, and of course none of us even realized any of that had transpired because no-one was intentionally leaving her out, we were just hiking and talking away, she recognized it was on her not us to get her needs met. And I think on that boat we all do that pretty well. I caught myself having thoughts I had to manage too.
At one point, I went to put on a bathing suit for the thrid time and thought “I wonder if anyone is going to notice I’m wearing it again”. I caught myself thinking that and went who cares, nobody. I promise you no-one would care even if I wore the same one 5 times in a row. We might laugh about it but it just doesn’t matter. But for a moment I thought it might matter and it was totally gonna affect what I put on. I also noticed I wanted to wear a bathing suit again because I had gotten a complement on it when I wore it before. It’s fascinating when you start noticing just how much of your life is affected by the thought you have about any given thing. Years ago I used to always wear my hair on a side part, one day I tried something new and wore a center part which was becoming popular and I really liked the way it looked. I was meeting a friend for lunch and she basically told me it looked so good on me I should wear it like that always. It made me feel good because I liked it too and Guess what? It’s 10 years later and Im still wearing a center part in my hair. It’s crazy how influential different thoughts can be.
I’ve been doing a new meditation practice that Tim Ferris suggested and so far I really love it. The guide to this meditation uses a technique called labeling. So while your’e meditating you label things so hearing or seeing, yes you can see even when your eyes are closed. But it’s been really effective because it helps you to notice everything. Im still in the middle of the practice so I know there’s so much more I’ll learn but so far it has already helped me to notice and label things I do in my head. I think Ive gotten pretty good at being aware of my thoughts but through this practice I notice I still have a lot of work to do. It’s human nature to have thoughts, its so normal, but most of us don’t realize how influential they are in creating our life. In influencing our moods. In influencing our relationships. In influencing what we wear and how we fix our hair.
I’ve started using the labeling technique to label thoughts Im having that are affecting me. So if I start to create a scenario in my head about me or someone else I say “creating” so that Im aware Im doing it. If I am dwelling on something someone said or did I will say “ruminating”. If Im tryin to meditate and I notice Ive drifted off I say “thinking”. When you do this you start to become really aware. We spend a lot of time just sort of hanging out in our heads. And if we aren’t careful and we aren’t aware of it, we can create a life that is scary or miserable or victimy or angry….a lot of our problems are created right in our own head. That’s why I talk about it so much. It really has become one of the main goals of this podcast is for us all to be aware of the thoughts that create our life. Recognizing that our thoughts about ourselves matter for how we act or dress or present. And that our thoughts about other people are the reason why the relationship is good or not so good.
So, I have a question for you. And you have to really stop and think about the answer. What percentage of your day is spent inside of your own head? Maybe creating scenarios, ruminating over past stuff, or trying to mind read what someone else is thinking? I dont think she likes me. They think Im no fun. I think he’s mad at me. They’re too busy to spend time with me. Im not important to them. What percentage of your day is spent embroiled in inner dialogue with yourself and inner dialogue about other people? If they say this, I would say that or I should have said this when they said that. We create the life we are living right inside our heads. It’s a good thing to be aware of because it’s the reason we are doing any of the things we do and it’s affecting every relationship we have either in a good way or a bad way especially the one we have with ourselves.
My challenge to you today is to take responsibility for every single thought you have. You do that by noticing and then maybe labeling the thought. So if you notice you’re thinking someone is mad or you’re trying to interpret their mood, quietly say “mind reading” or if you’re having a fight in your head with someone or maybe you’re making up some imaginary scenario that isn’t nice to you or someone else, quietly say “creating”. You don’t even have to do anything with it, just noticing it and labeling it for what it is goes a very long way in fixing it, you’re probably gonna crack yourself up with how often you find you’re doing it. I did at first, but you’ll notice eventually it slows way down and along with that your happiness goes way up because you aren’t creating reasons to be upset. And happy people make for happy relationships remember that. Which side of the equation do you fall on? Share this with 3 happy people. I love you guys. I’ll talk to you in a few days.
