Hi guys! Welcome to Episode 212 of the Wildly Successful Podcast!
For all of you that have been listening regularly you know I had some anxiety over the whole testing negative for Covid to be able to go to Belize and then testing negative to be able to come back home. Well I’m back home. We had a wonderful trip and none of the fears I imagined happened. So for those of you worrying about something that could happen in the future. There is a little proof that we cause our own pain and anxiety by thinking the worst. I had created this anxiety for myself and none of it happened. I now have Solid proof for the future when I’m creating anxiety for myself because I will again that’s for sure.
A lot of times we think the worst and the worst usually doesn’t happen.
Now life happens and circumstances out of our control happen. And sometimes bad things do happen to us. That’s the human experience. And this is when it’s so good to be able to have the ability to recognize how our thoughts are making things better or making them worse.
I recently read a book from a friend that said sometimes the best you can do is put one foot in front of the other and that’s ok. Get through the day. Tomorrow will be better. As a society we think we should always be happy. We should always feel good. That something is wrong with us if we feel bad. So we fake it. Or…Sometimes we reach for something that’s not available..so If you’re feeling really sad, jumping immediately to pure happiness is really hard…it feels inauthentic to you innately. You know the difference. I know the difference. So there’s nothing wrong with being sad periodically, that’s part of life..It’s a part we wouldn’t want to do away with. For example…
We have a dear friend who recently lost his brother unexpectedly. Is he supposed to not be sad about that? Of course he is gonna be sad. How long one stays sad varies. But if you’re sad and you would like to not be sad anymore… it’s helpful to not try to go from sad to all of a sudden happy..it’s too big of a jump. That can feel inauthentic. Have you ever been around someone forcing themself to be happy when it’s obvious to everyone that they are not? It feels like any minute They’re gonna fall apart. But what if you could go from sad to acceptance? Maybe my friend accepts that his brother is gone and can be content in knowing he spent some good time with him recently and also knowing his brother is no longer in pain? So now he has helped himself work through the sadness towards contentment And from contentment he can reach for hopefulness. Hopefulness allows him to then start reaching for happiness again.
His thoughts will play a big role in how he recovers. That’s true for us all.
Life is a series of emotions. And part of the problem in society right now I think is that we think we should never be sad. We think we are supposed to always be happy. That’s not how it is though. There are times when of course you’re going to be sad, like my friend losing his brother. You don’t want to be happy about that. You’re going to be sad and that’s ok. So there are times of course where we are going to feel sad but there are also times where we catastrophize a minor problem and turn it into a big problem with our thoughts.
What we want to watch out for is where our thoughts are leading us. They are either making it worse or they’re making it better. We are always thinking and the more we are aware of what our thoughts are doing to us the better off we’ll be emotionally.
Jordan Peterson was recently on the Joe Rogan podcast. He was talking about the idea of people that catastrophize a small problem and then with their thoughts turn it into a really big problem. For instance someone argues with their spouse over a minor issue like forgetting to take out the garbage..which leads them to think all these terrible thoughts like I’m a failure, I never do anything right, I mess everything up, I’m a horrible husband, everyone hates me, I don’t deserve to be alive. All because he forgot to take out the garbage. This is something if we aren’t aware of it, we can all do. Maybe not to that degree but his thoughts were not making things better in fact they were making them much much worse. If he had caught himself before he let the momentum of his thoughts get away he could have said wait a minute. How can I remember next time to take out the garbage so that we don’t fight about it again? I know I’ll set an alarm as a reminder that’s recurring so it never happens again. Maybe he even shares that thought with his wife and now she feels good because she realizes he cares and now it could become a bonding moment. Maybe a stretch I don’t know but the same situation but his thoughts changed the outcome. When you let your thoughts get momentum in a negative direction, it is very hard to feel happy, especially if you do that regularly.
My point today is this…
Your happiness lives and dies based on your thoughts.
My challenge to you today is to catch yourself when you’re having a thought that doesn’t serve you. Ask yourself..is this thought moving me closer to how I want to feel or farther away? I love you guys, I’ll talk to you in a few days.
