How our Thoughts are Responsible for Creating our Emotions.
It is estimated that humans are capable of 10,000 to 80,000 thoughts per day. This estimate may seem difficult to comprehend (unless you’re like many of us and you’re an over-thinker.)
The majority of these thoughts stay in our sub-conscious mind, so we are not fully aware of them. However, for those of us who have dealt with (or are still dealing with) anxiety, constant worry, or self-doubt, this estimate seems quite reasonable.
Many of us are familiar with one seemingly innocent thought leading to another and before you know it you’re smack dab in the middle of a fierce discussion with someone (that someone being you of course!)
On the road to becoming anxiety-free our next step is to examine thoughts.
If you missed Part One, you can find it here.
Your thoughts are responsible for your emotions, so it’s important to know what you’re thinking.
Finding the thought that’s responsible for how you feel can be difficult to spot from the inside, especially when there’s a multitude of thoughts swimming around your brain on a daily basis. But as with most things in life, it does become easier with the right tools and practice.
There are two ways to find the main thought which is responsible for creating emotional distress.
1. Writing.
Take out a notebook and start writing down everything you are thinking. Don’t censor yourself because this will be for your eyes only so spill everything out onto the paper.
We often don’t think in complete sentences especially when we are troubled and writing our thoughts down can shine a light on them.
It can also help create a connection between our mind and body which has enormous benefits when it comes to “getting out of our heads’ (something anxiety sufferers know all too well.
2. Meditate.
This will be simple enough if you’re familiar with meditation, but if you’re not and the very thought makes your eyes roll back in your head, I’m going to make it easier for you. Instead of calling it meditation, let’s call it focused concentration.
Sit in a comfortable, relaxed position.
Close your eyes and breathe through your nose, inhaling and exhaling softly.
Focus your attention on breathing through your nose.
Soon a thought will appear that will break your focus. As soon as you become aware of the thought, focus your attention back to your breath.
Continue this for 3-5 minutes to start.
You will become aware of the thought that keeps bothering you for attention. If you are meditating on a particularly troubling thought, it will keep returning to interrupt your focus.
This thought may be responsible for causing your emotional state.
Thoughts create emotions and becoming aware of your thoughts is another step on the journey to becoming anxiety-free.
Our lack of attention to our thoughts is what creates our emotional pain and suffering.
We don’t think about what we are thinking. We allow our thoughts to run rampant through our heads— and much like a two-year-old running around with scissors—the longer we leave it unsupervised, the more havoc it creates.
Thoughts dictate our emotions, yet we pay far more attention to how we feel than what we think.
We make decisions on how we feel about something. I’m not talking about intuition here because intuition is more of a sense or gut feeling than an emotion. It usually doesn’t cause prolonged emotional pain or suffering.
According to Francis P. Cholle, the author of The Intuitive Compass, intuition or instinct is defined as:
• Instinct is our innate inclination toward a particular behaviour (as opposed to a learned response).
• A gut feeling—or a hunch—is a sensation that appears quickly in consciousness (noticeable enough to be acted on if one chooses to) without us being fully aware of the underlying reasons for its occurrence.
• Intuition is a process that gives us the ability to know something directly without analytic reasoning, bridging the gap between the conscious and nonconscious parts of our mind, and also between instinct and reason.
The decisions I want to bring attention to are the ones we make depending on how we are feeling at the time. The decisions we almost make sub-consciously are the ones that prevent us from being the best version of ourselves.
- We don’t jump at opportunities because our heads are full of self-doubt.
- We don’t introduce ourselves or reach out to others because we fear rejection.
- We don’t speak up because we feel like a fraud (I’ve been guilty of this for longer than I care to admit.)
All of these subconscious decisions are based on the emotion of fear.
This kind of fear is created by what we are thinking as opposed to the necessary fear that keeps us alive and protects us from physical harm.
How many times have we answered a call to action with “I don’t feel like it” without questioning it?
The journey to becoming anxiety-free is one in which we have to become fully self-aware and dig deep to find meaning in our thoughts.
The first step is to feel, explore, and label emotions.
The second step is learning how thoughts create emotions.
Both of these things take practice but like anything in life—if you want to be good at something—you need to put in the time and practice.
And quite frankly, I cannot think of anything more important than the practice of you!
This is part two of a series in which I share some of the steps I took to become anxiety free!
You can read part one below.
Originally published in Invisible Illness on Medium
The full story is chronicled in Taming Crazy – Confessions and Lessons A True Story for the Worried, the Fearful, and the Anxious!
Taming Crazy-Confessions and Lessons: A True Story for the Worried, the Fearful, and the Anxious available now!
Taming Crazy-Confessions and Lessons: A True Story for the Worried, the Fearful, and the Anxious is available now!
