How to own your thoughts, feelings and actions

Between stimulus and response, we have an infinity of choices to choose from. Have you ever been in an unpleasant situation where you felt the residual effect of the emotion last much longer than the situation that caused those emotions in the first place? To give you a personal example, I recently got involved in vehicle collision where a taxi ran into me and this resulted in my car being written off, fortunately I suffered no injuries.

Soon after the incident those closest to me mentioned how I had noticeably got over what could have been considered a mildly traumatic event. Now I make no claim to having any special psychological trait, but I realised how some people I know who had been in smiler situations but took months, even years to restore their sense of composure in similer environments that triggered those undesired emotional responses associated to the event.

The only difference I would point to, is having access to a set of thought modalities and strategies that if applied can help neutralise and utilise emotional feedback in more resourceful way. And one of these modalities involves performing a post incident Q and A thought exercise.

Here are a 3 principle questions to help own your thoughts, emotions and actions:

Thought - What does this meaning?

As humans, we have the urge to make sense of our environment as a result we seek to associate meaning to the events and things in our environment.

Our ability to think and make meaningful associations to things and situations can, for better or worse, have massive impact on our quality of life. Understanding and utilising this principle for positive effect will stem from an understand that fundamentally what happens to us is neither good nor bad.

Everything that happens serves as a tool for our leaning and growth. I'm sure you can think of an instance where you went through something unfortunate, and at that time you wished away. However, as the days, weeks, months or years have gone by you have come to appreciated that experience, because it thought you an invaluable lesson and have now grown because of it. The same “negative” experience yielded a positive outcome in hindsight because you made a “choice” to perceive that experience as a teaching and it strengthened you, instead of weaken and discourage you.

So why not close the time gap and be more deliberate about the meaning you assign to things you may immediately wish were different?

Whatever we focus on we find more of, so choose to focus on the interpretation of events into thoughts that equip you with an optimistic outlook and trajectory over the long term.

Feeling - What am I going to focus on?

Its not the events in our lives that define us, but it's the meaning we attach to those events. This principle is often neglected due to the our propensity to think that if we worry about our problems, we are somehow working to fix them. Remember that worry doesn't empty tomorrow of it's problems, but robs today of it's strength. Problems usually need energy to exist and once we understand that, we can start applying our thoughts on the desired outcomes, and that is an empowering alternative to consider.

Now I am not advocating that we ignore our problems and hope that they'll leave us alone. What I am saying is that we need to give ourselves a fighting chance and find the good in even the most unfavourable situations. If you look close enough, you will find a silver-lining in any and every situation, even the most difficult. Just as someone who has everything going for them, can allow negativity to overwhelm the good in their life through miss guided attention and focus.

When we apply our focus, we give a signal to our mind to look for and find anything that correlates to the idea, item or situation we hold in mind. A part of our brains have what is called, the Reticule Activating System and it is located between the Medulla Oblongata and the Mesencephalon. The primary function of the R.A.S is to filter out information that is not congruent with what we are looking out for. Remember the last time you were in the market for a new car? and then you suddenly would have noticed that once you bought a particular model, you started seeing that vehicle model almost everywhere. Although the same models were always there, your R.A.S filtered this information out because it wasn't important to you at the time. As soon as you start focusing you attention toward something, you'll find it showing up almost everywhere you look. So take advantage of this function by instructing yourself to look for and expecting the best from people, situations or things in life.

You'll find what you look for, and you are what you give your attention to. So chose wisely and consider the impact that your thoughts have on your perception of reality. Reality is negotiable so know that you aren’t stuck with the thought and behavioural patterns that no longer serve you.

Instead chose to focus on a vision and mission that is compelling and hold you to higher standards.

Action - What am I going to do?

What you focus on, informs and fuels your thought pattens toward a particular direction. And the meanings we assign to things have a profound impact on our emotional state. With these two components informing our nervous systems to either fight or flight, the actions we take as a result are going to be a reflection of the quality of thought and feeling we associate to a particular event or situation.

So the decisions we make on what to do are largely determined by the the first two lead anchors mentioned above. Often we are unaware of the association and focus sequence that drive behaviour, we tend to find ourselves doing things that seem incongruent with out desires and goals. The reason is, we often do not take charge of the internal process that drive our behaviour, we have bought into the idea that we can think one thing, feel another and somehow take successful actions that are completely independent of the of these internal forces. So when considering a course of action check if it has gone through the quality assurance test described here and that your steps are aligned with the thoughts and feelings that serve your intended purpose and outcomes. Effective action comes from the integrity found in honoring our personal values.

If we try to do things that aren't really anchored to our values we tend to get easily frustrated and despondent. I know that if I ever find myself procrastinating to taking action, it's it either due to the fact that what I am planning on doing doesn't serve my primary values or I haven't associated my values being served to the required course of action.. So as you ask yourself, “What I am I going to do?”, apply your thoughts and feelings to determine if your values will lend themselves to the task at hand.

The quality of our experiences are predominantly determined by the questions we pose to ourselves. Our minds are made to give us feedback based on the commands we give, so if we ask lousy questions we will get lousy answers. The above are simple yet effective when consistently applied to make the needed shifts in perception, from negative to positive and owing this process can have an outstanding impact on our quality of life.

-WN