Episode 56: Keys to Mental and Emotional Health

Welcome to the 100% Awesome Podcast with April Price. You might not know it but every result in your life is 100% because of the thoughts you think, and that my friends is 100% awesome!

Hello podcast universe. Welcome to episode 56 of the 100% Awesome Podcast. I'm April Price and I'm 100% thrilled to be here with you. How are you? I sort of feel like our country is at that place, like the morning after you've been really sick, right? And you're kind of gingerly walking around, and carefully eating, and slowly introducing solid foods back into your diet, and you're like so happy not to be feeling absolutely awful. But also you still feel a little bit weak, and delicate, and we're kind of tentatively moving towards normalcy, but also we're not really sure if we're out of the woods yet.

So, I kind of feel like we're on this saltine cracker, dry, post part of the quarantine, just getting back into solid foods. Where I live they reopened the gym this week, and going to workout yesterday felt like Christmas morning. I just smiled through my entire workout, and instead of following like a specific workout plan, like I had planned, I just moved from all of the machines that I had missed, and I lifted all of the heavy barbells. I used all the equipment that I didn't have at home, and it was so awesome.

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It just reminded me how most of the time before the quarantine, we didn't even notice what an amazing beautiful thing ordinary life is. Not just because we have a human brain that it's programmed to only notice problems, that's just what brains do. It's not because you're ungrateful, or spoiled, it's just because it's your brain's job to find problems in every situation, no matter how good it actually is. But sometimes when the problems get really, really, big the things that we used to think were problems are suddenly just amazing blessings, and it puts everything right back into perspective. We all kind of need that reminder sometimes at least our human brains need that reminder sometimes.

So, the other day my church congregation had a virtual Women's Conference, and I was asked to speak about our mental health, and how we increase, and strengthen our mental health, especially in times of difficulty, and challenge. And I thought it might be really useful for you to be able to hear the things that I shared with them. And even though these are very familiar principles to those of you that are regular listeners of the podcast, they never stop applying. They never stop working in our lives whether we're aware of them or not.

And they really are the foundation of all the work that we do on our minds to get the life we want. It's the foundation of all the work that I do with my clients as their coach. And so it's always good to hear them again, and hear them in a different way. And I hope that hearing them today will help you. And let me just offer that I am not a mental health professional, I know you know that, right? I am a coach, the work that mental health professionals like counselors, and psychologists, and psychiatrists do is such important work that is necessary to be able to adjust, and address issues with brain chemistry, and trauma, and mental illness, and working through debilitating emotional experiences. I've used these services myself at other times in my life.

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But the work that I do as a coach is with people who are ready to take the next step in their emotional, and mental health. People who have talked through their feelings, and balanced their brain chemistry, and just don't know how to move on, and love their life. They're functioning, we're all functioning, but we don't know how to make things better. We believe deep down that things could be better, right? My work is with people who are just kind of going through the motions, and many times they're beating themselves up or trying to control themselves, or the people in their lives, so that they can feel better. And they look around their lives, and there's nothing really wrong, and yet, everything just feels so bad. It just seems so wrong, they can't seem to be happy, and show up for themselves, and love the life the way they want to.

This is exactly where I was when I found coaching, and when I learned what I'm going to teach you from my coaches, I felt almost reborn, like I woke up for the first time in my life, and I could suddenly see where all my power, and responsibility were in the creation of my life. And this shift changed my mental, and emotional life experience, and that's what I want to share with you today. And if you want that experience for yourself, I invite you to sign up for a coaching consultation. You do not have to settle for where you are, there is so much more available to you, and coaching is such an incredible tool to completely change the way the you're experiencing your life.

So, as I thought about our mental health, and the most important things we need to know to improve our own mental health, and manage our emotional lives, I went back to the basics. I thought about what are the most basic principles that changed my life? When I learned about this thought work, and what are the basic principles that had the biggest long-term impact on my brain? So, for me at the heart of all of it there are these four ideas. Our feelings are created by our thoughts, our thoughts are always a choice, we can make, that choice of what to think by looking at the results we are getting in our lives, and maybe most importantly as we do this work to understand that we aren't supposed to be happy all of the time. That isn't why we came to Earth, that isn't the goal, and we aren't failing when we feel negative emotion in our lives. And in fact that is supposed to be there in our lives at least 50% of the time.

Okay so, I'm going to talk about each of these ideas in turn and show you that when you put all of these principles into place, into action in your life, you have all the keys you need to manage your own mental, and emotional health.

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So, I'm going to start with this story, and then I'm going to pull some things out of it that I think can be useful, and instructive for each of us. Now as usual my story is about something that in the grand scheme of things, and then the number of enormous disappointments, and losses for so many people this spring, it is truly inconsequential. I am well aware of that. Believe me I know it, I know my problems are not real problems, they're just problems my brain made up. But, sometimes it's easy to see the difference that our thoughts can make when we look at the little problems, look at the little pains, and inconveniences of life, and they can be kind of a template for how we apply them to the really big things in our lives.

So, the other day, Ethan, had to take his AP Calculus exam, and because of the quarantine he had to do it from home online. And so, for the first part of the exam he had 30 minutes to be able to answer the questions, and upload those answers to the AP Web site. And I had a coaching call scheduled at the exact same time so I wished him luck, and I went into my call, and when I came out about an hour later I asked him "Hey how did it go?" And he said "Yeah I didn't work. I wasn't able to upload the answers." And I was like "What do you mean?"

He said "I tried it, like I had the answer, I had five minutes left to upload it, but I couldn't make the scan genius on my phone work, and then I tried taking pictures of it, and emailing those pictures to me, and downloading them to a computer. But then when I went to upload them to the site, I couldn't find the files on my computer in time." And the time just expired in front of his eyes. So, he's telling me this story and in that moment I was so upset, I was upset for a lot of reasons, right? He had worked all year only to not be able to finish the exam, because of an uploading problem. Look, I'm looking at the answers in his hands, he goes out to do the work, but they don't have a record of it coming in on time. And all of this is only caused because of a virus, which is completely out of his control. And I couldn't believe that, like this is the system that the AP board has created, that this is the best solution in 2020 for handling this test, right?

And I just felt completely awful about the whole thing, and I suffered the rest of the day with these kinds of thoughts. And when David came home I was still upset about it, I was still distraught, and angry, and frustrated, and it seemed like I should be. So, now I want to go back, and I want to analyze this. And along the way I want to teach you some things that I hope will help you to manage your thoughts when things are difficult, or don't go your way.

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So, first notice that for all of us, we think our pain is caused by the world around us. I thought my pain was caused by the AP testing system during Covid. I thought my pain was caused by the CDC, and the stay at home orders, and the fact that there are even viruses that exist in our world, why are there viruses? In that moment it felt like the pain was caused by the outside world, negatively affecting me. But notice that if that is true, then I am completely powerless to choose my emotional experience. If things outside of me control how I feel, then I am completely at the whim, and mercy of the world, of other people, of viruses that are beyond my control.

But what you know, and what I want to show you is, nothing outside of me causes my pain, it doesn't cause my joy, it doesn't cause my frustration, nothing outside of me can create anything inside of me, without my consent. Without my choice, without me making a decision to think in a certain way, because every feeling we have is created by our thoughts. So, in a moment when I feel pain it's because of my thought. So, in this moment for instance, these were my thoughts:

"It shouldn't have happened this way. This isn't fair. Ethan has worked so hard, and all his hard work just went down the tubes because of a technology problem." Because of a tech problem, I had thoughts like, "Corona virus ruins everything." I had thoughts like "I should have been there to help him, if I was a good mom I would have helped him prepare. If I was a good mom, I wouldn't have been working when he needed my help." I had thoughts like, "He should have been more prepared, he should have practiced how to upload, and download, or somebody should have like apprised him of this situation."

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I had thoughts like "Why do we even try? It's all pointless." Do you see these thoughts were each creating a negative emotion inside of me. All of them together were creating this very painful cocktail of emotions. So, notice when I think, "It's not fair" I feel self-pity. When I think "If I was a good mom, I would have helped him prepare." I feel guilty when I say "Corona virus ruins everything." I feel frustrated, when I think "He should have been more prepared, and he should have known how to do this." I feel irritated or angry. When I think "Why do we even try?" I feel hopeless, because I am thinking thoughts, I am creating those feelings, so this is really so helpful to know when it comes to our mental health, our feelings never just happen to us. We create them.

So, I want you to try this, right? I'm going to give you some sentences, I want you to think about them, I want you to notice what feelings come up when you think these sentences. Okay, here we go. "Next year we'll be completely homeschooled." I noticed the emotion, all my kids are home right now. Notice the emotion that that creates for some people, they're like, "All my kids are home right now!" And for somebody else is like, "All my kids are home." Completely different emotion. Just this is really a simple one. It's Friday night, right? What emotion does that sentence create. My husband's job was eliminated. We found some abnormalities in your bloodwork and we need to do more tests. Next Sunday we get to meet together as a congregation.

So, notice how they all seem like they are things happening outside of us, but when we have thoughts about them, that is what creates our feeling, not the thing right. It's our thought, and we know that because some people may have different feelings about the very same thought. Like, "All my kids are home, or it's Friday night." So, what, right? How does knowing that our thoughts are creating our feelings help us improve our mental health. Well, this is where I want to talk about the second principle, and that is that every thought we have is a choice. We all have agency, this is a gift from our loving Heavenly Father. He gave you your life, and he gave you your agency, and he gave you a way back to him through the redemption, and resurrection.

And each of these pieces are necessary for our Earth life experience, they are necessary for our growth. The gift of agency is vital to that growth, and the most important place you exercise your agency is in your own mind. The thoughts that you choose to think when our brain presents thoughts to us, or ways of thinking about things, we have to decide if we are going to think that way, or if we're going to choose something else. And because you have agency you always get to choose what you think, and that's going to create your feelings.

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So, I want to give you one word of caution here. Like I talked about in the beginning of the podcast just because you create your feelings doesn't mean you should always feel good, or that you should always feel happy. I was just talking to a client yesterday who when I told her, "The only thing that causes your pain is your thoughts." And I asked her what she thought about that. She said "Well if the only thing causing my pain is my own thoughts, then I think I could just always be happy." But this isn't what we really want, and it isn't even supposed to be how it is. You are having an Earth life experience, Lehi said, "There is opposition in all things." It's 50/50, it's 50% positive emotion, and it's gonna be 50% negative emotion. Remember when Adam and Eve left the garden, and God told them about all the hard stuff that they were going to experience, right? The briars, and the thorns, and the noxious weeds, and the pain in childbirth. And he said, he was doing all that for their sake so they could learn. So, we aren't trying to eliminate the 50% negative experience of life with our thoughts because we need that part for our learning. We are just trying to eliminate our unnecessary suffering, those moments when we make our pain worse with our thoughts.

So if we go back to my example with Ethan, when he told me he didn't get his answers in I was disappointed for him. Things didn't go the way he wanted, things didn't go the way I wanted right, and I could have been just disappointed, right? That would have been my 50% negative experience, just disappointment, but instead I increased my pain, suffering, and hurt myself further by thinking all these other thoughts. "This isn't fair. He's worked so hard. You are a bad mom. All of it was for nothing. He's worked so hard just so you could mess it up."

If I think that way I'm only adding enormous amounts of guilt, and shame, and anger to my original feelings of disappointment, which in the scheme of things is probably not a choice that I want to make. Now, let me just show you for one moment how this also works with the big things that causes pain in our lives. So I have a good friend whose son just had surgery for his third brain tumor. He's 32, he has a little family, has a beautiful wife, three little kids and over the last seven years or so he's had two other brain tumors and surgeries for them. And last week he had another one, and we kind of talked together as we were coaching about what she was thinking.

Now, remember all of our pain is caused by our thinking. I asked her "Tell me what you're thinking?" She said "I just can't handle it." She says, "I go into that hospital room, and he's just in so much pain, and I just think, Oh my poor boy! He's suffering and I need to fix it. It shouldn't be this way. He's supposed to be home playing with his kids, or building his business, or enjoying his life. This just isn't right. It's not fair and it's not supposed to be this way." And one of the very most painful thoughts for her was "He's suffering and I can't fix it. I can't do anything about it." And this thought makes her feel mad, and angry, and powerless, and helpless. And just notice, that there is pain of watching her son suffer. That is part of the human experience as his mother, that's part of Earth life, that's part of her 50%. That's the briars, and the noxious weeds, and the pain, and childbirth, right?

That's the part that she came to experience, to learn from. And in reality, really she doesn't want to be a mother who doesn't feel pain when her child suffers. But her pain increases when she thinks that she's supposed to fix it, or solve it, or that her son isn't supposed to be suffering, because he is. His life is going exactly as his Father in Heaven intended, his Earth life curriculum, and hers is exactly what it's supposed to be. And she's not in charge of that.

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When she chooses another thought like, "Nothing has gone wrong, he's supposed to be suffering right now." She feels so much more peace, it still hurts, yes. This is the 50% negative, but it's the kind of pain that helps us grow, and become, and develop empathy, and Christ-like attributes. Long suffering, right? And then the anger, and the frustration, and the powerlessness leads when she chooses a thought like, "He's supposed to suffer and as a mother who loves him dearly, so am I." Then she can just allow the pain, feel that pain, and be like Christ in that way, but not add to that pain with thoughts that just aren't helpful, or useful, or that change her experience with her son.

So, those are the first two pillars of mental and emotional health. Our thoughts are created by our feelings, and our thoughts are always our choice, and they are built on the foundation that we aren't supposed to be happy all of the time. Now I want to give you one more pillar that I hope will help you apply these two ideas even more powerfully in your life. And that is by noticing that we can decide what thoughts we want to keep, what thoughts we want to choose, by looking at the results the thought is giving us

So the other day I was on a coaching call, and I was talking to my client about her thoughts, and she said "Okay, I know this is a bad thought, and I shouldn't be thinking it but..." And then she told me her thought, right? And we talked about that, and after our session I thought about how often I hear that phrase, "I know this is a terrible thought. I know this is a bad thought in general." This is what we kind of think we're super judgmental of our thoughts, and the thing is, the more judgmental we are of them, the harder it is to manage those thoughts. And so, I started thinking about a different way of thinking about our thoughts. And so, today on the podcast I want to introduce this idea to you that instead of thinking about our thoughts as good, or bad, or true, or false, or thinking about our thoughts even just as like positive, or negative, I think it could be really helpful for you to think about your thoughts in terms of, useful or not useful.

We have thoughts that are useful to us in getting the results we want, and we have thoughts that are not useful for us in getting the results we want. Useful thoughts are going to create feelings that produced the actions you want in your life. Not useful thoughts are going to create feelings that produce inaction, or actions that you don't like in your life. And when we can just drop our judgments of the thoughts as bad, or good, or true, or false, it allows us to look at them more objectively, more neutrally to figure out, is this thought useful in getting me what I want. Or is it not?

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Remember that our thoughts are always just a decision, they aren't required. And so, the more often we can make that decision in terms of whether or not it's useful to us, the more traction we're going to get in managing our mental health. Like, if we go back, and look at the original example I shared you can see that my thoughts about mothering, and the ridiculousness of viruses in our world as necessary, and as important as those thoughts felt in the moment, as true as they felt in that moment, they were not useful. They were not creating anything useful in my life, and this is so good for all of us to stop, and think about as valid and true as my thoughts feel, are they creating anything useful in my life? Because remember your thoughts create your feelings, that's going to create your life experience. So, if we approach it from a purely pragmatic perspective this idea can help us make the decision of whether, or not we want to continue thinking the thought, is it useful to me?

So, I think there are two very useful questions to ask yourself when you find yourself in pain or suffering. So I want you to notice the thoughts creating your pain, and then ask yourself number one, do I like how I feel when I think this thought?And number two, do I like what I do when I think this thought? This is a little test for your thoughts to determine whether or not the thought is useful. So, if we go back to my experience with Ethan when I think "I'm a terrible mother because I wasn't there to help him when he needed it." Do I like how I feel? No. I feel guilty, and ashamed, and sick. When I think "I'm a terrible mother because I wasn't there to help him when he needed it." Do I like what I do?

In this case I spent the afternoon beating myself up, right? I said terrible things to myself, I got angry with my son for not preparing, I got angry with his teacher for not prepping his anger at the AP board, and the CDC, and the virus and I got mad at David. David who doesn't have to deal with any of it, and just walks in at the end of the day and says "Hey, how was your day?"So, instead of being compassionate with my son, and understanding his experience, I spent the entire day a mad, and upset, and beating myself up. I ruined my day. Do I like what I do when I think that thought, "No I don't." And when I see that I don't like how I feel, and I don't like what I do when I think that thought then I know this is not a useful thought. This is not a great thought to choose, and I can choose to think something else. Something that's going to be more useful, and instead of judging myself, or thinking bad thoughts, or being a negative person, I can just notice, hey this just isn't useful. It's not giving me the results I want, and just approach it pragmatically. Practically, it's just not useful, what other options do I have? What thought might be more useful than this one?

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Now let's go to my client who's facing a much greater challenge than I am right now. When my client thinks about her son, and she thinks, "He's supposed to suffer right now, and because I'm his mom, and I love him, so am I." Does she like how she feels? She feels heartbroken, but she also feels peace, she feels loved. She also feels the reverence of a shared human experience, and the privilege of getting to raise this boy. It feels so much better even though there is still pain, it feels so much better than powerless, and angry. Does she like what she does when she thinks this thought? Yes, because it allows her to show up in the present with her son, and witness his suffering without needing to change it, without needing to change her own suffering. It allows her to turn to her Savior for comfort, instead of arguing with Heaven about what is. When she suffers with her son without needing to change it, she becomes more like the Savior.

And so yes, she likes what she does, she likes showing up as that version of his mother. It's useful to her, and you can each use this test on your own thoughts. All of our pain is caused by our thoughts, and when we can recognize that we have the opportunity to choose on purpose, how we want to experience our life. And the more useful thoughts we choose, the more we are going to get the results we want. Notice, that in the examples I gave you when we really look at what our thoughts are creating for us, it's such a useful exercise, because when we have thoughts about what's happening in the world, what's happening to the people we love, what's happening outside of us. When we have thoughts about that it doesn't change the world, it just changes our experience of the world. It changes our experience with our son, but it doesn't change the circumstance. And I think that this is also a very useful exercise not only in the thoughts we have about what's happening in the world, what's happening in our lives, but it's also very useful to use when we look at the thoughts we have about ourselves.

So a lot of times my clients have very negative thoughts about themselves, right? They choose punishing or mean thoughts that they think are going to create good behavior in themselves. For example, you might have a thought about yourself when it comes to losing weight. You might think "Oh this is impossible for me." And when we stop, and look at this thought pragmatically, instead of really thinking about, if this is a good thought, or a bad thing if it's true, or false, and we just look at the result that is going to give us, we see that thinking, "This is impossible" makes it impossible. And so, it's not a useful thought if we want the result of losing weight, or let's say you want to be more patient, and you have thoughts like, "I'm out of control, my temper always gets the best of me."

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This might seem like a good thought, because your brain thinks you should know this about yourself, and you should know it so that you can change things. But, notice what the thought actually creates, if we ask ourselves "Is this a useful thought?" We see that thinking "I'm out of control, and my temper always gets the best of me." Only creates the result of our temper always getting the best of us. Again you can see how it's not a useful thought. Our brain thinks it's like really important for us to beat ourselves up, but it doesn't create useful results in our life.

Even if you can prove it right it's not useful to you, to get the results you want, and so, it's not a choice that you want to make. So I invite you to look at your own thoughts this way and not judge them based on good, or bad, or true, or false, like this is just who I am, and I have all this evidence. But instead to really look at those thoughts in terms of what it is creating, the result it gives you when you think it. Your brain always has a good reason for thinking the way that it does, but notice that it just might not be useful to you in getting the result you want, and then you simply have to remember that it is a choice.

And if you don't like the results, in other words, if you don't like what you feel, and do when you think that thought, then you can always, always, always, make another choice. Okay, my friends that's what I have for you today, I hope that this has been helpful for you. Your feelings are created by your thoughts, and every thought is a choice. Make the choice to keep thinking what you're thinking, or change the way you're thinking, based on your results. Is it useful to you and the life you want to create. And remember above all that this doesn't mean we should be happy all the time. The truth is this Earth life experience was personally, and perfectly designed for each one of us, on purpose by a loving Heavenly Father, who knows exactly what we need to learn and grow. It is a privilege to be here, to learn those lessons, and also it is supposed to be hard. You are supposed to hurt, and be sad, and be discouraged, and have negative emotions at least 50% of the time.

That contrast doesn't mean that something's gone wrong. That contrast is the only way we learn to choose. It's the only way we learn to distinguish the thoughts we want to think, from the ones that only add to our suffering. Your ability to choose is one of the greatest gifts you have been given, and I think that choosing your thoughts is the most important place you can exercise this incredible gift. And that my friends is 100% awesome!

I love you for listening and I'll see you next week. Thanks so much for joining me on the podcast today. If you want to take the things I've talked about and apply them in your life so that you can love your Earth life experience. Sign up for a free coaching session at aprilpricecoaching.com This is where the real magic happens and your life starts to change forever. As your coach. I'll show you that believing your life is 100% awesome is totally available to every one of us. The way things are is not the way things have to stay and that my friends is 100% awesome.