Episode 75: Ask April

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 75 of the 100% Awesome Podcast. The jubilee podcast as my dad would say. I am April Price, and I am seriously so excited about today's episode. Today, I am featuring you my amazing, awesome, brilliant, beloved listeners. Gosh I love you guys today. This episode is all about you, and answering your questions, and not only do I get a chance to help some of you with ways to think about your specific circumstance, but it's also been a chance to see where you might be struggling with applying the things that I've shared here on the podcast, and fill in the gaps a little bit.

So, this is awesome, and I had so much fun doing it. I think I might try to do it more often actually. But before we get to those questions I wanted to let you know that right now in my coaching practice I have filled all my one-on-one coaching spots. Actually, I have overfilled them, and David is always joking with me that I went from being fully booked, to being overbooked without even being aware of it. And so, I started a wait-list for those of you that would like to coach with me one-on-one. So you can sign up any time for a free coaching consultation to be able to get some immediate help. And then I can kind of give you a timeframe for when the next spots in my one-on-one coaching open up. But I have also decided to start a very limited small group coaching program, which will allow me to coach more of you sooner, but also keep it really small so that we have the power of an intimate, personal coaching experience. And so, I'm super excited about this! I think the small group setting will be amazing for those of you who don't want to wait to start coaching, and be able to change your life. And in this setting not only will you be able to be personally coached really often, you will also be able to hear other people get coached, which will give you some monumental shifts in your own thinking.

Some of the very best coaching I've ever gotten was when I was watching other people get coached, because it revealed myself to me, revealed my thinking to me, in ways that my brain was hiding from me, and resisting. And watching other people get coached shows me so often my blind spots. So, I think it's really powerful, and I'm excited to be able to offer that to you. So, my group coaching program is going to start in November, and if you want to get more details on that you just need to get on my email list. I'm gonna be rolling out all those details, how to sign up, how to get one of these spots, all of those details, and I'll be sending all that information out to my email list in the next few weeks. So if you're interested and you want to get a spot follow the link in the show notes to get on my email list, or you can text the word awesome to 6 6 8 6 6. In fact, you should probably do that right now, before you forget, just if you're listening to on your phone. Just text the word awesome to 6 6 8 6 6, and I will put you on my list.

3:24
Okay, on to your questions, on to the best part! So, let me just say at the outset that I love you guys, I am so grateful for your trust in me, and for the amazing relationship that we have here on the podcast. I feel really lucky to be doing this. Okay, so the first question today came from Angi.

"Hi April. My name is Angi and I've been listening to your podcast since January. You've talked a lot about how life changing it was to realize that it was okay to allow your daughter to be sad. I often find myself telling my kids, “Just be happy,” because I feel like I will be happy if everyone else is happy. But
it has turned my children into children that bury their emotions. Or don't want to talk about their feelings and opinions because they think Mom will get upset that they are not happy. They're also scared to disagree with me because I've made them feel like their opinions aren't valid. How can I learn to do what you did with your daughter? How do I respect their right to have emotions and voice their opinions?"

Okay, so first of all Angi, I love what you said there about the reason you want everyone to be happy, right? The reason you want everyone to be happy is because it seems like that's the easiest way for you to be happy. Your brain just thinks this is the case, right? It makes sense because your brain, like all of our brains, thinks that your happiness is created outside of you. It thinks that your feelings come, and go based on what's happening outside of you, in this case, based on what the people in your family, outside of you, are feeling. And when we think that our feelings are based on how other people feel, that leaves us feeling super powerless, and vulnerable, and a little bit controlling. Like, imagine if our feelings could go up, and down with other people's feelings, then we would have to control how they were feeling whenever we wanted to feel good, right?

So, like if this was the case, if other people's feelings created your feelings, then I would be totally with you in trying to control your children, and make them happy. This is actually exactly what happened to me too. When I thought my daughter's sadness created mine, then I wanted to control her, I wanted her to be different so that I could feel better. But all we have to remember is that other people, and other people's emotions, never create ours. Your emotions are always created by your thoughts, never by anything outside of you. Not by other people's emotional state, or the things they do, or anything else.

So, the first step in allowing other people to have emotions is to recognize this truth. Your children's emotions don't create your emotions, your emotions are always created by your thoughts. But we don't really always notice that, right? It happens so quickly we don't even notice it when you see your children are happy, your brain is actually giving you a thought, "Everybody's okay, everything is as it should be." And these thoughts that "everybody's okay" are what is creating the happiness inside of you. And that process is almost so instantaneous, between our thoughts, and our feelings, that we don't even notice that the thought was there But, the thought always comes first, otherwise you lose your agency to your children, right? So, this means that if you want to feel happy, you don't have to control anyone but you.

Okay, second I want to show you what I mean when I say my daughter was supposed to be sad. She was supposed to be sad because she was having thoughts that created sad inside of her. And as a child of God she has the right to choose to think any thoughts she wants. She gets to choose thoughts that make her sad, and when she does that it's going to create that feeling inside of her. And so, if she chooses certain thoughts, in fact, she is supposed to be sad. When I was thinking she shouldn't be sad, I was in a way trying to usurp her power to choose her thoughts, and luckily that never works, right? I can't ever take away her power to choose. No matter how frustrated I get, no matter how much I argue with her, or argue in my mind that she should feel differently. She is choosing sad, and I am choosing frustrated with the thought that she should be choosing something else. It is always your children's right to choose, and we call it allowing, right? We're allowing them to be sad, but really there's no allowing in it, they just get to do it. Whether or not we allow it. And where we can drop our superiority, a judgment that they should be choosing something different than they are, we release ourselves from that frustrated place. You can access so much peace, and love when you can recognize that you don't ever get to allow anything. They always have the right to choose. Your power, to choose and control things begins and ends with you, with what you think, with what you feel, and what you do.

8:13
So, how do you respect their right to feel and have opinions? You remember that your emotions are created by your thoughts and not theirs. Your happiness is created by the way you think about things, not by their experience. And then, you accept their right to choose their own experience. Finally, I love knowing that it is never anyone else's job to make you feel anything. When I released my daughter from doing this job of controlling my happiness our relationship immediately improved. It was miraculous, right? All I did was understand that she could be sad, and I didn't have to be that she was not in charge of my emotions, and it was never her job to make me feel anything. This released the pressure on her, and it removed my need to control her, and her choices. Okay, so I hope that helps you Angi, and can I add a little P.S. I hear a little bit of judgment for yourself as a mother, and the way that you did it, right? That maybe you should have done it differently. And I just want to say that you are the perfect mother for your children. In all the ways that you are amazing, and in all the ways that you make it harder for them, you are exactly as you need to be for them. For the experiences they need. Which is not to say you can't do it differently if you want to feel differently, but you don't have to be mad at yourself for any of it. Okay, I hope that helps you, if you want more help come get some coaching.

Okay, the next question this question comes from one of my amazing clients.

"April. Oh my gosh. This is the most amazing idea. I seriously love you." "So like as you know I've been interning for almost a year now with a company and I've been coaching since May and I am specializing in maternal trauma and divorce and post-divorce support. It's been incredible. I just I love helping women who have experienced the same things that I have." "I would love to hear your thoughts about those circumstances where things are more extreme and where there's more trauma involved." 

I get a lot of women who are in this place and they feel like, you know, “This shouldn't have happened to me. I should've never been treated this way. And I should have been able to trust him” and that thought tornado. And there's just so much energy spent in the minds of others during this time. Like when you're going through divorce you just spend so much time worrying about what other people think what your ex thinks. It's just, it's crazy. It's exhausting was what it is.”

I mean I remember my big hang up with the in-law family. And you completely changed my perspective when you said to me like, “What if they behaved exactly as they were supposed to?” And I remember feeling kind of mad at first like, “No, April they’re not.” But like as I understood more about the model and how they actually did do exactly as they were supposed to based on their own thinking and feeling, like it completely freed me and I took control back of my own thoughts and feelings and was able to totally move forward. And I so I want these women who are in these extremely difficult circumstances to not only hear that they're not alone, but that they don't need to feel shame, and that they can act as agents who choose. And that they will have and receive power to move forward." "So, I would love to hear you speak about the idea of moving forward from trauma and divorce. And you know, this is hard because there has to be a lot of time to heal from the negative. But anyways, those are my thoughts. I would love to hear yours on this."

14:08
Okay, so this question deserves its very own podcast, and I am definitely going to do that in the near future, but in the meantime let me offer you a few thoughts. So, first of all when we talk about moving on from anything really, right? From divorce, and betrayal, and trauma, but really any trauma, there is an unspoken thought that where we are is bad, and where we are going is better. That where we are right now is undesirable, and we need to get unstuck, and out of here, and move forward to the place where it's happy, or at least the place where it will feel better. So, after a betrayal, or a divorce, or trauma, there is more pain in our life. There are more negative emotions being experienced, but when we don't like where we are, we think we should be somewhere else, somewhere where it hurts less. We are inadvertently adding a layer of resistance to an already painful experience. And it's counter intuitive as it feels we need to accept that we are exactly where we need to be, and allow the pain, without arguing, with it without wanting to change it, or fix it, or heal it, or be able to move on. Because then we can just be sad, or devastated, or hurt, or wounded, or anxious, or lonely, or heartbroken without also judging ourselves for thinking it should be different. Or we should be feeling differently, or blaming the person that we think created our pain.

So, in moments like this we all have pain, right? And because we think we shouldn't, we look around for someone to blame. Maybe it's the other person, maybe it's ourselves, maybe we blame God, but that is because we think we shouldn't be in pain, when in fact we should. We have lots of thoughts that we didn't have before the betrayal, or the trauma, or the loss, and those thoughts should cause pain. We don't have to solve for that, we shouldn't feel happy about this, we are supposed to be in pain. It is the experience we are having, and it shouldn't be any different. You shouldn't not feel pain, you shouldn't be somewhere else in the process than exactly where you are now. Okay, so that's first.

The second thing I want to offer is that one of the hardest parts about this experience is the shock, right? When the things that we were certain of become uncertain, and the uncertainty that we suddenly become aware of is alarming to our brains, right? It's like we thought we knew where the floor was, and now it just feels like we're falling. There's no floor. We just keep falling, and falling, and there is no certainty. So, when the things you thought were certain are no longer certain, it feels very unsettling. Remember our brain always wants to think it's right, it always wants to think it knows how things are going to happen, and suddenly it's confronted with the reality that it doesn't know what's going to happen. And then, it was not right about the most fundamental parts of our life, and our brain then is sure that we are in life threatening danger, right? The alarm bells are just going off. And what has happened is that your brain has become suddenly aware of how little it controls, and how wrong it is about the certainty of life.

It is suddenly aware of how vulnerable it is. And so, it is on hyper-speed sending you thoughts, it's like on super red alert. You described it as a tornado of thoughts, your brain is trying to keep you alive, and everything looks like a threat, and that is okay. I want you to be compassionate with yourself. It might be helpful to remind yourself that there was never any certainty when you experienced betrayal, or trauma, or divorce, you sort of feel like your life is never going to be the same. But it was never going to be any other way. You just thought it was. You actually haven't lost anything, because what you thought was going to be, never was. Our life is always changing in ways we can't predict, and so instead of trying to recreate certainty for yourself, and trying to control things, and make everything the same, and go back to some kind of certainty. There is an opportunity here, to accept the uncertainty of everything outside of you, and tap into the certainty that is always inside of you. That you can handle whatever comes.

You always have that. You have everything inside of you to process your emotions, and experience your Earth-life as it is. You were made for this, and you cannot fail. This is a chance to tap into your only source of certainty, which is that you always get to control 100% what you think, what you feel, what you do, and no one can ever take that away from you. And then, after that I think the most helpful thing to remember is what Byron Katie calls the three types of business. "There's God's business, there's other people's business, and there's your business." When we feel frustrated, and a loss of control, it's because we're often in someone else's business, right? We're either in God's business, or we're in other people's business. We feel frustrated, and powerless when we think our life should be different, or the other people should be different, that they should act different, and say things differently. They should think differently. They should keep their commitments, and their covenants, they should be kind. They should love us. All of this is other people's business.

16:45
When we think our life was supposed to be different, or that we shouldn't have pain, or our children shouldn't have pain, then we're in God's business. Choice and pain were part of his plan. Where we get our power and, our peace is by returning to our business. What I think, what I feel, what I do, no amount of thinking things should be different, or arguing with reality, or with our pain, or with the choices that other people make, ever changes those things. It only changes us, and that's okay, right? Be compassionate with yourself. But also remember that being kind to yourself means giving yourself jobs that you can do, and the job of controlling other people, or controlling the curriculum of your life from the pain in your life is a job you just can't do. It's not your job. And so, being kind to yourself means acknowledging that your only job ever, is to decide what you want to think, what you want to feel, what you want to do, your business. Okay, I hope that will help all of you who are in any part of this circumstance. You don't have to move on. You just get to open up to what is.

Okay the next question comes from Donna.

"Hello April. Thank you so much for the opportunity to do this. I was wondering if you could share how you personally tackled believing new thoughts. I know in theory you say to practice, practice, and then practice some more. But I was curious as to how you actually go about doing that. I feel like there are so many I need to practice. I don't even know where to start. There may be a situation that arises and then after the fact I think, “Gosh, I wish I would have remembered that thought. I look forward to hearing your advice. On a side note I love your podcast and adore your sense of humor so much shame on Spotify for not allowing users to leave reviews. I look forward to hearing from you. Thanks again, April."

Okay, thank you so much Donna, you are awesome! The first thing that I would say is that we have more than sixty-thousand thoughts a day. So, when you say you feel like you have so many to practice, the truth is we are never going to think sixty-thousand perfect thoughts a day. I want you to think about your brain as like this constant production line of sentences. Stuff is happening in your life, and your brain is analyzing it, judging it, checking it for danger, and offering you sentences. Thousands of sentences a day, all with the sole purpose of keeping you alive. And when we do thought work we aren't trying to control that process that our brain is doing. Practicing means that if we have a thought that we notice is not giving us a result we want. Practicing means that every time that old thought comes up, we can redirect the brain to a new one, until that redirection happens more automatically.

19:39
It's not that the instinctive thought isn't going to arise, it's just that your brain gets used to making the redirect to the new thought. Okay so, for example when something happens that my brain thinks is negative, right? Like when my daughter got thrown in jail in China, I had practice believing the thought, "Everything happens for me," so often that even though my brain that morning said, "Okay she might die, she might be in danger." It almost immediately redirected to the thought, "Everything happens for me. Everything happens for us."

So, what does this look like for you on a practical level? I think first is to become aware of what we are thinking, what thought comes up for you a lot? What is a thought that your brain is always offering you, and it's producing a feeling, and a result that you don't love? Okay, so for example I had a thought all through September that said, "I don't know how to keep building my business, right? I only have so many hours a day that I can coach, and I don't know how to keep building now that I'm full." So, this thought makes me feel confused, and then I don't do anything in my business, and my business stays the same. So first, I become aware of what I'm thinking. I'm thinking, "I don't know how to build my business from here." Now Donna, I don't know what your thought will be, but find one that comes up a lot for you. What does your brain offer you a lot? Put some awareness on your thoughts, and notice the sentences your brain offers you the most often, and just pick one. There is no wrong place to start, because every thought you choose on purpose is going to make a difference in your life. In fact, I can boil the most impactful thoughts on my life down to just a handful of them.

So just pick one, and then we go to work questioning that thought. So, in my case when I have the thought, "I don't know how to build my business from here," and then ask, why am I choosing to think that? Well, because doing something new is scary. My brain thinks, I might do it wrong, and I might fail. My brain thinks that would mean death. Then I can ask other questions. What would I do if I didn't have this thought? If I couldn't think this thought, if this thought was unavailable to me, then what would I do? Well, then I would try something out, I would think I did know, or I would think I can figure it out.

Another question is what if I'm wrong about this? What if I do know? Another question is what would the me a year from now think about this thought? So, we're just questioning it to show our brain that we don't have to think in this way, right? That there are other options. So, after you've picked a thought that you want to work on, questioned the thought, why am I choosing to think this? If this thought wasn't available what would be different? Is it true? What if I'm wrong about this? You just question it, and notice it's totally optional to think something else. And then, I decide a thought I want to think instead. In this case, I chose, "I always figure it out." And every time my brain says, we don't know how, I redirect to, I always figure it out. The brain is going to keep offering its sentence, and then I purposely think mine. The brain offers its sentence, then I purposely think mine, until it becomes almost automatic. And when the brain offers, I don't know, I almost don't have to think about it.

22:50
So, when you first think that new thought, it's going to feel a little bit untrue, it's going gonna feel a little strange, but it's only because you don't have practice thinking it. The thought, "Everything happens for us," is so natural to me now I've practiced it so long, it feels 100% true to me, and my body. So just keep at it. I really like to focus on one thought, or one set of thoughts at a time, and just know that if your brain offers you the old thought it's not because you haven't practiced it enough, right? The brain is always going to give you its survival sentences by default, but you can train it to redirect quickly to what you want to think every time the thought comes up. Okay so, I hope that helps you.

Okay, the next question comes from Amy.

Hi April. I love you. Thank you for doing this. Okay, so my question is I'm having trouble exploring a thought because I'm afraid to write it down because it's “bad.” So, my circumstance is that my ex-husband had an extra-marital affair. And so sometimes my thought is, “Well, my husband now, he probably will too.” Even though I have nothing to back that up. And then I feel like, “Okay, I want to explore this.” But I just, like to write that down, I feel like it's so bad to write that down and I don't. So, I don't want to. So, I avoid it. And then I just stay in this loop. Anyway, so that's my question. Thanks for doing this. I love you. You're awesome. Thanks.

Okay, hi Amy, I love you too. So, first for everyone, you might be wondering, wait a minute, I'm supposed to be writing my thoughts down? Why does that matter? So, the biggest reason that we write our thoughts down is that when they're just up in our heads, they feel true. They feel more true, because as our brain is thinking them they're creating feelings inside of us, which makes the thought feel true. So, we want to get the thoughts out of our head. It's kind of like if we try to change the programming for a computer, while we are using the computer. Or trying to clean a spoon when it's sitting in the cereal. It's just really hard to separate it all out, and question if the thought is true when we're still thinking it, and feeling the feelings it's creating.

24:59
So, the best thing to do is to get all your thoughts out on paper to give yourself five or ten minutes to just put everything in your head on paper. This alone, just the act of getting the thoughts out of your head onto paper will make you feel better. I promise you. I do this every single morning. I wake up immediately, I feel shame, I feel terrible about me, and about the world, and about my business, and about my capability, and I just put it all on paper. And I get immediate relief from the feelings of dread, and doom, and shame that these thoughts create. Because as soon as I put the thoughts on paper they seem way more innocuous, and ridiculous, and a whole lot less true. I sometimes will go back, and reread what I've written, and like seriously laugh out loud, because the other thing you'll start to see if you do this exercise regularly, is that your brain is not creative at all, right? It like offers me the same thoughts almost every morning.

So, just for fun I was going to go back, and read you some of my downloads. So, I went back and looked through my notebook, and they were like seriously the same in March as they were in July as they were today, right? And they are not worth reading to you, but they are all about how I saw, how the world sucks, how David sucks, how my business is, right?

All right, so, now we've come to your part of the question. Amy what do we do when we don't want to do it? When we don't want to look at the thoughts, and put them on paper? You said you feel like it's so bad you don't want to write them down, so notice when we think the thought is bad, and we are ashamed of it in some way, it's because we think we shouldn't be thinking the thought at all. But no thought, no thought is good or bad, they're just sentences offered to you by your brain. Sentences that your brain thinks will be helpful for your survival, period. In this case, your brain thinks the thought, or the sentence that, your husband might cheat on you, is super helpful. He thinks it's important that you not get rejected from the tribe, because if you do, you won't have food, or protection, or shelter, and your survival will be at risk. So, it offers you the thought he might cheat, but it's not bad, it's just an option that your brain has offered you when you think it. It creates a feeling. Maybe it creates anxiety, or fear, and then we act from anxiety, or fear.

27:17
Now, when we don't want to write the thought down in question it just stays up there in your head, creating the feelings, sending the signal for anxiety, and it just stays unquestioned. But when we know that no thought in and of itself is good, or bad, but it's just a sentence created by our primitive brain who like sends it up to us in case it might help us, there is no harm in dumping it all out, and looking at it. Would you write it down as a sentence given to you by your brain, and not as a reflection of who you are? What you really think? Then we can question it. We just look at the sentence on paper, and ask ourselves, "Is it true, my husband might cheat on me?" Yes, it's true. He might say, but what else is true? He might not if you couldn't think this thought that he might cheat. How would things be different for you? How does thinking this thought change you and your life? Why does my brain think this thought is important? What do I want to believe instead? What do I want to believe about my husband and what do I want to believe about me?

When we can just see our thoughts as words on a page, rather than this like shameful, scary, bad idea hiding inside of us, creating anxious feelings, then we can see those words for what they are, just words arranged in a sentence all made up by the brain. Good, not bad, just words and I get to look at them, and decide whether or not I want to believe them, and think them, or if I just want to let them go, and believe something else. When you don't think of your thoughts as good, or bad, just words arranged into sentences by your primitive, survival brain, you won't have any trouble looking at them. You'll want to look at what your brain has created so that you can decide on purpose, if you really want it to be in there generating feelings, and driving your actions. Okay, I hope that helps!

Okay, the last question today comes from Victoria.

"Hey, April. I just wanted to hop on here and share with you my question. I'm really excited for this podcast. So, I have thoughts that I want to change, but in the busyness of everything, of everyday life I forget to redirect my thoughts during the day or during different instances or experiences." And
I understand how the model works and how to start to change my thoughts, but I'm getting stuck on actually implementing the change. So, I was just wondering, how do you start the habit of continuously redirecting your thoughts to the new thought that you want to make? So, I look forward to hearing your answer. Thanks!"

Hi Victoria, you are so awesome! So, this question is similar to Donna's right, but I want to give you a couple of other thoughts to help you. So, remember that thought work really is a process, and it's going to happen over a lifetime as long as your brain is functioning. We aren't ever going to arrive at a place where our brains lose their survival instincts, and stop offering us thoughts, and sentences about everything that has gone wrong, right? I was talking to a client the other day about how I think this is what the scriptures are talking about when they say, "Endure to the end." Right? Like you just have to keep choosing. You don't get to just choose once, and then have your brain behave. What we are doing as living breathing humans is choosing. Thought, after thought, after thought, as long as we are alive. And I think what helps us make that choice, in ways that benefit us, is awareness. And one of the most powerful things we can be aware of is that choice is happening in the thought line of our lives.

30:51
And so, if awareness is the key to making these choices about our thoughts, then the model can be an incredible tool that gives us that awareness. But it is just a tool, please don't think that I live my life thinking in models, right? Or that you need to walk around doing that too. The model is just a tool to explore what you are thinking, the choice you are making, and the results that choice is giving you. It's a tool that I use to remind myself that there is always a space between my circumstances, or the things that are happening in my life, and my feelings. And that space is my thought, the model reveals that thought to me. And for the most part when we use the model, or when I use the model, I do so after the fact. To analyze, and learn, and show myself over, and over, and over again, where my moment of choice was, right? How I am always creating my feelings, and where my control is. And of course doing models can also help us decide other possible thoughts that we want to think moving forward. But in my real life, as my life is happening, I'm never running models about what I'm thinking.

In real life, I think we get the most traction by simply feeling our feelings, not judging ourselves, and then watching ourselves think. So, let me give you a little example of this, a couple of years ago I had a conflict in my life with someone I loved, and I always felt really defensive, and irritated around them. And I did a lot of thought work with my coach to think new thoughts about them. I practice these thoughts, and these thoughts as I practice them change my feelings and it felt really great. And then, we were gonna go to this event where this person was gonna be there, and I was like, "Oh my gosh this is gonna be awesome, right? I'm not going to be defensive, or irritated, I'm going to feel amazing. I'm going to feel love." Well, I got there, and immediately I felt defensive, and irritated, right? And I was so mad at myself, I knew that I was creating defensive, and irritated. I knew I was thinking thoughts making me defensive, and irritated. And I told myself I shouldn't be, I told myself I was doing it wrong, and that I was a bad person, and why couldn't I just think good thoughts, and get my life together. And the more I judged myself, and told myself I was bad, the less I could access the thoughts that I had practiced.

So, I went back I told my coach it didn't work, right? I thought I would feel love, and instead I felt defensive, and irritated, and I couldn't even remember the thoughts that we practiced, and I just can't think nice things I'm a terrible person, and this isn't working. And she said the problem was that you thought you shouldn't get defensive, and irritated. You didn't want to feel irritated. She's like go back, try it again, this time expect yourself to get defensive, and irritated. Allow yourself to feel irritated in your body, and then watch yourself do it without judgment. Be fascinated by your own reaction, be so so curious about what your brain is doing. And so, I went back, and this time I wasn't expecting anything, but I've just committed to watching my brain, right? I was like I can feel anything I want, I'm just gonna watch my brain and this time, when I got defensive, and irritated, I just watched. I said, "Wow, watch me getting irritated isn't that interesting that my brain finds her words so threating."

34:15
Notice how dangerous my brain thinks it is that she does it that way, and I just watched myself. I watched my brain get upset. I watched my brain identify danger, after danger, and I just got fascinated by its reaction to her. If irritation rose up inside of me, I allowed it to be there, and I just got so interested with why wondering why my brain thinks this is such a problem. And as soon as I allowed it, and just watched it, all the other new thoughts that I had practiced thinking, surfaced. Because I wasn't resisting my brain's reaction, I was just watching it. And so, then there was space for the replacement thoughts to arise, and I could think I love her and there's nothing she can do about it. She's totally allowed to be wrong about me, and all the other thoughts that I had practiced with my coach. It was amazing, and it changed the relationship. So, I hope that helps you in your regular daily life. Your job is just to feel, and watch. Feel your feelings, and watch your brain think thoughts. Allow those feelings to be there.

They don't mean that you are bad, they don't even mean that the thoughts are bad, they just mean that your brain thought you might be in danger, and that this sentence might help you. Fascinating, right? And if you could just open up to your feelings and allow them to be in your body, and then just watch your brain think thoughts without judgment, all the other thoughts you have practice doing in your models will surface for you.

Okay you guys, I hope you enjoyed that! I certainly did! I hope it helps you remember that you are always the creator of your experience. Your thoughts always create your feelings, and the more awareness we can have of that, without judging ourselves, but just accepting that our brain has offered us a thought, and that that's totally okay, the more power we will have to be able to think something else. 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!