Episode 90: What’s in the Way of Changing Your Thoughts

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 thought you think. And that, my friends, is 100% awesome.

Hello, podcast Universe! Welcome to Episode 90 of the 100% Awesome Podcast, I am April Price, and I want to welcome you to the podcast. And thank you for letting me take up some space in your brain, and in your life. I am so grateful you are out there and, resonating with the things that I'm sharing here on the podcast. Can you believe that we are at 90 episodes? Which means obviously that we're almost at 100. And I thought it would be so fun to set the goal of getting 100 reviews for the podcast by the time I do 100 episodes. So, if you haven't left a review, I would love it if you would do that. If you are listening on Apple podcast, you can just scroll down to the bottom of the podcast where it says ratings, and reviews, and click on that little purple link that says Write a Review. You can just click that and, write a couple of sentences about why you love listening, and that would be seriously 100% awesome!

And I know David would love it, right? He keeps an eye on that thing, and then he comes home, and he shares it at the dinner table and so, it's fun for everybody. So, yeah, leave a review, that would be awesome. And for my Spotify listeners out there, don't worry I know you are out there. I know you love me, I know you love the podcast, and that you are leaving reviews in your heart. So, thank you!

2:03
Okay you guys, so today I want to talk to you about what I see as some of the biggest blocks to changing our thoughts. So, a lot of us who become aware of our thoughts, and become aware that many of our thoughts are not super helpful in our lives, not giving us the results we want, we decide, okay yeah I really want to change this thought. Then, as we go to do that, I find that there are a few common stumbling blocks, a few things that get in the way of us really being able to change our thoughts and, think something new. So, today I thought it might be really helpful to you to point out some of the things that I think might be getting in the way of changing your thoughts and, give you some strategies for moving past them so that you can change any thought you want.

Okay so, the first stumbling block, like the number one thing that I think is getting in the way of most people changing a thought they have is our judgment, our judgment for our thoughts. So, you have thoughts, and then you think, "Oh my gosh, that's terrible. I shouldn't think that. I can't believe that. I don't want anyone to know. I think that I don't even want to know that I think that, right?" And that we feel really judgmental of those thoughts, and so that we ignore them, or shove them down, or try to like, forget about them, or hurry quick, think something new, right? And then the thoughts never get examined. They never get questioned, and they just kind of go down into the soup of our brain, and they're still kind of creating results in our life.

Okay so, here's what I want you to know about, thoughts are not a reflection of you. They aren't even good or bad, they have no morality on their own. They are created by your brain. Your brain has learned things from its environment, from the media, from the movies, from books you read, from our families of origin, from church, from school, from our life experience. And it is assimilated all this data, all the various opinions we've ever heard, and thoughts that other people have had into thoughts of its own. And it's kind of like your brain is this open-source computer, it's got all kinds of software loaded on to it. And when things happen, our brain pulls a thought out, and it thinks that it might be useful in keeping us alive, and it presents it to us. And it's like, is this helpful, right? We're like, put that away, that is terrible. I mean, I must be terrible for even having that thought in my brain somewhere, right? Instead of just examining for what it is, just a thought, just a sentence, just a collection of words, not a defining statement on whether we are worthy, or unworthy, or a verdict of our goodness, or decent decencies.

5:00
Think about it like this is something my brain does, it's not me, it's just what my brain does. In order to change our thoughts, we first have to be able to dislodge the current thoughts. And the best way to do that is to take those thoughts out and, play with them. We want to bring them out into the light, and look closely at our thoughts, question it, poke holes in it, play with it. But we can't do that if we have judged the thought because we can't get close to it. We can't look at it if it embarrasses us, we can't play with it if it causes a shame.

Okay, so I want to give you an example of this. Let's just take a simple thought. Like, "I don't like her." Let's say we have this, I don't like her, and we're like, "Oh, my gosh, I can't think that that's terrible." If we stay there, then we can never examine the thought, and that thought just stays in there creating negative emotion for us. Every time we see this person, or think about this person, judgment doesn't get us anywhere. But instead, if we pull the thought out, we allow ourselves to see it for what it is, just a thought, then we can start to look at it and play with it. What don't I like? What bothers me about that, right? What if I loved this about this person? Even like, I know some people like her, I wonder what they think, right? We're just trying to play with the thoughts. Like if her likability is 100% what am I thinking that's preventing me from liking her? Okay, you can ask questions like how would things be different for me if I didn't want her to be any different? My point is we are just trying to play with the thought, and kind of pull it apart, we're looking at it from different angles. And the more we play with it, the more we see that it's just one thought, and that we could choose a million other ones in this moment.

Okay, so some of you have thoughts that create anxiety and then, you judge them, and you think I shouldn't have those, right? But if you stopped judging the thoughts creating anxiety, then you could start to change that. Get really curious about them, what am I thinking right now? What else is possible to think? Some of you have thoughts that create fear, I'm one of you people, and then you judge them, but we can't change them when we judge them. So, I like to tell myself it's totally okay that I'm thinking that. Let's just look at it.

Okay, so over the holidays, I noticed myself getting really huffy one day because of the thought that no one was helping me, that everybody just expected food to appear, and that I had to do it all. And for just a minute, I was really upset at myself for thinking this. I thought, okay this is ridiculous, you don't have to act like a martyr, you're ruining everything, you're throwing off the vibe of the whole holiday. And I judge myself for getting upset when I shouldn't have, right? Then I just said to myself, it's okay that I think it's all on me. It's okay that I'm getting huffy here, let's just look at it. Right now I think it's all on me, is that true? Is it all on me? No, actually, it's not true, I could ask for help any time I wanted, and the people around me would help, right? The truth is, I just wanted them to read my mind, okay? Then I would ask, like, what else is true? What else is true, is that I had made the long list of baking. I had made it all up, there are all these things that I wanted to bake, and nobody had made me, right? I wanted to do it, and I didn't have to do any of it, that's what else was true.

What else is true is that David arranged our whole ski vacation. Oh yeah, he bought all the passes, he arranged the condo, his schedule, the ice skating, he rented the ski equipment, right? And my brain was making up a whole story about how I had to do it all. But notice you guys, I can only gain traction, and change the thought, play with it if I'm first willing to look at it, and not be mad at myself for thinking it in the first place. Or we could see more accurately, not blaming myself, or thought that my brain offered me, okay? Remember, you are not your brain, stop giving yourself such a hard time for the things your brain tells you. Look at it, play with it, and when you've played enough, the thought just kind of disappears on its own. Like I didn't even have to have a new thought to think. Once I figured out that "it's all on my own" was just a lie that my brain was telling me, it all kind of just fell apart, and it was no longer a problem.

9:51
Okay, number two, the next thing that can get in our way of being able to change our thoughts, is not really, and truly, separating the facts from our thoughts. Or our circumstances, from our thoughts. Not really differentiating clearly to our brain what's a fact, and what's just a thought, right? Because remember, we can't change the facts, we can't change circumstances. But we can always change our thoughts. The problem becomes that our brain just mostly thinks our thoughts are facts, and just thinks our thoughts are true, and that ends up making them unchangeable. Okay, so I think it will be a little bit easier if I give you an example of this and then I can talk about it a little bit more.

So, a lot of my clients will say to me, "She's mean, or he's unkind, right?" Like it's a fact, but we can't prove mean, like there's not a blood test for being mean. Everybody has a different idea even of what mean actually means. And if another person is just like factually mean, then we can't do much about that, right? But if we recognize that "she is mean" is just a thought, that is just one interpretation of something someone did, or said, then we can start to find our leverage to be able to change things. Our power always is in the way we think about the facts. So, we have to differentiate between what's the point I'm thinking about, what's the actual facts, okay?

So, I once had a client who told me my mother-in-law doesn't respect me. She undermines me all the time. Like that was the fact that she's telling me the news, reporting the facts of the situation, that these weren't actually facts. They just my client's interpretation. So, I asked her to give me some facts and she said, well, my mother-in-law always gives my kids gifts. Every time we go to her house, she gives the kids things, right? And then, these things happen all over my house, and I hate it. And I've asked her not to, but she just doesn't respect me, and she undermines like my organization of my house, and she gives the kids stuff all the time, right? So, then together we separate it out. Oka, what is facts here, and what are the thoughts? What was actual fact, and what was just her own commentary about those facts? And when she was able to see that, and separate that, she was then also able to see that she had other options to think. So, if you're trying to change a thought, and it's not working, it might be because you aren't seeing it, really and truly as a thought, you're seeing it as a fact rather than your interpretation. When you see that it's just your interpretation, then you can suddenly see that your pain is being caused by that interpretation, and not by the things that your mother-in-law does.

12:53
I remember once I was talking to my coach and I was wanting to change my relationships in my family, right? And I told my coach I'm hard to live with, and I want to change that so bad. How do I change this? And she said, well, first we have to show your brain that "I'm hard to live with," is a thought, and not a fact. That is not a circumstance, that is your opinion. It's not a fact, we can't prove that you're hard to live with. And I was like, yes, I can. I can totally prove that, I have a lot of evidence of that, right? I do this, I say this, I don't do this, right? And she said, I know you have a lot of evidence of that thought, but that doesn't make that thought a fact, right? It's not a fact, because not everyone would agree with it. It's not like you have brown hair, and your five two, and you're hard to live with. The last part, there is an interpretation of your life. And as soon as you see it for what it is, a thought, the sooner then you can choose to think something else.

Okay, this distinction between what's a thought and what's a fact is one of the most important we can make, and here's a little clue to help you know. If it has emotion attached to it, it's most likely a thought. If the sentence produces feelings for you, then it's not a neutral circumstance, and you're dealing with a thought. Okay, so the other day I had a client who said I coddle my daughter, and then, she told me all the reasons why this was terrible, and how it was all her fault. And I said, "Okay, you told me you coddle your daughter." And she said, "Oh my gosh, we do." And I said, that's just a thought, you know? She's like, "No, you don't understand, we really do. We really do tiptoe around her and we don't expect things of her. We make excuses for her." And I explain that there is no universal understanding, or agreement on the word "coddle." We can't prove coddling. Codling to one person would be like outright neglect to another, believe it or not. But also, how she knows it's a thought, is that when she thinks "I coddle my daughter,” she feels that there's an emotion attached to it, which shows us it's a thought, and not a circumstance.

And remember why this is such an important distinction is that we can't change circumstances. Circumstances are like Coronavirus, you can't change that it's in the world. We can change thoughts. If codling is a fact, we can't change that. But if it's a thought, then we can play with it. Thoughts are where your agency is, that's where your power is. And if codling is a thought, and not a fact, then we can see, hey, just thinking this thought make us better parents. Is this thought useful to us? What do we do when we think we coddle? How do we show up in our parenting when we think this thought? So, that's when we can start to get some change in our life when we really recognize, okay this isn't a fact, it's just the thought, and the thought really isn't serving me. So, if you are having a hard time changing a thought, it might be because your brain doesn't truly see it as a thought. A really good tip off question is to ask yourself, would everyone agree with this? That can help us know that is just a thought.

16:25
Okay, the last thing that I want to talk about that gets in the way of changing our thoughts, is arguing with what is. Arguing with reality. So, a lot of us get stuck changing our thoughts because we think it means that we are accepting things as they are, and that just feels wrong to us, okay? So, I'm going to give you a difficult current event as an example, okay? So, bear with me. And I realize that I am jeopardizing my reviews right now talking about this, but I'm going to risk it. Okay, so let's go. Okay, so let's say that we watched the things happen at the Capitol last week when people tried to stop the ratification of the 2020 election. Okay, a lot of us watched that news coverage, and the destruction, and the injury and the death. And a lot of us had the thought that, that never should have happened, never should have happened, never should have been allowed to happen. And then we feel angry, or frustrated.

Now, there's no problem with that, we're allowed to think it should never happen, and we're allowed to be mad that it did work. It's totally fine if we're angry and frustrated, but if we want to feel better, thinking that it shouldn't have happened is going to be a problem thought, okay? Because it's arguing with reality, and as long as we think it shouldn't have happened, and it did happen, we're going to be frustrated. You're allowed to be frustrated if you want to. But let's just say for the sake of this podcast that you want to feel better, okay? We think that if we give up the thought it shouldn't have happened, then it's like we are accepting what has happened. It's like we're okay with it actually happening. And so many of us don't want to do that, right? We don't want to accept what has happened because then it seems like the world is going to go to pot, right? And it's only our mental, and emotional resistance to the madness that is holding the world together at this point, right?

So, what I want to show you is that acceptance of what has happened doesn't mean that things happen, or don't happen. Acceptance means we stop arguing with what already is. Acceptance is not the same as approval, okay? So, to change our thoughts, we first have to accept what is, we have to stop arguing with reality. We can't change our thoughts about a circumstance when we are resisting the existence of that circumstance. So, when things happen that I think they shouldn't have, I have to remind myself that I am powerless when I'm arguing with reality. I am powerless when I am resisting what is. The alternative to acceptance is resistance, and we just can't change anything when we judge it, and resist it, and wish it was different. So, instead, I like to frame it like this, this is a thing in the world, okay? That's it. This is just a thing in the world. And once I stop arguing with it, once I accept that it exists in the world like it does, then I can start to change my thoughts about it.

It shouldn't be this way, never allows us to play with the thought because we're just resisting that it even exists, right? We're like, no, no, it shouldn't be this way. And then, we can't play with our thought at all. So, this thing happened, now what? It did happen, now what? What are my thoughts then? I can play with those thoughts, and change them if I want to, or not. Like I said. Those options to change the thought, or not, only become available when I accept what is. Okay let me give you one more example. So, my husband is always on his phone. He's a hospital CEO, and he's a bishop. And every time I look over at him, he is on his phone. He's texting somebody else, and I think he shouldn't be. My brain offers me the thought, he shouldn't always be on his phone, right? Now, this thought causes me a lot of pain. I feel hurt, and abandoned, and ignored, and irritated every time I think it, okay? I'm not hurt, and abandoned, and irritated, and ignored, from him being on the phone, but from my thinking that he shouldn't be. That he shouldn't be on his phone, those thoughts that he shouldn't be on his phone all the time make me feel hurt, and irritated, and ignored.

21:07
But sometimes I think, well, if I just accept that he's on his phone, if I stop saying that he shouldn't be, then it's like I'm saying it's okay right? Then he'll be on his phone. I have news for you brain, he's on his phone. Like, we think it's going to change it somehow, right? My brain thinks accepting it will be agreeing, and that will be like condoning, and creating it even, okay? But notice the thought isn't preventing the thing happening, the thought is causing me pain. The thought that "it should be different," is causing my irritation and hurt. So, to feel better, I have to stop thinking it should be different than it is. And here's what I want you to see, giving up the painful thought that it shouldn't be this way, doesn't actually change. What if giving up the painful thought "that it shouldn't be this way," just allows me to feel better if I want?

Giving up the painful thought that it shouldn't have happened at the capital, doesn't change what happened that happened. Giving up the painful thought that it shouldn't have happened just allows you to feel better, and decide what do I want to think now, okay? David is on his phone, but now he's on his phone, and I can think about that any way I want. If I stop arguing that he shouldn't be, if I stop arguing that it should be different than it is, accepting doesn't mean he gets my stamp of approval, right? And that this is my ideal situation. Accepting it means this is a thing, and now I can decide what I want to think about it. He's on his phone, and I have the power to interpret that any way I want. Accepting doesn't mean people get to do whatever they want without consequence? Accepting means you get to stop hurting yourself with the thought that it should be different. It is a thing in the world, now what? It is now, what do I want to think about it, because I'm the one that has to feel the feelings.

I can feel hurt, and ignored if I want, or I can feel love, I'm the one that has to feel the feelings, but I have to accept what is, and stop resisting, and arguing with what is before I complete with my thoughts about it. Before I can figure out what else there is to think, and to feel. Okay, you guys, I hope that helps you. I know that this is not easy, and I know the things I've talked about today kind of stretched your brain, right? Like it's like I've never thought about it that way, right? But I want you to just know that if you can't seem to change a thought in the way that you want to, it's often because you're judging your thought, and that makes you unwilling to really examine it, and look at it and play with it, right? Because it's creating so much shame or you're thinking your thought is actually a fact, you aren't seeing it as optional. You aren't seeing it as like one possible interpretation, but instead, like you just like telling me the facts, okay?

Or finally, it might be because you are resisting what is, and kind of arguing that things should be different than they are. And we just can't change our thoughts when we are arguing with what actually is in the world. The very best skills that you can have as you go to change your thoughts is a willingness to be wrong, a willingness to play and examine, and even be amused by your thoughts. I can't tell you how many times I just laugh at my brain, okay? And if you pair that with a willingness to accept whatever thoughts your brain thinks, not judge those, and accept whatever is in the world, you will really be able to get some traction in changing your thoughts. The more open that you can be to all of that, the more ability you will have to change any thought your brain creates, which is going to change your earth life experience. And that, my friends, is 100% awesome! I love you for listening and I'll see you next week!

25:20
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 April Price coaching dotcom. This is where the real magic happens, and your life starts to change forever as your coach. I'll show you the believing your life is one hundred percent 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 one hundred percent awesome.