How to Loosen and Let Go of a Troubling Thought
Once people learn that their thoughts create their emotions, they are often in a hurry to change their thoughts so they can feel better. A good life coach will remind their client that it’s okay to feel negative emotion. When we’re in a hurry to feel better, we are unable to gain full awareness of how our beliefs affect our lives.
Many people say in the beginning of their coaching session something like, “I know my problem thought is such-and-such, so tell me what to think instead.” They’re in a hurry to get to the new idea and a more positive feeling. But being in a rush means we might skip some important steps. First of all, we want to allow the difficult emotions rather than push them away. It’s helpful to remember that painful emotions are uncomfortable but aren’t actually dangerous. When we resist them, they persist or even get bigger.
Another step we don’t want to overlook is interrogating the original thought. We must be aware of all our thoughts before we can loosen them. It’s important to remain neutral as we do this. When we tell ourselves we shouldn’t think something, it sends that belief into hiding.
We must be aware of all our thoughts before we can loosen them.
If you believe your husband doesn’t talk to you enough, you create frustration and sadness for yourself. But that’s okay; this is what humans do. There’s nothing wrong with believing that. It generates certain feelings that you may or may not want, but there is no value judgement on any thought.
We don’t want to resist emotions, and similarly, we don’t want to resist our thoughts. Bring them up into the light and don’t judge yourself for having them. We have a good reason for thinking whatever we are. That doesn’t mean we want to keep the notion, but it’s understandable that we have it. We can let our thoughts come to the surface, take a look at them, be curious about and interested in them. It’s useful to shine a light in the corners that we’d rather not look at. Thoughts are not bad or good, positive or negative. They just are.
Gaining full awareness of our thoughts and their effects is crucial to releasing them. Even long-term coaching clients fall into the trap of believing that something outside of them causes their feelings. Most people are in the habit of attributing emotions to external events, so we continually look out for that mistake. One way to know that we still blame the circumstances for our feelings is when we try to think a positive thought about a negative circumstance.
For example, I listened to a woman named Shelly on a coaching call. She explained that her mom was kind and outgoing when outside the home, but at home with her children she was cold and distant. Shelly described how strict her mom was, making them keep the home perfect and always dressing them a certain way (in clothes she chose) to keep up their image.
Shelly was convinced that her mom didn’t care about her or her siblings as much as her mom cared about outward appearances and what other people thought of them. Shelly felt guilty for thinking this way and wanted to change her thoughts. She wanted to love her mom and believe that her mom did care about and love her. She asked Jody to help her find a replacement idea so that she could feel better.
Jody replied that we can’t be in a hurry to change the thought because then we lose access to our thinking and will only get superficial improvements. Jody wanted Shelly to stay with the original idea for a moment. Jody asked, “How do you feel when you think the thought, ‘My mom didn’t care about me as much as she did about how we looked’?” Shelly started to tear up and replied that she felt sad. She said she wished her mom had loved her more. Jody asked why she was sad about that, was it because Shelly thinks her mom should’ve been different?
Shelly nodded and said, “Yes, I believe she should’ve been more loving.”
“Okay,” Jody said, “and how does that thought feel?”
“Bad. Horrible, in fact, because we can’t go back and change her. There’s nothing we can do about it.”
Jody agreed and then asked, “Why do you think your mom acted like that?” Shelly said her mom was probably insecure and wanted others to approve of her. Jody nodded and said, “And we can understand that, right? Everyone is doing the best they can. Your mom had a lot of fear, and she was acting from that a lot of times in her parenting.”
Shelly said, “I know. She did the best she could. I should not feel so negative toward her.” Jody replied that it’s fine to feel however she feels.
Jody reminded Shelly that she had good reason for her thinking and that she shouldn’t judge her thoughts, or they will go back into hiding. She can be curious and interested in them. She can say, “Huh, my brain made a conclusion from the facts of my childhood. The assessment was that my mother didn’t care about me as much as about other people’s opinions of her. That’s interesting. Our minds sure come up with fascinating opinions.”
We try to separate ourselves from our beliefs and look at them as if they were someone else’s, or as if they were piled on a tray out in front of us. We tease the strands of the thoughts and beliefs apart until we can see that they were just made-up stories.
Once we truly know that our notions produced our feelings and not our circumstances, then we understand that the circumstance was genuinely neutral. When we sincerely know that we made up a narrative about a neutral circumstance, then our mind will simply discard the story and create something less hurtful.
Jody says keeping a firm grip on the tale your brain developed is like holding on to a cactus. Once you show your brain that it’s a cactus you’re squeezing, it will simply let go of it. You don’t need to work to replace the thought with a new one. The mind will naturally let go of the painful one. The only way to get that full understanding is by letting all the thoughts come up, even the ones we’re embarrassed about or think say something bad about us.
Once you show your brain that it’s a cactus you’re squeezing, it will simply let go of it.
Sometimes we worry that the thoughts we struggle to get rid of are part of who we are. We get the idea that we’re negative or bad people and resist shining light on our ideas because we’re ashamed of them. Part of the awareness process is knowing that your thoughts are not you; they are not true (or untrue, they just are), and they are not stuck. They feel that way sometimes, but the more we play with them, question them, and interrogate them, the looser they will get.
Shelly said to Jody, “I know my mom was doing the best she could.”
Jody said, “That’s true, but be careful that you’re not trying to keep the circumstance negative. If you’re saying, ‘This was a bad part of my childhood, but my mom couldn’t help it’ — that means you still believe the circumstance was negative, not neutral. What if this was the childhood you were supposed to have? What if you learned lessons from this scenario that you couldn’t have learned otherwise? It is an option to think that, even if you don’t know the lessons yet. Things don’t go perfect for anyone; they’re not ‘supposed to.’ There are situations that we deem as difficult, wrong, or bad, but maybe we don’t know. Maybe that’s how life is supposed to be.”
Jody continued, “Don’t be in a hurry to feel better. Examine your thought ‘She didn’t care about me as much as she did about others’ opinions.’ Let it sit for a while so you can get to know it. Get to know the feeling it creates; allow that emotion and process it through your body. Acknowledge that you had good reasons for coming up with this conclusion, but that it’s not serving you anymore.”
Jody encouraged Shelly to gain additional awareness by putting her situation into a Model. Here’s how that would look:
C: How my mom acted when I was younger
T: She didn’t care about me as much as she did about others’ opinions
F: Frustration, sadness
A: Think about how bad she was, tell others how bad she was
R: I’m not caring about her or me.
Lastly, Jody offered this: “To examine the thought further, for a moment let it be true that she didn’t care as much about you as about other people and their opinions. That’s what your brain is afraid of, right? That it’s true? What if it is? Can we understand why she felt that way? It’s hard as humans to not care what others think. She was insecure and trying to win other people’s approval. We all do that at times.”
Shelly seemed calmer after discussing her problem with Jody. She saw that she could have more compassion for her mom — and for herself. She didn’t need to judge herself for her thoughts or be in a hurry to change them. She now knew how to sort through them and inspect them.
This is how we loosen and let go of a troubling thought. Similar to how we naturally push away a negative emotion, we sometimes resist our thoughts. When we judge them or think they reflect badly on us, then we don’t want to examine them. All our thoughts are okay, though. It’s important to not be in a hurry and gloss over them. Allow them to come up to the light. As we tease through them, we recognize how they affect us and then we can decide consciously whether we want to keep them. This is how we show our brain that it created a painful story — and that we have the option to let go of it if we want to.
Try this on: “There are situations that we deem as difficult, wrong, or bad, but maybe we don’t know. Maybe that’s how life is supposed to be.”
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