You Can Think However You Want About That Circumstance
The more you study and practice mind management, the more you will be amazed at the power of thought. You will be equally astonished to realize that you can think about circumstances in your life however you want (see Impossible Thoughts). Many people believe there’s truth and there’s myth — one statement is correct, and its opposite is incorrect. This kind of black-and-white reasoning limits their capacity to accommodate new information or novel situations.
A parent whose child is getting bad grades might say, “I can’t think ‘It’s okay for kids to fail’ because that is not true. It’s not okay.” (Notice how the scenario went from getting bad grades to “failing” — this is what our minds do. They like to juice up the story.) It’s as if the parent believes there are thought police that might fine them if they adopt an inaccurate belief.
There are no thought police. You’re allowed to have any perspective you want. What ideas you choose will determine the quality of your life. People have a lot of default notions that they’ve never questioned and that are generating hardships in their lives. Recognizing that your ability to reassess your perceptions empowers you to build the life you want.
Here’s the truth: It’s only a problem if you believe it’s a problem. If you have resistance to that statement, interrogate that. Consider different experiences and question your determination that they are “problems.” That is a made-up idea. An example of this is how we talk about first-world problems. We know that in a different environment, a person would not be complaining about this dilemma.
It’s only a problem if you believe it’s a problem.
If you embrace that everything happens as it is supposed to and if you are adept at accepting reality and working within it, you will accept the idea that there are no problems. There’s only our perspective — our interpretation of neutral events.
When my kids got older and required less care, my brain offered me the thought, “My life has lost meaning.” I pondered how empty my days were and decided that if I’d had a career, then I would have a meaningful life, even at this stage of parenting. After a few days of feeling despondent, I saw the trick my mind was playing on me. I contemplated what my coach might say if I brought this difficulty to her. She would ask me, “Who decides what a meaningful life is?” Of course, the answer is me.
I realized that many people aren’t passionate about their careers. People commonly dislike their jobs and certainly don’t believe their work gives their life meaning. My brain was telling me that if I had this thing I wanted, I would be completely happy and fulfilled. Once I identified that sales pitch, I knew to discard it.
This reminds me of a statement by Daniel Kahneman, the Economic Nobel Prize-winning psychologist: “Nothing in life is as important as you think it is while you are thinking about it.” In his book, Thinking, Fast and Slow, he explains that our mind often tells us something will be extremely great (or extremely horrible) if it happens, and this simply isn’t true. We have a moment of joy (or pain) from the event, and then we go back to our happiness setpoint.
Research shows that this happens with lottery winners and car accident survivors alike. We would assume our baseline emotional state would change significantly when these intense circumstances happen. But it turns out they don’t. There is a temporary blip of alteration, and then we go back to the feelings we experienced regularly before the precipitating incident.
In my example of contemplating whether my life is meaningful, I eventually recognized that I could think about the circumstances of my life however I wanted to. I was tempted to see the statement “My life has lost meaning” as a fact. I believed that adopting a different perception would be deluding myself. But the truth is it’s a delusion either way. Both versions of the story are made up. There’s no veracity to hold onto in this scenario. I get to choose what to think.
It’s a delusion either way: both versions of the story are made up.
A few examples: For years Robert had felt disappointed in his mom and dad. They weren’t attentive to him as a child, and they continued to be aloof during his adult years. This hurt him deeply and he often tried to get their attention, sometimes through destructive life choices. Thinking “They weren’t the right parents for me” became a habit for him. His brain had gathered evidence for this summation, and it had disregarded any indications of the opposite. His mind wanted to hold onto its narrative more than it wanted Robert to feel better.
When a coach suggested that Robert could think about his parents in a different way, he initially resisted. He said, “If they were the right parents for me, I wouldn’t have had such a lousy life.” The coach helped him see how this belief was affecting his present emotions, actions, and life result. She slowly showed Robert that he could think about his circumstances however he wanted, and that his thoughts will create his experience.
Together they came up with some updated ideas such as “Many people struggle in their relationship with their parents,” “My parents were doing the best they could,” and “Maybe this is how my life was supposed to go.” When he espoused these notions, he felt more at peace and more empowered to work on his relationship with his parents.
Jenny was struggling in her marriage and wanted to go to counseling. But her partner wouldn’t go. She had heard from marriage experts that both spouses have to be working on the problem in order for improvement to happen. Because she latched onto this concept, she continued to produce pain for herself, which made her less effective at changing her marriage.
With her coach’s help, she listed her thoughts about the situation. She saw that her tight grasp on the idea that they had to go to therapy together was preventing her from loving and accepting him and from changing her thinking to construct more of the result she desired.
When Ruth called in to be coached, she explained that she had recently moved to a new area. She knew her neighbor two doors down from high school. She saw that her neighbor had lots of friends — people coming and going throughout the day. No one came to Ruth’s door. She felt lonelier and more despondent by the day.
Her brain noticed the sadness and attributed it to the lack of friends (instead of the correct attribution: her thoughts). Because it had a story to prove, her mind spotted other women who had friends such as groups of people at the mall together, women out to lunch, friends walking along the trail. She concluded “I don’t have enough friends.”
Her coach guided her in filling out a Model with that thought. She saw how that sentence incited feelings of discouragement, which led her to stay home and not reach out to anyone. This reinforced the result of not having many friends.
What result would she get if she decided to believe “I have the friends I need”? (Or put another way, “If I don’t have friends right now, then I don’t need them.”) The concept of “friends” is a fiction, anyway (how close of friends do you have to be, how often do you have to talk or hang out to classify the relationship as friends?), but even if Ruth keeps the concept, she can still assume that the universe is conspiring in her favor. She can decide that she doesn’t have enough friends…yet.
She can suppose “Friends are on their way.” Or she can look at her life with a new lens, realizing that she does have friends (maybe they don’t live in her new town or maybe they recently met and don’t know each other well yet). She can direct her brain toward gratitude for any interaction with other women, which will motivate her to be more social and work on new friendships.
When you have a challenge in front of you, the first step is to become aware of your thoughts. Separate the circumstances from the ideas your brain filled in to interpret the circumstances. You will begin to see that your mind is unwittingly causing your dilemma. Don’t be mad at it; this is how humans are. But now that you see the problematic thought, gently guide your brain to other, more useful ideas.
Here are some suggestions:
I’m disappointed because of sentences in my mind, and that’s okay. (Fill in whatever negative emotion you are experiencing.)
It’s possible I could have a different perspective on that; it’s possible to develop an alternate story about this event.
I’m generating this feeling; this is what humans do.
There are many ways to look at things.
It’s possible that everything will work out as it should.
I’m capable of retraining my brain to believe something different.
Just because we all agree on something doesn’t make it true.
Maybe I could see this incident differently.
Maybe this isn’t true for me after all.
An idea that begins with “It’s possible…” or “Maybe…” is called a bridging thought. Sometimes your mind isn’t quite ready to move to a completely new idea. You have to take baby steps, prying it open little by little.
Another way to consider circumstances in a new way is by adding phrases onto the beginning or the end of your painful beliefs. Look over your thought download and rewrite the sentences starting with
“My brain offers me the theory that…”
“I notice that I’m thinking…”
“It’s curious that my mind is proposing…”
Or to the end of the thought, add:
“…which is interesting.”
“…I wonder why I’m thinking that.”
“…and that’s okay.”
Don’t let your mind tell you what to think. Be the boss of your brain. Decide consciously how you are going to perceive stressful events. Recognize that there are hundreds of ways to respond to any occurrence. Your mind can only come up with two or three, however. It takes work to stop a troublesome thought and rewrite it. But the more you do it, the easier it will get.
Try this on: “If I don’t have _____ right now, then I don’t need it.”
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“Disappointment comes in the gap between expectation and reality.”
