When I last wrote about change, I promised suggestions on how one might more effectively deal with the thoughts and emotions that are generated when changes are attempted. Let’s begin that discussion now.
Do you know that the things we feel are directly impacted by our thoughts? Sometimes this seems counterintuitive. We often experience events in life and suddenly notice ourselves feeling a certain way about the event with no conscious thought associated. However, as I’ve discussed before, we are creatures of habit and often our thinking becomes so habitual that we don’t notice the thoughts that are happening, which are tied to events, and impacting our feelings or emotions. These “hidden” thoughts can lead to more intense or sometimes undesirable outcomes. Let’s look at an example.
It’s early morning and you’ve just acquired your favorite brew from the drive thru at the coffee shop on the way to work. You cautiously pull out into traffic only to be cut off by a fast-moving vehicle whose driver obviously wasn’t aware of you, or anyone else’s presence on the road. You quickly slam on your brakes avoiding the unaware driver just hoping the person behind you doesn’t ram into your bumper. There are several effects of this incident. Your heart is racing, your palms are sweating, you’re breathing slightly faster and shaking just a little. You’ve already screamed, “Idiot!” and flipped the unaware driver off. And to make matters worse, coffee has somehow burst forth from the little hole in sippy lid leaving your life-giving elixir soaking into your car’s carpet. This is not a good way to start your workday.
There are numerous thoughts that could be generated from such an event. The first response might be, “That guys an asshole that doesn’t know how to drive.” Other thoughts might include other colorful language about the person, their abilities and lack of worth to society. There are other possibilities that one could think in relation to such an event. Within the realm of those thoughts could be things such as the person might have gotten bad news and are struggling emotionally, or they have a sick child they are trying to get to care. If you examine them side by side any of these thoughts might be within the realm of validity. The content of the thought will then impact the emotion. If they truly were an asshole, your anger might be justified. However, if their pregnant wife was lying down in the back seat about to give birth, the shocking emotions might subside quicker with your empathy on display rather than anger.
Slowing the process of event to effect can allow one to examine the thoughts in between and often lets people reduce the intensity and duration of emotion. This can have a huge impact on change, and we’ll discuss this more in weeks to come.