Your relationship with you

Did you know that you will be with you more than any other person?

Kind of a fascinating thought. I will spend the most time with myself. So, when I think about it that way I might as well have a fabulous relationship with myself. And, this should be the relationship that I put the most work into. What I didn’t know until recently is that your relationship with yourself is just the thoughts you think about you. I have 65,000 thoughts that run through my head a day, most of them unconsciously, and many of them are about me. Thoughts about what I do, how I look, what I say, and even think.  And, once I started to pay attention to the thoughts, I have about myself, I realized that they were pretty negative and harsh.

Why are we so critical of ourselves?

Well, your lower brain, or primitive brain, is constantly scanning the environment and looking for danger.  When we do something that is interpreted by our lower brain as danger, it alerts us to it and wants to heighten our attention to it so we will respond to it. Our brain wants us to do something about it. So, when I say something to someone and they respond defensively or different than I am expecting, my brain is working hard to let me know. This happened to me recently in a conversation and it is so funny how quickly my inner dialogue was, “Wow, you really messed that conversation up, you said too much, you didn’t give them time to respond, you always do that, you really need to work on that, that is so unappealing to others, you really need to think through things before just blurting them out.”

I felt like I couldn’t even trust myself, and that I should speak perfectly. It is like I can’t make a mistake in conversation. Or I can’t say something and someone else not agree with me. So, that felt restricted and harsh. I felt like I had just gotten a lecture from myself and It was painful.       

So, recently I started thinking why do I talk to myself like that?  Why am I quick to flip to judgment and sentences like; you always, never, etc….? And you know what,  I think that my brain thought, “That conversation felt uncomfortable, let’s not have uncomfortable again, so YOU need to change and quickly.”  And my quickest way to change is a harsh talking to. But, why can’t I feel uncomfortable? What is so bad with that feeling. You know, sometimes conversations don’t go the way we thought. Or sometimes someone takes something differently than you were meaning it. I think it is supposed to go that way actually. I don’t want people to always agree with me. But why do I quickly interpret that as BAD? And then make it mean, that I am bad. This is an area I want to work on.

So how do I do that?

I want to investigate what is really going on for me and dig deeper beyond the surface of don’t ever do that again. Because let’s be honest, it is going to happen again.  If you know me, I like conversation, and deep ones at that. There will be conversations that make me uncomfortable, but I need to let my brain in and say, “Hey, we are fine, nothing is wrong, we are having a conversation. We both have two different views and at times that feels weird or uncomfortable, but that is a part of life, and I don’t always have to walk away beating myself up or lecturing myself.”

So, my inner dialogue needs a tune up. My tune up looks like being curious instead of harsh and judgmental. And you know what, it feels better. When I mess up, and let me tell you that is often, and I ask myself, “Hey, what was going on there, what happened?” I am so much gentler and graceful and patient, and accepting.

Matthew 22:39 Love your neighbor as yourself. I really started to think about how am I loving myself?

I can begin loving myself by treating myself kindly, compassionately, and investigative instead of harsh, indifferent, and accusatory.

As I have begun to work on this my relationship with myself is changing. I think about myself differently and on purpose. I look in the mirror and choose how I want to feel about me. I want to glorify God with my thoughts about me, who He created. I want to look at my personality and the way He has wired me with gratitude and not judgment. I want to practice patience with the parts of me that I wish had changed like yesterday. I want a quality relationship with myself, and that boils down to choosing quality thoughts about myself. It comes down to the way I talk to myself and the way I choose to think about what I say or do.

 How are you doing in this area? Have you stopped to notice your inner dialogue? Are you critical with the way you look, say, think, or the things you do? Instead of being critical what if you could be curious?

Try it… loving yourself feels a whole lot better than hating yourself :)

Here’s to being curious,

Angie Woods

Do you Buffer?

I didn’t even know what buffering was. I thought people who engaged in buffering were people who had unhealthy addictions to things like drinking, drugs or pornography. It wasn’t until I learned more about this topic that I realized everybody, no matter how self-controlled or healthy, engages in buffering at times, and the impact it has on our overall well-being.

What is buffering you ask? It is trying to escape an internal feeling with something external.

Some examples of buffering behaviors that are more commonly acceptable and even encouraged among single women who love Jesus are: eating, working, exercising, instagramming/facebooking/pinning, gaming, male attention getting, netflixing, shopping, reading/podcasting, cleaning, being too busy, ok a lot of those are made up words but you get it.

Wait a minute, I do all of those…. I’m not saying you should not be doing the things listed above. What is key is that we notice why we are doing them. Are you doing them to escape a negative emotion? Do you hang up the phone from a hard conversation and immediately scrub the apartment from floor to ceiling? You may be cleaning to avoid the feelings of discomfort, but really you are just practicing not feeling the negative emotion and escaping from it with a buffer of choice. You get good at doing that, and you reinforce the concept of: do something to feel better, which over time, can cause you to lose the natural pleasure from everyday life as we chase for more pleasure to avoid the negative feelings.

I lived there, completely unaware of what I was doing. Then when I realized it, my awareness became full on. I thought eating ice cream or grabbing a snack or coffee was just a part of my life, but what I began to realize is that they were my life. I was so used to eating away my emotions it had become a full-on habit. I was getting most of my joy from it. The joy I was getting from relationships, and even simple pleasure was really not available because the “good” feelings came with the food. It was really out of control, but I didn’t even know it.

So how do you know if you are doing this too? Pay attention to yourself. Feel your feeling by naming the emotion, acknowledge it and sit with it. Rather than avoiding it or distracting yourself from it, or pretending it is not there. Lean into it, welcome it.

So, plans get cancelled and you are now all alone, all of the sudden you are hit with an emotion.

Do this:

1. Name the emotion.

“Rejection, this is rejection.

I like to talk to it and say, “Hello their rejection, I see you, I feel you.”

2. Be curious with it and describe it completely.

“You make my chest heavy and my heart rate rise. I also feel you in my stomach. You make me queasy and not hungry. You are red and hot and you move slow through me.”

This step is important because you need to connect with what emotions feel like to YOU as we are all different. It also gives you practice with noticing and allowing feelings again.

3. Connect it to the thoughts that are causing it.

“I know you’re here because I just got off the phone and plans for tonight are cancelled. I am alone and I feel rejection.  My mind is running wild about what it might mean. I’m subconsciously thinking that I am not wanted, that I did something wrong, that others don’t want to be around me, that I am weird, that I am not enough, if I was enough, I would not be alone all the time.”

Wow! Look what was under all that. I am amazed at what my brain throws at me. Once you have stopped and acknowledged the thoughts that are connected to the feelings and you still want to eat, then eat, but know your why. Know you are choosing to buffer to feel better. Whatever is there connect it to the thought and the feeling and begin to create an awareness, this is key.

I do this, and practice this regularly, and what is amazing is that once I have given my negative emotion some attention it is like it lets up. It sometimes likes to come up again, but typically it is less powerful. And feelings I have been trying so hard to avoid, once I do this, I am not afraid of them anymore. Rejection, I can do that, failure, got you, disappointment, bring it on!

Added benefit to all of this was, I was exchanging false pleasure for long term health. But I don’t have to do that anymore.  I can eat and have the appropriate amount of pleasure and feel truly healthy. The pleasure I have from taking care of myself and fueling myself has increased and the pleasure I get from sugar has drastically decreased. I never thought that was possible. I remember one day thinking I will struggle with my weight for the rest of my life, because I have just been born with a strong desire for sweets. There must be something wrong with me. You may feel that way too. You may think I will never be able to kick this pornography habit, or Netflix habit, or exercising habit. But, now I know there is another way.  And it all began with awareness and that is available for you too; name it, be curious, connect thoughts to feelings and slowly you too can take back control of your buffers.

I can’t wait for you to experience this too!

Angie Woods

 

Feelings part 3: The 50-50 experience.

Did you know that here on Earth we will have negative feelings 50% of the time and positive feelings 50% of the time? That is a part of the human experience. This is what we get here on Earth. Best news ever, in heaven we only experience 100% positive emotions. We live in a constant utopia, nothing negative, that is mind blowing.

Now that I know this, it compels me to get good at feeling the negative emotions. God clearly wanted them a part of our earthly experience. And after much thought, I wouldn’t want to get rid of the negative emotions. Some of those emotions serve me really well.  Feeling sad when a death occurs, or when a friend is moving is a negative emotion I want to feel. In the negative emotions, when I feel rejected, alone, scared, and disappointed, I run to God.

So, how do we get good at the negative emotions. Don’t fear them. Don’t run, or hide from them. Understand that this is part of the human experience. So, when I feel negative emotions, I welcome them in. I open myself up to why I am having them. Why is my mind going there, choosing to think something that feels negative? Do I want to feel this way.

I have learned that I create some unnecessary suffering for myself.

I recently was talking to someone and they pointed something out to me and immediately I made what they said feel painful. I made their words mean I was stupid, didn’t know what I was doing, inadequate. So now I ask myself “why do I want to make it mean that? Why do I want to feel bad?” It was tied to one thought. “They don’t think I know what I am doing.” That thought immediately began to bring up all this negative for me. But once I was able to see underneath the negative, I was able to see that I didn’t have to think about it that way. I could choose to think about it totally different.

That person is trying to help me. They are wanting it to be helpful. They are sharing an observation with me. They were not judging me. I was judging me.  Being curious helped me to uncover that I was choosing to feel that way. I was choosing to make it negative and I didn’t have to.

Some of the negative feelings will come about and we want them and some we create and don’t have to. Are you creating unnecessary suffering? Are you making your life feel negative more than 50% of the time? I was, and I am so glad I have learned to stop it.

If anything in this jumps out to you and you think; WOW, I would love to put these into practice and Angie can help me, then what are you waiting for? Click on the Let’s Talk button and hop on a free 30-minute mini-session and see if coaching is right for you.

Working on feeling right with ya,

Angie

Feelings part 2

There are only 2 types of feelings, positive and negative feelings and both are created by our thoughts. Sometimes when I work with a client, they may not be able to tell me what they are feeling and sometimes we start with are you opened or closed. But what is so funny to me is that the only way we know what one feeling feels like is because we know the other side of that feeling. For instance, have you ever been sick, like for more than 3 days sick? You know what healthy feels like after 3 days of sick. But when you have been healthy for years you begin to not know what healthy feels like. Without unhappiness, happiness can’t exist. That is how the world works, and because of that, we can accept both sides of the feelings. I can handle sadness, because I have experienced happy. I love to feel excited, because I know what nervous feels like. I can’t have one without the other.

Also, there is a degree of intensity to each feeling, like; fear that then turns into terror, or surprise that turns to amazement.

That happens by you thinking that thought more, and then adding other thoughts, that also make you feel that same feeling. I like to practice thinking a thought that gets me excited, and spend more time thinking about it, and adding more thoughts that get me excited, and it intensifies for me. For instance, we are headed to the beach soon and the more I think thoughts of anticipation, the more excited I become. I start thinking about all the things we will do at the beach and my excitement grows. I am in control of the intensity of the feeling. If I want to feel really excited, I focus my thoughts towards, “I can’t wait to be at the beach, we are going to have so much fun, etc…” Sometimes I just walk around saying, “We’re going to the beach!”  All of these thoughts get me anticipating the event with excitement. Do you want to know how to feel dread?  Think about all the things you have to do to get to the beach, all the packing, all the driving, all the…. You get my point. I am in control of my feelings. I can make them more intense or less intense based on my THOUGHTS. I can choose which feelings I want to have, and practice those thoughts more and more. Believe me, I LOVE being excited so I am practicing all of those thoughts, even as I begin to pack or clean beach toys, with sand from over a year ago.

I dare you to practice thinking thoughts on purpose that get you feeling a certain way and then intensify them based on adding more thoughts that make you feel that feeling even more. You may be surprised at how fun this is.

Feeling right along with ya,

Angie

FEELINGS; they aren’t so bad after all

I guess I didn’t know that, and when I was learning this I think I felt a little behind, like ‘why didn’t someone teach me this in grade school?’  So, I am on a mission to inform people much earlier than I learned this concept. I guess I thought feelings, or emotions, just came on, and really were a force to be reckoned with.  Positive emotions, like happy, just came to me and put me in a great mood. The negative feelings were harder to deal with. Like, when I am on my period I deal with anger, frustration, and hormones. When I liked a guy, I felt I had to deal with all the feelings that came with it; which typically made me extra vulnerable to jealousy, tears, and self-loathing. I guess my definition would be something that hits you upside your head and you must terrain as best you can. The positive ones were easy to deal with, and the negative ones—not so much. That sounded like a rationale definition.

Really…’just vibrations in your body.’ When you say it like that it seems so harmless, right? And those vibrations just come from a thought in your brain. We did an exercise in my coaching class and we partnered up and pretended there was a green Martian with us to learn all about feelings. We were asked to pick one negative feeling and think thoughts that made us feel that way; all while describing to the Martian where the feeling was in our body. This exercise was really mind blowing because you know what happened... When I started to describe the feeling, it didn’t have as much power—it felt like it slowly faded. As I described where it was in my body; what it felt like, what color it would be, if it was moving or standing still, it was like I was honoring it in my body and then letting it go. I so often avoid feeling something because I am afraid of what it will feel like. For example, I don’t like to feel uncomfortable and to avoid that I chose a more powerful feeling like anger, or frustration to not have to feel uncomfortable. That was so interesting to me, that if I would just honor my negative feelings, give it the time and attention it needs, it wouldn’t be so negative in my life. I tend to compound the negative by trying to avoid one feeling, and just act out of a different more powerful feeling. Because being angry and frustrated gets me much farther than uncomfortable, right? No.

So now that we know feelings are just vibrations that come from thoughts, what do we do? We should practice them. Like really see what feeling you have—how it feels and what thought is creating that feeling. Funny thing is you have lots of thoughts going on, so take a deep breath. See what feeling is in your body, explain it to the green Martian, and then see if you can find what one thought is making you feel that way. This is a great practice for AWARENESS. Knowing what feelings we have on a regular basis can help us understand ourselves better, and can help us see if we want to have those feelings.  Often we are unaware of how we feel, and just try and make it through our days. Maybe that is just me. 😊 Check out the post tomorrow to learn about the two sides of feelings, and how to increase, or decrease the intensity.