The human brain is a funny thing.
Despite all the effort I’ve made over the years to change my mindset and thought processes, I do often catch it slipping back in those old, engrained ways of thinking.
Just this last weekend my girlfriend Alex and I were away for the weekend and as we were driving to our venue Alex commented that I didn’t seem to be listening to what she was saying.
She was entirely right, my mind was on a conversation on Facebook earlier with someone who was disputing some of the points we’d made on an article and they sent a message explaining why we were wrong.
Now this person, I’m sure their heart is in the right place.
They wanted to share what they thought was the correct information.
However, what they were saying was so outdated, so in line with guidelines that’d been disproven many years ago, and they were so arrogant in the way they put it across, that they left me annoyed.
So I explained to Alex what happened and that this is what made me annoyed.
Knowing the way that I think and the way I try to see things in life, Alex just took a look at me, and that was enough to make me realize I was doing one of the things I often say to people – that I was choosing the way I was feeling, not being made to feel that way.
“Being made to” and “having to” are terms often used by people, myself included, to absolve them of the responsibility of the choice they’ve made.
You often hear people explain that some has made them feel a certain way, or they had to eat or do a certain thing.
These are common expressions, expressions that I was brought up with, and the expressions that the user uses to absolve themselves of responsibility of the decision they’ve just made.
I knew, when I’d stop to think about it, that I’d chosen to be annoyed by that person’s message.
They did not make me be annoyed, I’d chosen it – consciously or otherwise.
This is an important paradigm-shift to use.
Next time you catch yourselves saying that something made you feel a certain way, or you had to do a certain thing, stop and re-frame.
Ask yourself: “Was that way the only choice?”
Did you have to do that thing – was that the only possible response to whatever that’d happened?
If your life had depended on it, could you have stopped yourself being annoyed, or stopped yourself feeling a certain way?
If the answer is yes (which always is) then realize that you’re choosing your response, whether emotional, verbal, or physical.
Try reframing your thought process as “I am choosing to be annoyed by that person” or “I chose to eat that fattening food” or “I chose not to make time for you”.
If you still want to give the same response, well that’s fine – it’s your life, live it how you like.
But often, just asking yourselves that question makes life much easier.
