Did You Resolve To Expand Your Mental and Emotional Well-being?

         

                                           Image by John Hain from Pixabay

Our thoughts and our feelings are intertwined. What we think about something determines 
what we feel about that something. Most of the time we aren't at all aware of that inter-
connection.

If you are over-reacting emotionally, take a breath and check what you are thinking. 
Then determine if those thoughts are logical. When I was teaching prison inmates to 
take more care of their emotions that get them so upset that they act out and they get 
negative consequences when they act out on those emotions. I would use the example
of two different inmates who receive the same news and how thoughts can get them
out of control.

Inmates A and B come back from visitation after hearing from their spouse or girlfriend
that she is pregnant. Inmate A has been incarcerated for more than a year of his sentence.
Inmate B has only been in prison for three months. Now either inmate's spouse or girl-friend 
could have been sleeping around.  But Inmate A is certain it isn't his baby, whereas Inmate B 
believes his sexual partner has been with no one but him. 

Either inmate could feel betrayed. But inmate B prefers to think she is pregnant with his
baby. And he feels happy, exited, because he's always wanted to be a dad. 


That is an over-simplification, of course. But it shows that we have more control over
our emotions that we realize. The choice to have positive thoughts goes a long way to 
making us feel and behave better. 

I don't suggest that you have no feelings. Far from it. Emotions are important in decision 
making and in relationships. And to block our emotions can cause all sorts of problems. But
if you find yourself getting upset over little things, it might be a good time to consider which
thoughts you are encouraging. Try pulling back and looking at situations from more than one
perspective.

My grandmother was an expert in this. she could always find something positive in every
situation. She didn't deny the negativity but balanced it with positive thoughts. She was a very
lovely woman  who didn't let life batter her.

When you are exploring your thoughts, take a couple of seconds to ask if your thought
is true/real. This is especially important in relationships.And then ask yourself "how
important is it for me to think this way. What else could it mean."

When my spouse and I were courting, they were always late to things. I believed that reflected
a passive aggressive behavior. And would be on guard or disappointed that I wasn't 
important enough for them to be on time. 

Then we learned about the various personalities. We each had different personalities and
had different perspectives on time. For me, time was a straight line. But their personality
saw time as a rubber band and tried to cram everything into the stretchy band. Once we 
understood that the behavior wasn't about me at all, I felt comfortable talking about it with-
out being angry

Check it out. Go to the mall and sit and people watch. Purposely  look for negative things about 
each person. Their clothes might be wrinkles or colors not go together, or some other thing
you see as a flaw. You'll probably start feeling bad yourself. You might even start thinking 
about all of your own flaws.

Switch to finding something positive about each person. You might even give someone 
a compliment. Smile at people who catch your eye. Pass that positive feeling around. Make
the world a better place by looking for the good in it.

Image by Pixaline from Pixabay 

It's Up to You

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay 

I confess that I hadn't done a blog post for this day until last night. I'd been wondering what to write. I watched an episode of Father Brown on PBS. It was built around a radio show called "It's Up to You". That got me to thinking.

So much of what we experience in our lives is up to us. Maybe not the event itself, but how we feel about it when we experience it, and how we continue to keep it in our memory and recall the feelings when we think about it.

There is a TV add that says "Christmas is what you make it." They were hoping to sell you something that was intended to make your Christmas memorable. But is isn't the thing that matters. It is how you perceive it. 

That is an important message for me. I have trouble with the days leading up to the holiday. I really dislike the rush to get lots done by a certain day/time. I get overwhelmed and exhausted to the point that I'm unwell, and not liking Christmas at all!

And - it is up to Me! I do that to myself! I make decisions to do this and that to get ready for guests and celebrations. I think I should make everything right and good. I should get just the right gift for everyone. I should get the house spotless and festively decorated. I should get cards in the mail soon enough for them to arrive before Christmas. I should fix meals for guests that they will love. And on and on. 

That is called "shoulding on myself." That is my choice. I can't blame anyone but myself. And since I've been disabled it weighs even more heavily, because everything is even harder for me to do. It wears me out sooner. It makes me ill.

Of course, preparation for a holiday isn't the only decision that are up to me [you]. Everything we do is a decision, everything - thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and actions.. And it is helpful that we acknowledge that. for that is our personal power.

And when we are aware of our personal power we can use it to make our lives better, more honest, more accountable. It can keep us grounded in reality. 

I know most of us think we have no control of our thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and reactions. But we really do. We can change our thoughts, which determine our feelings. We can change our beliefs when we learn more. And our reactions are a product of all of the above.

When I worked with inmates in the prisons, one of the things I taught was just that, the personal power to experience life as it comes and as we choose it. I gave the example of two inmates who get visits on visiting day from their spouse. Both learn that their spouse is pregnant. One inmate is overjoyed. It's his first child and was excited about becoming a father. The second inmate was stunned and angry. He'd wanted children too. 

What was the difference? The first inmate had only been incarcerated for a couple of months. The second inmate had been incarcerated for more than a year.  There was no way he was the father of the child.

Now the inmates would say that of course the second inmate would be angry. His wife was pregnant by another man. But what if he'd been wanting to be a father so much and loved his wife so much that he was willing to be the father of a child that was the result of a one-night -stand. He loved his wife enough to forgiver her and to celebrate a future with her and the child.

It is up to you what you think, feel, and believe. And it is up to you how you respond.

And it is up to me to slow down and stop worrying about having everything just so.

What about you? What do you need to change in the moment? Are you willing to consider that you have this personal power? Are you willing to confront situations where you might want to change what you think, feel or believe in order to have a better life and a more peaceful holiday? Or any day, for that matter. 

The next time you find yourself getting upset, stressed, anxious, etc., try using your personal power to have a better outcome.

Can You Behave What You Don't Feel?

Some people say they just don't feel kindly, so being unkind is just their nature. Uh, no. Just as it is possible for us to feel angry without acting it out, so is it possible for us to behave with kindness.

It takes practice. When you slow down enough to recognize other's feelings and needs, you can begin to develop empathy. Then kindness follows naturally. But, even without feelings of empathy, we can do kind things. The more kindness we practice the more we develop our empathy. That makes kindness more than a feeling. It becomes a behavior.

Which comes first, feeling or behavior? That is our personal choice. We can choose not to do kind things, even when we have empathy for a person. The reverse is also true - we can choose to develop empathy for others while we do kindnesses.

Encourage those feelings of empathy rather than run away from them. You feel bad for the fellow asking for handouts, but you turn away. Instead, look him in the eye, give him a friendly greeting, even if you have nothing else for him. "Have a good day." Or, better yet, strike up a conversation about how he got into the situation he is in. Take him to lunch instead of handing him money.

I remember when I was working in one part of town there was an old man asking for help on the same corner every day. So I started packing a lunch for him. I couldn't spend time with him, but I could feed him one meal that day.

This week, pay attention to how many people you see that you don't know - and greet them with a smile. That's all. Acknowledge they have been seen and given the gift of friendliness. Try it. It is free of charge. It is interesting how many people are uncomfortable being greeted by you, a stranger. That is because there is so much unkindness out there. We can change that. Being kind to that stranger can start them feeling kind to others.

Pass it on.

Life Is Fragile and Beautiful

How do you feel? How do you answer that question? Do you answer with a generic "fine." Or can you name the emotion. Are you aware of how that emotion shapes your daily life?

Burried emotion can create havoc if you aren't aware of them and aren't finding healthy ways to express them.

We are in a challenging world these days, more challening than usual. How are you feeling? Check out this TED Talk:

What Do You Think? Change the Your Thoughts and Change the World

Whether we pay attention to our thoughts or not, they are running all the time. Much of the time we act without thinking, at least consciously . Yet our thoughts are VERY powerful. They determine who we are, what we do, how we feel.

Philosopher Rene Descartes, the french philosopher and mathematician, i n his Discourse on the Method  stated "I think, therefore I am." It is said to mean that thinking is the one thing that cannot be faked. It is the one way that individuals know they exist.

So thinking is the core of our being. The good news is that we can change our thoughts. We can direct our thoughts. They are not something that is separate from us. And if we are to change our behavior and our feelings we will need to identify the thoughts that create them and change those thoughts.

Thus if we are to change the world we will need to start with our own thoughts and take control of them, confront them, change them if they don't impact the world the way we want them to. We can't reduce the hatred in the world if we don't confront any of that hatred that exists in our thoughts. And we can't do that if we don't pay attention to our thoughts.

For me it is an ongoing program of confronting the thoughts that arise, seemingly unbidden at times, that may come from fear or hate or misinformation. As a white woman I have to acknowledge and confront my immediate fearful response to young black men walking toward me on the street. I have to acknowledge that it is racist and not based on reality.  It is important that my response is based on what is really happening rather than what I fear might happen, based on years of racist media fear-mongering.

It is also important that I pay attention to other thoughts that come up unbidden. When I see a street person panhandling, what do I think and how does that determine my behavior? When I hear about people who have been homeless for months or years, do I think of them as lazy or unemployable when I don't know anything about their life?

I used to think that if a homeless person has a cellphone they must not really need help. What I didn't take into consideration is that it is impossible to apply for jobs if you don't have a mailing address and access to a phone! And most jobs require that you have your own transportation.

And what we think is greatly determined by what we are told until we discover otherwise for ourselves. We hear things repeated over and over by the media or by the people we surround ourselves with and those things take on the weight of "truth".  It is so very easy to believe what we are told, especially if it excuses us from putting any effort into learning more.

What we feel is a result of what we think and believe about events in our lives. If we think/believe that something is dangerous we will feel afraid. For instance, if you believe hungry lions are dangerous you will fear them. Makes sense, right? But what if there is a glass barrier between you and the lion? Is it still a dangerous situation?

I used to do an exercise with inmate in a male prison institution that was a challenge for them to change their harmful or unproductive belief systems. One example was when I ask for what one guy believed about women. "Women are stupid", he said. I ask him some questions that challenged that belief:

All women?"Yes," he said.

 How many women have you met? "Hundreds," he said.

 How many women exist in the world? "Probably millions, he responded.

 So really it is all the women you have met are stupid, right? " Well, yes," he said

Where did you meet these women? " In bars,"  he said.

 So all women you met in bars in stupid, is that it? " Yes,"  he agreed.

 So what if you began to meet women in other places, might there be women who aren't stupid? 

 He had to agree.

With that he began to challenge his belief that all women are stupid. We can do the same thing with beliefs that keep us in harmful, hurtful, or unproductive situation.

So have you been thinking things like "All Republicans are hateful," "All Trump voters are stupid,"
 "All white people are racist," All blacks are less than or are lazy or are stupid or whatever", " All immigrants are illegal freeloaders" or any of the other negative thoughts that support hatred, fear, and violence. Challenge those beliefs and move beyond them.

Pay attention to what you think and keep confronting those thoughts that do not make the world a better place.

Making Peace Within

In order to create peace in our world we must create peace within ourselves. That is easier said than done, of course. We live in a culture of hurry and compete and blame and anger and hate and . . Well you know. The secret, of course, is to identify our needs and how those are being met.

But the first thing we can do is to cultivate compassion for ourselves. We've been raised to be self-critical, to measure our worth against that of others, to please others instead of ourselves. So take some time to listen to your self-talk. That can tell us how we are treating the inner self.

When you come up against your own limitations, do you value yourself less? Do you lose respect for yourself because you aren't "more"? Or can you accept that everyone has limitations, that you can make a mistake and use that as a learning experience? What do you say to yourself - or sometimes to others about yourself - when you make a  mistake? Do you make yourself feel guilt or shame rather than step back and look at the experience objectively? How can you be more compassionate toward yourself? Listen to what you tell yourself and imagine someone saying the same thing to your child to shame them. You don't want them talking to your child that way so don't talk to yourself that way.

How often do you judge yourself as "good" or "bad."? And how do you feel when you do it. Do you ever hear yourself saying "I'm a bad parent/friend/spouse" because of some behavior. Look behind that judgement to discover what need wasn't being met by the behavior. Then you can go to the root of the behavior and change it with something that meets your needs. Maybe you "blew up" at your spouse and decide you did it because you are a bad spouse. Instead, identify the need you had that wasn't being met. Perhaps you need help with some chore and transferred that into hurt, anger, or frustration. Acknowledge your need and let yourself express it more clearly. and with less anger.

So you blew up. You feel bad that you did that. Mourn that regret without blame or guilt. There was a good reason that you did it - your need. You have learned from the experience. Let it go and move on.

Don't should on yourself! The word "should" creates unnecessary pain. If you must make a statement like that, exchange the word "should" for "it would be better if". 

"Let us be glad of the dignity of our privilege to make mistakes,glad of the wisdom that enables us to recognize them, glad of the power that permits us the power to turn their light as a glowing illumination long the pathway of our future. Mistakes are the growing pains of wisdom. Without them there would be no individual growth , no progress, not conquest.

---William Jordan

Above all, make peace with past "failures". Mourn them and let them go. Value them for what you learned. Make room inside you for what is joyful and alive. You may have to clean out all those old hurts and guilt and shame to make room for inner peace. And it is worth doing.