Next week’s guest is a grief coach, who helps widows work through their grief. I wanted to do an episode beforehand to dig into a little bit of some of the work she does so it makes more sense to you. This is also the topic we are focusing on in The Grieving Moms Haven in November!
You are what you think. But have you ever taken a second to notice your thoughts? I know I never did, until I was challenged to pay attention to them. Our thoughts are so incredibly important to notice, as they come and go with no realization from us, and they are the driving factor in many things in our lives.
Bring to mind, a thought you think of all the time. We tend to reach for the same thoughts over and over, it’s a habit. It’s easier to think this thought because it’s normal and comfortable for us. I like to imagine someone walking through the snow, and making a trail in a circle. The more they walk on that circle in the snow, the more compact the snow gets, the easier it is to walk there. Then to go start a new path in the snow feels really difficult and not as easy as just staying on the packed down the trail. That’s kind of how our thoughts are in our brains. The more and more we think of them, the deeper ingrained they get in our brains. Many times, we don’t even know what we are thinking, and how our thoughts are making us feel. So, in this episode, I want to bring awareness to your thoughts, so that you can begin to notice how it’s making you feel.
So, I want to lay out how big of a role our thoughts have in our lives. Say something happens, an event, that is a fact, not an opinion. Then we have a thought about that thing that happened. That thought causes us to have an emotion, and then we react from that emotion . And the actions we take from that emotion gives us the results that we have in our lives. This is Brooke Castillo’s work, which she calls The Model: Circumstance creates thought creates feeling creates action creates results. There are also many other people who talk about how important our thoughts are, but Brooke was the first person I heard it from.
So I will try dive into an example from Aria dying to try make this make sense. The fact with Aria is she died in her sleep. For a long time my thought was- What could I have done differently? I should have gone in the room. So the feeling I got was guilt. The guilt ate me up and basically caused me to be in a thought loop. What could I have done? More guilt. Why didn’t I go in there? Guilt again. I am not fit to be a mother. More guilt. What kind of mother am I? More guilt. And then I act from all those feelings.
And what’s my result? Suffering. Endless suffering. Agonizing over every action I could have or should have taken. I can choose to hold on to these thoughts or not. I can suffer more in my grief, or I can grieve the loss of Aria without the added suffering that my thoughts bring me.
So here’s a different version. Aria died in her sleep. That is a fact. My thought is: I did everything I could as a mother, and I believe it was her time to go. My feelings: still grieving, but more peace. Actions: I can allow myself to grieve and also to move forward in my grief which can be my result.
So- the purpose of this is not that you immediately try to change all your thoughts so you can be happy. The purpose of this is also not that you start to pay attention to your thoughts, and then realize how many negative and heavy thoughts you have, and then start beating yourself up. That is not the purpose at all. The purpose is that you start to pay attention to your thoughts. Because becoming aware is the first step in being able to do anything about it. Notice your thoughts. It’s almost like you start to be an outside observer in what you are thinking, how you are reacting, and what you are doing. I’ve been so fascinated in watching myself think, respond ,and then I get really curious about why and how, and how I can do better next time. This can mean the difference between just surviving and thriving, or grieving and suffering.
The purpose of this is to help you become aware, and then that you can realize that it’s possible to try on different thoughts and see how they make you feel. Doing this has literally changed my life. It does not mean I’m happy 100% of the time. It does not mean I’m perfect or got everything figured out, but it gives you a little more emotional stability, and also the understanding that you can choose to think certain thoughts or not. This does not mean you are trying to be happy all of the time. That’s a huge place to start. It’s important to feel the so called negative emotions too. I like to think of them as more heavy emotions. They are not super fun to feel, but they are just as important to feel as the happy ones.
So beginning to notice our thoughts really begins to give us more control in our lives. When we can't change our circumstances, we can't change anyone other than ourselves, this is one thing that we can change. I'm still a work in progress every single day. But knowing that what is happening is not something I can control. My daughter Aria dying is not something I can change. But my thoughts and how much suffering I create in my life from the fact that Aria has died is in my control.
Wow, this is a very deep concept, and it's very difficult to understand. Especially when in relates to grief and loss. The emotions and thoughts that come with that are so crazy, yet so important. So, this is just the beginning of this topic. I hope this week you can just start to notice what your thoughts are. Don't feel like you should change them, don't beat yourself up if you don't like them. Just pay attention this week. Doing the work on yourself is worth it!
See you next week!
