Have you ever thought about the role your thoughts play in how you experience life? What role do our thoughts play in the ups and downs of life and the choices we make as we navigate our way through them?
This is particularly important in those moments when we're upset. When we're upset, we tend to react to our thinking, because what we're thinking seems very real to us. And as a result, we sometimes end up acting on those thoughts... that we sometimes wish we hadn't.
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Whenever I've reflected on moments when I sent an email or said something that I'd like to take back, I see how my thoughts had exaggerated or distorted what was happening. There was a gap between my thinking and the reality of the situation.
I'm thinking of things like when I'd get angry when I was cut off in traffic. When I settled down, I saw that it wasn't something the other driver was doing to upset me. But I got upset by thinking it was about me, and this shouldn't be happening, and they're a bad driver... and all the other thoughts that came into my mind when that happened.
I was reacting to my thinking and not the situation. Which I actually knew if I thought about it because sometimes when I was cut off, I didn't get angry. But I never connected those dots. When I got angry, it was always what happened that created the feelings and my experience.
This is so valuable to see because it shows us that our thinking is the variable that determines how we feel. And how we feel, strongly influences the choices we make.
As I've understood this more, when feelings come up like anger or annoyance or sadness, they're not seen as a call to action. They're no longer a prompt for what I do next. Instead, they are like a tap on the shoulder to pause for a moment to let my mind settle and see if I'm reacting to my thinking or if the situation really warrants these feelings and a response from there.
This has changed my life and brought so much more peace and stability. I no longer find myself lost in the forest of my thinking, bumping into all the trees of thought. Instead I find my way out of the forest into the clear broader perspective of the sun and respond from there. Much more productive outcomes are the result.
I used to think that I had buttons that other people pushed. Now I see that I have created a button within me from a belief that when this happens, it means that, and that button, when it's pushed, creates the feeling.
The button exists as a result of my thinking, not a circumstance. And it gets pushed by a circumstance that I set the button to get pushed by. Can you see how it's our thinking that pushes the button and not the person or circumstance outside of us? We set it up before it even happens.
So you see, it's all happening within us. We've created the button within, the trigger within, and then we push the button based on the way we see the outside situation.
And this isn't new information, really. Just a new way of looking at life. I think we've all seen two people, caught in the same situation, where one person got very upset but the other person wasn't affected much at all.
If they were in the same situation, but had very different experiences of it, what made the difference? Only the way they were THINKING about the circumstance. The difference in experience was created by the difference in their thoughts.
One of them let their thinking come and go. The other gave it a lot of meaning that pushed the button they had created within themselves.
What's common between the two people is that they were both feeling their thinking... and their thinking was different, despite the situation being the same.
What we're pointing out here is that thought may be the most important variable in our experience. And understanding this aspect of thought can make the difference between having a happy well-adjusted life and a life of struggle.
The recipe this week is a Mexican Black Bean Stew. It's a wonderful, warm and satisfying stew with all our favourite Mexican flavours. Give it a try, we think you'll like it.
To you Amazing Health,
Connie and Bill
Mexican Black Bean Soup (Serves 6)
- 4 ½ cups of cooked black beans or 3 cans (15-ounce cans) canned beans
- 1 large onion, diced
- 4 cloves garlic, minced
- 5 cups vegetable broth
- 4 large carrots, cut in rounds or half rounds
- 2 Jalapenos, diced fine
- 1 large stalk celery, diced
- 1 28-oz can diced or crushed tomatoes
- 1 tablespoon No Salt seasoning
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- 1 teaspoon paprika
- ½ teaspoon Mrs. Dash Extra Spicy or ¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes
- 2 teaspoons ground cumin
- 1 teaspoon ground coriander
- ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
- 1 lime, juiced
Add cooked beans to a large pan along with onion, garlic, vegetable stock and cook until onions are soft. Add carrots, Jalapeno, celery, tomatoes and spices. Cook until carrots soften.
Add lime juice and serve.