I’m taking a walk. Mind you it’s 9 degrees out right now in Vermont, but I’ve had my head in the computer for the last 4 1/2 hours, and I’m about ready to give it a lesson in aerodynamics (yes… I’m considering tossing it out the window). My anxiety and anger are planning a coup on my frontal lobe. Just like last in last week’s blog, I have no problem identifying “why” this is happening. Simply put: I’m not a huge fan of computers. Add in the fact that the work I’m doing is something I’m passionate about and it’s a recipe for my emotions to grab control and test my computer for wind resistance.
After all kinds of uploading, downloading, and filling out forms I find out that it may all have been all for naught–it froze, of course. It’s enough to drive me to eat a big bag of jelly beans. If you haven’t read my blogs before, know that sugar, in all its forms, is my numbing substance of choice. But, on my best days I realize that numbing will only leave anxiety and anger knocking at my brain’s door when the sugar wears off. So, through trial and error, I’ve found certain things that I can do, tools that I can use, that will move my energy through me and allow me to choose my actions.
One tool is simply taking a walk. Since emotions are just energy in motion, when I literally move I find I can help that energy move through me. But that’s only half the battle. If I keep “running my story” and allowing my thoughts to stay ruminating on my wicked computer and it’s not-so-secret plan to single-handedly sabotage my work goals, rest assured when I get back from my walk it’ll be like I never left the computer…and we don’t want that! I’m not saying that sometimes it’s not enough just to move and change your environment. But, if your mind is not your friend and your inner critic is feeding you self-talk that sounds like your worst enemy, then you need to change more than just your environment, you need to change…
Your thoughts.
Dr. Alan Watkins, a prominent physician and neuroscientist from Oxford, who specializes in the study of emotions, found that one of the primary ways we can change the very physiological energy that our body creates is to change the way we think. Thoughts are one of the most subtle forms of energy that we have inside of us. They are fast, elusive, and can literally change our biochemistry especially when it comes to our energy in motion (our emotions).
Let me give you a bit of proof:
Let’s say you are on your way over to your in-laws house. You know you’re not gonna’ have a good time. You feel yourself slump over a bit. You don’t feel good, maybe you feel a little lethargic and tired, and you’re not even at their house yet. That’s because the dread you are feeling of the ‘bad time’ is causing energy to stagnate within you.
Now, let’s say you were up most of the night and only got three hours of sleep. But, the next day, you were going to a theme park with your kids to ride roller coasters and eat sugary food. In that scenario, you would find an enormous amount of energy from all the thoughts you’re creating about the wonderful time you’ll have when you get there, so you’d be bouncing out of bed, raring to go!
In both scenarios, neither outcome has actually happened. Yet the energy in motion was created based on what you thought would happen. Some of those thoughts caused your heart to beat a bit more erratically, your palms to sweat, and drained your energy. Other thoughts (the ones that had you on a roller coaster with your family) had that heartbeat increase along with your energy!
So, how do we train ourselves to use our thoughts to change the way we feel?
Let’s take a look at the situation with my computer. There’s no taking away the fact that it froze and I might have lost some of the work I had done. And there’s simply no taking away from the fact that it caused me anxiety and irritation when it happened. If I leave my thoughts dwelling on that fact, and running images over and over again in my mind of the work I did, the hours it took me, all of the effort…then those emotions will be with me for a long time to come.
But I’m the one who is in charge of the ‘mental film’ that I roll in my mind. It happened and I had to feel it. I took a walk to gain some physical distance from it. But, while I am walking and when I come back to the computer, what I think about is up to me. Yeah, it is a bummer that all my work might not have saved. But I did it once and so I know what to do, which will make it easier to recreate the work. I also know that I can call someone and get some technical help (practicing my interdependence and resourcefulness). I can appreciate that the technology failed, I did not. That this moment does not define my success. And that I have a long history of achieving results if I just keep at it.
You always have a choice in any situation to think about all the possible perspectives. There is more than one truth. When you take a step back, examine the full spectrum of possibilities of what else can also be true (in addition to your first thought), then you can choose to focus on the perspective that will serve the reality you want for yourself.
I’ve decided I’m going to choose my thoughts. I’m going to allow my computer to live another day, and choose to think of the computer freezing as an opportunity to practice my perseverance. Because quite frankly…it serves the way I want to feel and what I am trying to accomplish. Now that I’ve made some space and enabled my emotions to flow through me, I feel centered, and ready to take another crack at my work. Time to reboot my computer, email the Help Desk, and build some interdependence!
