Braving the Hot Mess
Check out Braving the Hot Mess on Facebook
  • Blog
  • My Story
  • Documentaries and Videos Worth Your Time
  • Books I Love
  • Vegan Recipes
  • Meditations
  • Affirmations
  • Tracy's Upcoming Events
  • Contact
  • Testimonials

You Are Greater Than Your Feelings

7/25/2017

2 Comments

 
Picture
Last week's post discussed taking 100% responsibility for our experiences. I want to explore that concept a little bit more in this week's post. 
 
Thoughts create feelings. Feelings create our behavior, response and experience. Behavior reinforces thoughts. The illustration above gives an example of how a scenario can play out from thought to feeling to action to result/experience. Another useful example is this one. 

Negative thought...I don't have any friends
Negative emotion/feeling...Experiencing sadness or depression
Negative behavior...Acting gloomy and having no fun
Negative response/result/experience...Being avoided by others


As writer Debbie Hampton explains, "Your emotions and feelings play a powerful role in how you experience and interact with the world because they are the driving force behind many behaviors, helpful and unhelpful. It’s possible to react to emotions and the feelings they evoke which are guided by unconscious fear-based perceptions which you may not buy into anymore, yet you’re living your life, making decisions and behaving according to these out-dated tendencies. Living unaware like this almost always leads to problems and unhappiness in the long run."

Being aware of this cycle allows us to be able to respond instead of simply react to a situation. This allow us to remain in a state of peace, of balance and of integrity. By choosing your
 feelings and behaviors according to who you want to be and how you want to live your life versus reacting to them and then not being in alignment. In the gap between our thoughts, our feelings and our actions we have powerful opportunity to design the direction, the course, the path that our life will take for the better or for the worse. 

Finding the underlying thought pattern is critical to being able to resolve problematic reactions. 
By shining a light on the cycle of our thoughts, feelings and behavior we can take a moment to pause before responding.

The following is an excerpt from an article written by Peter  Shepard, a spiritual teacher and psychotherapist. It explains and gives a nice example of the thought, feeling, action, result cycle. 

​
You are not responsible for everything that happens to you (although often you may contribute to it.) But you are responsible for how you react to these events, how you experience them and move on from there. Your reaction has three facets: 
  • A mental reaction, how you interpret the situation, which is often a replay of old stuff you've attached to as part of your identity.
  • An emotional reaction that results from your interpretation, so you feel happy, angry, sad, or frustrated. 
  • And a behavioral reaction: based on your feelings you act in a certain way, such as jumping for joy, getting away as soon as possible, or punching the other guy's nose.
It might seem that the circumstances caused your emotional reaction, or even that it caused your behavior. So, if your girlfriend criticizes your manners, you might get angry and leave the restaurant. Later, you may feel that your girlfriend made you angry or that you had to leave the restaurant because of her. But really it was your belief that no one has a right to question your rightness, such as the way you eat with your mouth open. "That's rude and intolerable."

So you created your own reaction with what you told yourself. It may have been instant and below the level of your consciousness but there was your voice inside telling you these things. Actually, though, you did have other choices. You could have actually listened and understood her viewpoint - you would then still have a girlfriend and have learned something useful. And your girlfriend would have renewed respect and love for you.

Your inner voice can talk you into a lot of trouble or it can create a positive outlook that changes your life experience. The secret is to stay in the moment, to stay conscious, and spot your voice when it is replaying old tapes and talking nonsense, when it is being intolerant, exaggerating or over-reacting.

You are made of love; when your thoughts are judgmental and resisting what is, then you can recognize that is not the real you. So my advice is: if it's not love, STOP, gather yourself in the moment and reconsider.


Picture
2 Comments
Adam Mescher
7/26/2017 10:11:25 am

Ooo, this was a good one and as is very often, it is timely advice. It helpful to know how to respond to emotional fears. Thank you!

Reply
Tracy Traeder
7/26/2017 05:40:02 pm

Thank you for the comment Adam! Glad it was timely for you!

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    RSS Feed

    Archive 

    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015

    Picture

      Please sign up to receive weekly new blog posts. 

    Submit
Proudly powered by Weebly