My son…and how to change your brain!
What’s the thoughts causing the way i feel right now?
It can often feel that our thoughts are something we don’t have control over but that’s not true.
Our brain thinks about 60,000 thoughts (or sentences in our head) per day and it doesn’t care whether you feed it positive or negative thoughts. All it cares about is to get really good at looping with that same thought over and over. And if you’re not careful, the thought you have going on about your husband, your coworker, your neighbor, or your kid, can become obsessive and lead to sadness, anger and/or frustration.
Step 1: Be the Watcher of your thoughts. Don’t just allow your thoughts to happen to you. Your thoughts are optional. Remember that!
Step 2: Allow the thought and the feeling, that comes from it, to be here. Become aware of it, and before you react to it, choose a thought that will better serve you. Choose to think on purpose about this event or that person in a way that will shift your emotions to a more neutral place.
Step 3: Ask yourself a lot of amazing questions. Act from a place of curiosity. Why am I thinking this? What am I making this mean? So what? How is thinking this serving me? What would I like to chose to think instead?
Positive questions lead to positive thoughts. As you practice this exercise, your brain will change!
I remember a few months ago going thru this exercise with my younger son, who is 9 years old now. In 2nd Grade, he enjoyed reading very much. When he entered 3rd Grade, for some reason, he put in his head that he was the worse reader in his class…. The result of that thinking was that he was now nervous about reading out loud and didn’t feel like reading much. All he kept saying was ‘I’m the worse reader in my class.’ So I asked him questions…
Did the teacher tell you that? No…
Did your friends comment on your reading? No….
So, why are you thinking this? I don’t know….i guess because it feels they all read better than me…
Do you know for a fact that this is true? Would everyone in a court of law agree that this is true?
Mostly probably not!
And so what if they all read better than you? I guess…
You enjoy books don’t you? Yes….
Do you see how thinking ‘I’m the worse reader in my class’ isn’t serving you nor your reading at all? Yes..
What would you like to chose to think instead? That I read well enough!
Well I said to him, that thought is perfectly available for you to think right now!
How do you feel when you think ‘I read well enough’? “I feel relieved” he said!
We practiced that small exercise a few times, and in no time, his pleasure for reading had come back.
He is now in 4th grade, he was elected Vice-President of the school and at the age of 9, he already knows that being the Watcher of his thoughts can be life-changing! I sure wish I had had those tools when I was growing up! MIND-BLOWING!!!
What is your story or thought you’d like to share?
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