Change Your Thoughts

 Dr. Edie Wadsworth, creator of Life Mentoring School, writes and speaks about changing your thoughts as a way to get the life you want. 

She implores us to take ownership of those thoughts, and to then change the thoughts that hold us back. 

As I mentioned before, “A rut is a well worn path. We form ruts in our brains and they become our default thinking.”

As I thought about my ruts I knew I needed to identify what I was actually thinking and feeling when it came to my weight?  What emotions were I covering up out of shame for having them?

Using an emotions wheel to help me name them, I made a list of what I had been feeling. Included in that list were things like discouraged, ashamed, guilty, disappointed, tired, unmotivated, frustrated and finally helpless. I wonder if any of you have ever felt this “weigh” when it comes to your weight journey?

Then I used a technique that Dr. Edie uses called Of Course… What this entails is taking each emotion and pairing the words “of course” with it. This enables you to name the feeling without judgement. 

Of course you feel discouraged. Who wouldn’t feel this way? It’s a way of being kind to yourself, and giving you a glimmer of hope that you are not so unusual in the way you feel. 

After naming each emotion, and then stating “of course,” you need to just sit with that emotion for a while. Let it resonate, but don’t try to fix it at that moment. There will be time for that later. The idea is to stop beating yourself up for how you feel, or more importantly stop suppressing how you feel. 

Now getting back to the idea of changing your thoughts. You have to realize that you are stuck in a thought pattern. Because you have thought this way for so long your brain just continues to think the same way. Remember it likes to conserve energy. 

Keep reminding yourself that, “I have the choice to think this way or not.”

Wadsworth reminds us time and time again that, “When we change our thoughts we change our feelings.” It’s important to acknowledge our emotions, and allow those emotions to pass through us like the waves of the ocean. Sometimes they come in crashing hard, but they always return peacefully back to the sea.

Next let’s address how changing our actions can help us out of our ruts.