It’s easy to confuse thoughts and feelings. Acting in accordance with your thoughts and emotions and knowing and understanding what you are feeling will help you make wise choices. Identifying your experience accurately will assist you in coping more effectively and responding with logic, rather than reacting entirely with emotion.
A quick scenario, using the comment ‘I feel overwhelmed’. When you believe you are overwhelmed, any evidence is unlikely to change this thought and you will be overloaded with the feeling that you are overwhelmed. If you reword the statement to include both thoughts and feelings, it could sound like: ‘I think I am overwhelmed because I see myself as drowning in everything’ and ‘I feel like everything is out of control’. The statement about feeling overwhelmed could also be code for other thoughts and feelings.
Both thoughts and feelings are equally important in cultivating awareness and controlling your mindset. Thoughts are things we tell ourselves, things we believe. Feelings are an emotional reaction triggered by these thoughts.
Your Actions
Your actions are often dependent on how you are feeling and what you are telling yourself. If your actions aren’t congruent with your values and what you want, you need to revert to our ’thoughts’‘. Examine what you are thinking and telling yourself and adjust this in order to achieve the outcomes, relationships and life you are looking to live.
Adopting a Gift Mindset can also help you be open to unwrap the gifts in both the challenging and positive experiences you encounter. When you embrace the learnings from everything you experience, you can use these to strengthen your mindset and progress yourself and others forward.
Be open, be mindful and remember…mindset matters, and you are in the driver’s seat to control this and own the outcomes in your life. Your fist step is increasing your focus and become aware.