Transformation Playground

We cannot change anything until we are aware of it.  In my previous blog post, I talked about cultivating more awareness around what our emotions feel like in our bodies.

The reason we focused on that was so we could learn to become aware of our emotions.  At the magical moment we do become aware that we are experiencing an emotion – that is the place where our power of choice lies.  

As soon as you are aware that you are experiencing any emotion, ask yourself what thoughts you were thinking, because your thoughts are what cause your emotions.

The Process 

In the moment we become aware of feeling worried, we can identify the thoughts that cause our anxiety.  Once we accept that these thoughts are causing the anxiety, we have the power to choose different thoughts that make us feel differently.  We can continue choosing thoughts that cause us to worry – and who could blame us for choosing worry?  It’s certainly a valid option.  Worry is a familiar, well-worn pathway in our minds.  We’ve chosen the vibration of worry so frequently – in an auto-pilot like way – that some of us forget that we can choose another path.  

If we make the decision to set aside worry whenever possible, to release the weighted burden of worrying thoughts, we can use that moment of awareness to accept responsibility for the thoughts that cause our emotions.  NOT accepting responsibility for our emotions keeps us at the mercy of those emotions, because if we are not responsible for them, we are victim to our emotions, and therefore powerless to transform them.  We feel powerless when we feel we have no choice.

The Magical Moment of Power

• We become aware (in the moment) that we are experiencing worry.  
• We accept that the thoughts we are thinking are causing that worry.  
• THIS is the moment where we can wield the power of choice.

NOW is when we get to choose. We can continue thinking thoughts that worry, or we can decide that we want to create new pathways in our mind.  We deliberately choose thoughts that allow us to feel DIFFERENTLY than the thoughts that cause a vibration of worry!

Awareness leads us back to our power.  Acceptance is the key to wielding our power. Choice is where our power lies.  It’s a process, and it takes practice. 

The more we practice awareness and acceptance, the more we feel empowered to choose, and then we trust the process more, and begin to relax into faith. We begin to understand that we have the power to control our own energy.  We don’t have to take that emotional roller coaster ride which drains us.  Instead we can respond intentionally with all of our energy present.

When we choose our own emotions/energy, by being aware of our thoughts, we can’t help but feel more confident, powerful, and in control!  

Does that mean we’ll never worry again?  Of course not.  But when worry does pop up, we’ll know it’s a choice which we can let go, rather than a burden we must carry indefinitely.  

Grow on!

What are you currently telling yourself about a situation you find worrisome?
Take out a clean sheet of paper and write a new story about the situation that feels LESS worrisome, writing ONLY things that you truly believe. Read that story until your vibration shifts, and then re-write the story again so that it feels even BETTER when you tell it. Repeat as often as needed.

I help people cultivate more awareness every day.  If this is something you’d like help with, click here to schedule a chat and see if coaching is the next right step for you.

Lisa Kaplin writes an amazing blog about leadership, happiness, parenting, relationships, and so much more.  I always learn something new, or see a new perspective.  If you haven’t read her blog before, I highly encourage you to follow this link and give her post, Worry isn’t Love a read.  Lisa’s posts are always brief & uplifting. I thought this passage was particularly brilliant:

“Love, at least to me, is unconditional listening, being fully present, and holding space for the other person. It’s focusing on them, not what I feel when I’m around them. Love is both giving and receiving of unconditional caring and space. None of that sounds like worry to me.”

So if worry does not show love, what does worry do?  What are we getting from worry?  

The voice of worry often arises when something unwanted happens.  We don’t want it to happen again, so a “watcher” arises inside us to watch for any evidence that danger may be approaching.  With our “watcher” on duty, we may feel more secure because we feel that we’ll see the danger coming and be able to avoid it.

Originally we were getting protection or security from the watcher, but now we’re just getting anxiety from constant worry. 

Our worry voice is not trying to make us crazy at 3am, it’s just trying to do it’s job of protecting us, albeit more aggressively than necessary.  All of this can be exhausting!

But what if I told you that worry is a choice?

I know.  Some of you just shut your computer off convinced I am crazy.  Some of you are laughing out loud.  But some of you are going, “Wait. What? I can choose NOT to worry?!”

If our “worry voice” arose to protect us, and made us feel more secure, it makes complete sense that we would choose worry again and again.  We found comfort there – a long time ago.  Now we just choose worry because it’s the familiar, well-worn path that our mind wanders without thinking about where we’re going.

Constant worry is heavy, so if we’d like to set it down in favor of lighter emotions, we need to catch ourselves in the act.  We need to cultivate AWARENESS.  We want to become aware of WHEN we have anxious thoughts, because that is the only moment we could choose something else.  The best way to be aware when worry has arisen, is to first become aware of how YOU feel physically when you have worrisome thoughts.

This can be different for each of us!  Just because anxiety feels like a twist in my solar plexus, doesn’t mean that you and your body experience it that way.  For this reason, I encourage my clients to write down how THEIR BODY feels when they are worried.

Examples might include a twist in the solar plexus, hot cheeks, shaking limbs, sweaty palms, a combination of any of these and others.  Whatever it is for you, catalog the physical vibrations when you “feel” worried.  

Once we define what ‘worried’ feels like to us as individuals, it becomes easy to recognize when those physical vibrations/symptoms begin.  That moment we recognize that physical symptoms of worry are present triggers our awareness that “THIS” is our moment to choose.

Once we are aware, we can choose.
We get to choose worry, or choose something new.

In next week’s blog post, we’ll talk about taking back our power to choose in that magical moment of awareness.

Grow on!

Name the emotion you feel. (Happy, sad, worried, anxious, excited, etc…)
Write down the vibrations you feel in your body when you experience the emotion.
If you can, write down the thought(s) you were thinking directly before you became aware of the vibrations of that emotion.

It’s totally fine to write down the physical vibrations you feel first, and then name the emotion. It’s easier that way for some people.