Welcome to episode 92 over here to Thrive Podcast. If I'm sounding a little bit off this week, I've been fighting a little bit of a heat cold. So if I sound funky, I apologize in advance. My husband does say though I sound better when I'm sick.
So maybe this will be even more soothing to your ears. But that is completely aside from the point I'm trying to make today, which is about our thoughts. Are you subscribing to thoughts that are disempowering you, potentially without even knowing about it? And if you are, what can you do about it?
That is what we are talking about today. Specifically I want to talk about if you're feeling disempowered, if you're feeling crappy, if you're feeling low, what is the thought you are subscribing to that is generating that feeling? Okay, I know this topic is a little bit kind of mind hurting. It makes you head wanna explode sometimes, but I'm gonna do my best to give you a simple introduction and to get you thinking a little bit more consciously about how your thoughts can impact how you are approaching your life.
I'm also gonna introduce you to a simple framework by a woman called Byron Katie. She calls it the work. You may have heard of it if you have stayed tuned. This is super fun.
If you haven't, you wanna know about it. The work, her four questions, you can use those to challenge the thoughts and assumptions that may be sabotaging you. Now I have heard Tim Ferriss talk about this. He forgot to reference Byron Katie, so I'm assuming he forgot where he found it from.
But he uses this. This is what you need people. It is an awesome framework if you can get to how to practically apply it, how to understand it and make it simple so that you can make it usable. That's my intention today.
So stay tuned. Welcome to Head of Thrive. I'm your host Kate Snowwise. This is a podcast with people who are ready to step up and live a happier life.
It's for those of us who are dedicated to understanding ourselves and getting the best that we can out of this thing called life. It's a mix of psychology and modern spiritual thought, always with a focus on practical advice so that you can take it back and apply it to your own life. I don't believe we're here to merely survive. I truly believe we're here to thrive.
So let's get going. Okay, so let's talk a little bit more about those thoughts that are sabotaging us. The reason I wanted to record this podcast is this week I was working through some challenges that one of my clients was facing. And I wanted to get to the bottom of what assumptions she was making about her experience.
What was the interpretation that her mind was jumping to based on the interaction she was having with the world around her? Because here is the thing. Most of us, most of the time, are letting our thoughts run around on autopilot. Me too, this is not unique.
This is human experience, I'm telling you. Most of our thoughts are just running away on us. And that is all fine and good until they are sabotaging us unconsciously. Even though we're likely mainly unconscious to our thoughts, what you will typically notice is when you are running a disempowering script or when you've got a thought running through your head on autopilot that is sabotaging you, that is not helping you, you will often feel like crap.
You will feel physically and emotionally low. So that's what you need to look out for. You need to look out for those moments when you're feeling eugh. And then ask, what is the thought I'm potentially buying into right now that is making me feel so eugh?
I'm going to try and give you an example to illustrate how this could work. So let's say you go out for a date with a guy and you think things have gone really well. But then you find that a week has gone by and you still haven't heard anything from him. What is the thought that your mind would jump to having had that experience?
Many of us might jump to an unconscious thought along the lines of, there is something wrong with me, no guy is ever going to love me. Yeah, hear me, have you ever been there? I want you to take a moment, even if it is not, about relationships, to think of a situation where you recently felt pretty crappy and just question yourself for a moment. What is the thought that you were running that went along with that feeling of crappiness?
Alright, so going back to my example of, no guy is ever going to love me. How would that thought potentially make you feel if you believed it? Not good, right? No one feels good when they have decided or believed that they are unlovable.
That is a totally disempowering thought. But what can we do with that thought? How can we overcome the thoughts that are bringing us down and challenge the worthiness? How do we start to undo the grip on us?
I personally love Byron Katie's model as I mentioned to you in the introduction. The work, her four questions. You can Google search it. I have to admit some of the stuff I have read around it is a little bit confusing but I'm going to link to some of the pieces I found.
So if you want to do a little bit more research after this which I would encourage you to do is Byron Katie and it is called The Work. I'm going to link to some things in the show notes. So thrive.how forward slash podcast 92 or check in iTunes if you're listening there or wherever you listen to find those. But digging deeper.
Keep that disempowering thought you have in mind. Byron Katie teaches us to work it, to work our thoughts, not to let them just go along unconsciously running the show. Now how do we work a thought? She gives us four questions.
The first question is, is the thought true? The second. Can you absolutely know it is true? Third.
How do you feel when you believe that thought? And the fourth. Who are you and how do you feel without that thought? So let me go back to the example I gave earlier.
No guy is ever going to love me. Is that thought true? When you've just not heard from someone in a week, you might want to immediately say, well yeah, it feels true. Which is why the next question is there.
Can you absolutely know it is true? This is the objective test. Do you have enough evidence to indicate that there's a certain truth and no one is ever going to love you? That one guy texting you back is not evidence that no one is going to love you, is it?
It's not proof that that thought you were buying into is in fact true. So there is some doubt. Now question number three. How do you feel when you do believe that thought?
How do you feel when you believe that no one's ever going to love you? You feel like crap. You feel disempowered and you are less likely to feel self-loving appreciation, self-respect. You feel miserable.
It hurts to believe that thought. So the final question, who would you be without that thought? Who are you without believing that no one will ever love you? You're likely to be more confident, happier, more at peace with yourself.
You're likely to feel more optimistic about your future and more willing to put yourself out there and continue to meet new people. You're likely to be more full of life without that disempowering thought. No, I'm sorry if your brain is already standing there be like, ugh, this is hurting. I know this is a lot of information and it's a lot to kind of integrate.
But I want you to really think about it because it is so powerful and might need a realist in and I would encourage you to look at resources after this. But one thing that I think is really important to state at this point is that our thoughts are just that. They are only thoughts. They only have the power to dictate our experience if we allowed them to.
We just only have power when we give them power, which is where we get to the turnaround, which is the next part of Byron Katie's model. Now, as I said to my client, which I think is a slight deviation from the work, but for me it makes it a lot easier to explain to people and understand a turnaround for what needs to have four components. So it needs to be a new thought and alternative thought. It needs to make you feel empowered.
You also need to believe that it is just as true as the first thought, if not more so, which means that you can believe it. So the four components, an alternative thought that makes you feel empowered, that is just as true if not more so than the first so that you can believe it. Coming back to the example thought, no one is ever going to love me. We've questioned it and decided that we can't absolutely be sure that it's true.
And we also recognize that it makes us feel awful when we believe it. So what kind of turnaround thoughts could someone possibly believe that is likely to be just as true but would make them feel more empowered? I'll come up with a few justice examples, but this is where you really have to dig in and work out for yourself. What statement is likely to be just as true for me?
That makes me feel empowered. Here are some of my examples. I just haven't met the person I am meant to be with yet. Likely to be just as true as no one is ever going to love me.
A second possible thought, everyone has a soulmate. It's just a matter of finding them. Another thought. Each guy I encounter is one that guy closer to my ideal mate.
Another man of my dreams is out there dreaming of me too. Or you have to kiss a bunch of frogs before you find your prince. Now listen to those thoughts. Objectively just as likely to be true as the first thought.
How would subscribing to those thoughts make you feel? More empowered, more confident. See what I'm talking about now. Now clarification here.
I didn't say that these turnaround thoughts, alternate thoughts, had to be objectively true. Just that they had to be likely just as true as the first thought that you were believing that wasn't serving you. They have to be a thought that you can buy into and one that makes you feel empowered. For example, using the thoughts I just gave you, I personally believe in soulmates.
You may not. And if you don't, then that thought is not going to be a good turnaround for you. Because you won't be able to buy into it. You won't believe it.
If you try hard enough though, you will be able to create a thought that is likely just as true as the first one that made you feel preppy that really does make you feel that much more positive. Because here's the deal. Subscribing to thoughts that empower us that make us feel alive rather than unconsciously buying into thoughts that bring us down leads us to a way better life day to day. Right?
Now special note, one of the key parts here is obviously to catch yourself feeling low and disempowered and then spending that time to identify what is the thought that is contributing to that feeling. Because the problem is most of these thoughts, as I mentioned at the start, are running away on us and we don't even recognize that they are contributing to how we're feeling. So I strongly encourage my clients to watch the moods and start to identify situations or interactions that trigger them. And then once they've found that, and you can do this in reverse, you can look back at situations in the recent past where you haven't felt so good afterwards and start looking into what was the thought that was driving my feeling then.
It doesn't have to be in the moment. What that feeling is really the starting point to dig in to work out what thought is actually the foundation of this feeling. What thought, even if it is unconscious, is driving this feeling. Now I hope I haven't broken your brain already because I know this is kind of hard to get your head around.
I told my client to go and have a nap after we spoke. And as I mentioned, this might take a few listens to really get the concepts ingrained. But to summarize, if you think you have a thought that might be undermining you and leading you to feel disempowered, I want you to start working at take these four questions and create a turnaround. I encourage you to grab a journal and write it out to yourself.
And then when you've got your turnaround to the work, you'll know you thought that makes you feel empowered. It is likely just as true. Keep that one close by as a mantra. Hold on to it.
And every time you feel disempowered and every time you feel crevice lean on it. Now Byron, hate these four questions from the model. Start with is the thought true. Is it true?
If your gut wants to say yes to that one, go to question two. Can you absolutely know it is true? Can you determine this is absolute truth? If there is any doubt there, move on to how does believing this thought make you feel?
And then the final question, who are you without this thought? After you've done those four questions comes the turnaround, which is the alternative thought that you can believe is likely just as true and it makes you feel empowered. Create it. Live by that thought.
Because as I said, thoughts are just thoughts, but they have a great deal of power and how we live and approach our lives. So choose your thoughts. You'll feel happier and more in charge of your life when you consciously choose the thoughts that empower you over the ones that sabotage and undermine your joy. Thank you for listening to Peter Thrive.
Thank you for sharing it with your friends. More and more of you are sharing it. And it's just so cool to see it popping up on Instagram and hearing notes about how you found it via a friend. Thank you so much.
If you have got a friend that you think might appreciate this podcast, please give it a shout out. It is so awesome when people do that. Quick note that my channel, your channel program is closing early next week. We start next Wednesday, which is middle of May.
So if you listen to this long after that, it's been and gone. I think it's pretty ironic actually that it starts the week after Mother's Day. But channel your channel is a program for anyone who really feels like they want to get the jump on their life, that they want to get back on the front foot and learn how to manage and approach life's challenges and feel more imbalanced or in control. And like you have more time for the things that matter.
So check it out. Channel yourchill.com or my website Thrive.how. Only a couple of places left. It is a small group program.
Finally, if you enjoy the podcast, seriously, your feedback means tons to me. If you could leave a review and iTunes, it's like, oh, little heart swell every time I see one, no kidding. So that would mean so much to me. I'm sure a bunch of you are listening on iHeartRadio and Spotify these days too, which is kind of fun.
Enough for me today. I know this one is kind of heavy. Check out the links I put over on my website over at Thrive.how forward slash podcast 92. It's worth reading up a little bit more about this because once you got this tucked in your back pocket, you are all power.
I mean, Tim Ferriss uses it. Have a wonderful week. Keep smiling. Keep trying and keep thriving.
Beautiful people keep thriving.