The thing that seems to be the one constant with anyone I coach (or anyone I talk to for that matter) in regard to changing their body seems to be a lack of sensitivity when it comes to their emotional indicators. Emotional indicators are the primary feedback tool you were equipped with to help you manage your thoughts, which are the biggest factors determining success or keeping you where you are. It seems that most people learn that the outside world is what causes them to feel a certain way—to feel a certain emotion. But in reality it is your thought that causes the emotion. Since thought has such a huge impact on how our body works (chemically and energetically), how we are led to action (ideas and creativity), and how we interact with the Law of Attraction (energy attracts like energy) we were given a tool, our emotional system, to help us manage this resource—much like having physical senses to help us manage the physical world.
Since most people learned that the world happens to them and that it is the outside world that causes their emotion responses, it’s easy to see how someone would force themselves to become accustomed to feeling negative emotion. From this standpoint (from not knowing you had a choice in how you feel) you have only two real options: either you take action to change the outside thing that is bothering you so you will feel better or you get used to feeling bad because you can’t change the outside circumstance. Since trying to change the world so you feel better is usually an effort that isn’t rewarded with much result, most people get used to feeling bad. By getting used to feeling bad you ultimately desensitize yourself from the emotional indicator.
To help my clients understand how thoughts affect the way we feel I have them do an exercise designed to help them tune back into those indicators they were born with and have ignored for so long. To help you tune into your indicators I am going to share this exercise with you here (this exercise is also in The Thought Diet).
First sit down in a quiet and comfortable place with your eyes closed. Take notice as to how your body feels. Most notably pay attention to your stomach, chest and neck area. Take about one to two minutes to do this. You should notice just the simple feelings of basic activity in your body.
Next, shift your attention to something you really enjoy. It could be something you do for fun, someone you love dearly, something you own, something from your past, etc. Point is you want to get yourself into a good feeling place by focusing on something you appreciate, love, or enjoy. Once you have your subject in mind try to really get into the details of it. Once you have that focus going for about a minute try to notice if you feel any new sensations in your body. You might notice a tingling sensation in your chest or stomach. You also might notice a change in temperature in your body. You might even feel a burst of energy. Point is you should notice a change in feeling as it pertains to your positive focus. Once you identify this feeling—where it is, what it feels like, etc.—take about a half a minute and really try to anchor in this sensation.
Next, turn your attention to something that really bothers you. It could be something about your body. It could also be a person or a situation in which you are in conflict with. The moment you turn your attention to something that bothers you (from something that you enjoy) you should notice the immediate change in how you feel and it more than likely will move to a new place (although it doesn’t have to move). Take a moment to anchor in this sensation. If you want to take this a step further, you can figure out what emotion you are actually feeling while focusing on this subject.
Chances are you’ve never noticed this feeling before—or at least as specific as this. If you did, you probably blamed the feeling on WHAT you were focused on, not on HOW you were focused on it. This exercise is designed to show you how different points of focus create different emotional responses, which you can feel in your physical body. The reason this is uncomfortable is so you would do something about what was causing it, do something about your thoughts.
Could you imagine feeling this level of physical discomfort all day? Well, if you didn’t do anything about it before, because you were never taught you could, then it is easy to see how you would eventually need to tune it out. But now that you are tuned into this emotion surrounding this subject, every time you think about this subject in the same way you will have this same feeling come up and it will be more noticeable. And the more you practice tuning into your emotions your overall sensitivity will become greater, thus helping you take action to resolve your thoughts quicker and take more control with your body and life.
Since your emotion and the feeling that accompanied that emotion are always in response to your thoughts and interpretations about your subject (your point of focus) it will be your thoughts that you want to adjust before you start to take physical action to change this subject (your body). At the moment of figuring out something you didn’t want or didn’t like you launched a desire for an improvement, which leaves you with two points of relativity surrounding this subject—what’s not wanted and its improvement (or better, the problem and it’s solution). The reason you feel this negative emotion is because you are focused on the wrong end of these two points of relativity. You are focused on the problem. For every problem there is a solution (and we humans thrive in solutions) and if there were no problems there would be no solutions, thus there would be no growth and no evolvement from “what is.” Life would be pretty boring if we had nothing to live for and evolve into.
Now imagine that there is a really smart part of you that knows everything you prefer and desire, which was gathered from you life’s experiences. Let’s call this your “command center.” Your command center knows what you want (and is only looking at the solution—the expansion—not the problem) and is trying to lead you to the solution from your problem.
From your current negative focus you are not in a place to come up with powerful solutions or inspired action—you only have access to solutions that are a match to the level of emotion you are experiencing. So the reason you feel negative emotion is to help you to tend to your thoughts so you will move toward the solution, which accompanies better perspectives. Again, the reason negative emotions feel bad is for the same reason you feel pain when you touch something hot, it’s supposed to help you take action in the interest of your survival—in the interest of your progression in your human life experience. In the case of emotions, thoughts are what need to be acted on not the physical (at least not yet).
Since it seems most of us have become so accustomed to feeling negative emotion that it doesn’t bother us anymore, it might be easy for you to see why you may have struggled with your body or health—you haven’t been listening to your indicators. You were most likely never taught how to listen to your indicators or were given the tools to help you manage your thoughts. It would be like having a navigational system in your car that is trying to give you directions but you can’t see the screen or hear the voice giving directions. How could you get where you wanted to go if you weren’t using the navigational system right? You were hardwired with an extraordinary tool to help give you directions to where you want to go in your life. It’s time to start listening to those directions.
The next step now that you have an awareness that your thoughts create your emotions (and that your emotions are trying to guide you towards what you desire) is to start making peace with where you are. Try to find ways to sooth your perspective about where you are. Your feeling bad about where you are is causing you to ask for an improvement but as long as you are asking for an improvement you are not in a place to receive the improvement. You are either asking for an improvement or moving towards the improvement. By making peace with where you are—meaning, you are content and no longer feeling negative about where you are—you open up the opportunity for you to move toward the improvement, toward the solution to your problem.
Think of it this way: when you feel negative emotion you are looking at the problem, which is causing you to ask for a solution, an improvement. The more positive you feel the more you are in tune with the solution, the improvement. So when you feel negative emotion know that you are still asking and you cannot receive the benefit of a solution while still looking at the problem.
One thing that often helps my clients make peace with where they are is to know that their feeling bad has served a purpose. It has helped them discover what is really important for them at the same time giving them something to move toward—to grow and expand toward—which is what gives life meaning. Also knowing that they were not given the tools to advance from where they are, it is easy to let themselves off the hook for being where they are because they did not know that by keeping their focus on the problem not only kept them from the solution, but it perpetuated where they were. Not to mention, keeping their attention on the problem potentially makes it even bigger.
In the next newsletter I will discuss more about the physiological changes that happen when you are stressed and how to shift your perspective now that you know your perspective is creating feedback from your command center.
