People will often say to me,

“I wasn’t thinking anything.”

“I don’t really have any thoughts going on in my head.”

or they’ll say:

“I have a million thoughts bombarding me all the time.”

The truth is that you have anywhere between 60,000-80,000 thoughts per day so you think A LOT!!

It’s just that you haven’t been trained to think about what you’re thinking, or to take control of ‘monkey mind’ (that’s when you have hundreds of thoughts bouncing all over the place.)  Your thoughts have been going on for so long in the background of your mind that sometimes you just tune them out.  It’s like they’re there but they’re not really there.

Your thoughts are connected to your feelings and your actions. 

 

So, if you’re feeling resentful, angry, depressed, anxious, frustrated—it does have something to do with your thoughts.  Yet some people have no awareness of what those thoughts are.

They say if you asked a fish what water is—they wouldn’t have a clue.  It’s always been there—they don’t even notice it.

Changing your thoughts does have the ability to help you change your life.  

 

Yet, how can we change our thoughts if we’re not even aware of them?  The first step to changing anything is awareness.

Mindfulness helps you become aware of your thoughts. It also helps by give you a pause or a buffer of space between your thoughts and your reactions to those thoughts.

Do a google search and you can find hundreds of articles on research studies and the benefits of mindfulness.

Some thoughts have a positive effect in your life

Some have a negative impact and

Some thoughts have a neutral impact. 

Think of mindfulness of your thoughts like this:

Imagine yourself standing at a train station.

 As you watch, you notice trains coming and going. Imagine that these trains are like thoughts entering and leaving your mind.

 Some of the trains are looking pretty worse for wear and headed to a destination you don’t want to visit.

 Others are looking pristine and rolling along to somewhere exotic.

 Which trains do you allow to pass?

 Which do you hop onto?

 Notice how if you simply do nothing, the trains leave and are replaced with new ones (i.e. new thoughts).

 You can choose to observe the train cars coming and going without jumping on them.

 Mindfulness gives you the ability to allow thoughts that create mental suffering (frustration, anger, anxiety etc)  to pass through and move on without creating so much pain and misery for you.

Notice the trains arrive. Then, watch them leave.

Just like the train, the thoughts come and you observe them without getting attached to them and then you watch them leave, without hopping onto them.

With practice, you will notice that when the thoughts that have a negative impact on your life enter your mind, they will have less of an impact on your life.

I can’t tell you how many hours of frustration I have saved in my life since I’ve used this process to manage my thoughts instead of letting my thoughts manage me!

It’s so empowering and freeing to be able to choose which thoughts you let come and go.

 

That’s when life becomes

easier and less frustrating.

 

Save the date, Wednesday August 22 at 7 pm, for my next webinar in which I’ll share some techniques on how to use Mindfulness to decrease anxiety, frustration and worry.

I’ll send out a registration form next week.

Do you have issues in your professional and/or personal relationships that are weighing you down?

Do you have conversations with people in your mind but you avoid having them in real life?

Are you waiting till you feel ‘ready’ to have the conversation?

There have been many, many times in my life when I should have had conversations and I didn’t.

I was waiting till I felt ready or I was procrastinating because I feared the uncomfortable feeling that would be involved.

• I’ve learned that waiting until you are ready is the same as expecting it not to happen.
• I’ve learned that I need to stop waiting till I feel courageous enough. (I’m still a work in progress but getting better)
• I’ve learned that the person who ‘just does it’ is the person who’s going to win.

What comes first, MOTIVATION or ACTION?

The answer is action. Then motivation follows.

You have to push yourself out of your comfort zone to ‘just do it’ (Nike really did come up with a great marketing slogan)

There’s no other way.

You stop waiting for the right time.

You stop waiting till you feel ready.

You stop waiting till you know you’ll say it right.

If you keep waiting and thinking about it, you’ll increase your chances of never doing it.

What’s a conversation you need to have?

Do you keep using the excuse, -“I’m waiting for the right time”

Waiting makes it worse.

The more we wait

……..the more we think

……the more we think

……the more our brain talks us out of it!

The self-doubt, uncertainty, and worst case scenarios we play over and over in our mind keep us procrastinating and waiting.

We don’t want to:

be rejected.

feel like a fool

be uncomfortable

be criticized

to feel those raw emotions 

The list of fears that keep us waiting and procrastinating goes on and on.

We start to tell ourselves:

Maybe:

“the situation isn’t really that bad”

“the problem isn’t worth mentioning”

“it will get better on it’s own”

“talking about it will make it worse”

“I won’t be able to deal with their anger”

“it’s too sensitive and it’s too emotional to talk about”

Our mind immediately thinks of all the things that could go wrong;

• How awkward and uncomfortable it may feel instead of thinking of all the positive possibilities or outcomes.

As the saying goes, everything you want is on the other side of FEAR.

You have a choice:

Face Everything And Rise 

or

Fear Everything And Run

The TRUTH is:

• You can be afraid and have the conversation anyway.

• You can fear rejection and still go for it.

• Courage is what you need.

 

The day you start to follow your intuition and have the conversations you need to have is the day you will start to feel better about yourself.

Each time you step up and speak up, you will become more powerful.

Nobody else can have those conversations for you.

You need to be courageous, activate the power inside of you and take action.

Listen to what your heart tells you to do-don’t listen to the chatter in your head that tries to talk you out of it by telling you how many things might go wrong.

Take the risk.

Don’t talk yourself out of it before you even try.

If you want to improve relationships, you’ll have to step out

of your comfort zone and have courageous conversations. 

You might not get the response you want right away.

It can take many difficult conversations and rejections

before you get to where you want to be.  

Keep trying.

Five quotes by Thomas Edison.

• “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”

• “When you have exhausted all possibilities, remember this – you haven’t.”

• “Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.”

• “Just because something doesn’t do what you planned it to do doesn’t mean it’s useless.”

• “Negative results are just as valuable to me as positive results. I can never find the thing that does the job best until I find the ones that don’t.”

The more often you push yourself to do it, the higher your chance is of success.

Remember–

If you wait,

You may never feel like it, and

There’s a good chance it will never happen.

If you allow your feelings to run the show, you’ll choose what feels easier rather than pushing yourself to have those conversation you know you need to have.

Do you feel like having that conversation, like speaking up, like sharing what’s on your mind?

The answer is often “no”

Once you hesitate because you–

Feel too:

…..tired

…..scared

…..nervous

…..unworthy

…..vulnerable

You’ll talk yourself out of it.

You can’t always control how you feel but you can CHOOSE how you act.

Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway

Improve your relationships by having one courageous conversation at a time.

You’ll Discover—-You Can Do It.

Make sure to read my newsletter next week on specific techniques to help you have those courageous conversations!

________________________________________________________________________________

Fay Prairie is a Relationship and Mindset coach. She helps set you free from stress, anxiety, worry, negativity, DEPRESSION AND FRUSTRATION so you can start creating a Better You, a Better Life, and Better Relationships.

Check our her counseling/coaching page by clicking here

Fay also provides workshops and trainings.  Check out her speaking page by Clicking Here

Contact Fay to set up a FREE 30 minute call to discover how Personalized Coaching can help you begin making positive changes in your life!

E-mail fay@fayprairie.com

Phone: 507-829-0181

Five Mindsets to Instantly Improve your Marriage or Significant Relationship

1. Accept that you won’t find the “Perfect Partner”

If you were to divorce your spouse, interview two hundred “replacement” candidates, put them through a battery of psychological tests, have follow-up interviews conducted by your closest friends, spend three years dating the most compatible ones, and then spent several months making sure you made the right choice, you’d still end up with a spouse who disappoints you, hurts you, frustrates you, and stumbles in many ways.

Your new spouse might frustrate, upset and disappoint you in different ways, but they will frustrate and disappoint you.

That’s the reality of relationships.  Your spouse is an imperfect human being!  Just like you.

When you accept this, instead of focusing on their flaws and imperfections, you can realize that it’s normal.

Negativity in your relationship is inevitable.

2. Accept the “Reality of Marriage”

Have you ever thought or said, “I have a very difficult marriage…” “I think I married the wrong person…..” “I don’t know if I can keep putting up with this……”

The reality is that every marriage is difficult.   We’re not marrying gods and goddesses! We’re marrying totally imperfect human beings.  How can that possibly be easy?

Once I accept that marriage is difficult, I won’t be as resentful when my marriage is difficult.

Unrealistic expectations (like comparing our marriage to the one in the movies) causes disappointment. Sometimes you look at other couples and think “why can’t we be like that…..” You don’t really know what’s going on behind closed doors.

Most honest people wouldn’t say that marriage is “easy.”

Even though it can be really hard, the key is to hang in there, forgive each other, focus on solutions, improve your attitude and relationship skills, learn to persist when the going is tough.

3. Accept that you may need to “Upgrade your Thinking”

The Bible Verse from Philippians 4:8…has some really good and helpful advice.

“Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”

We all tend to dismiss our own faults while magnifying the flaws of our spouse.

We think, but you don’t understand, my spouse really is awful and wrong in the way they are.

Judging our spouses and thinking we’re “better than them” is sure to build resentment in our relationship.  Counting their failures and the errors of their way will not help draw us closer or lead to positive feelings.

Obsessing over your spouse’s weaknesses won’t make them go away. People do that for years and it doesn’t get them anywhere.

Regularly thinking negatively about your spouse’s weaknesses increases your dissatisfaction with them and your marriage; yet, it’s a natural human tendency.

Yes, those weaknesses are there. It may seem contradictory but when you focus on their qualities that you DO appreciate, you have a better chance of them improving on their weaknesses.  (it’s true!)

We all have weaknesses, we all have bad days.  We can be thoughtful, caring and attentive one day, and so aloof, harsh, and critical the next day. You have to give your spouse room to be a less-than-perfect human, to have bad days, and “off days.”

The challenge is that we are more likely to hang on to the memory of the “bad” and “off” days. Negativity is like Velcro, it sticks and Positivity is like Teflon, it slides right off.

Judgements, resentments, criticism and negativity creates the 3 D’s–distance, disconnection and damage.

We do much better when we focus on how we can improve ourselves.  After all, how can we be so judgmental of them when we have so many faults of our own? We should focus more on noticing and improving our own imperfections.

Accept that choosing to overdose on appreciation may be necessary

Find five or six things your spouse does really well—or even just one or two!—and try to overdose on focusing on your appreciation for them.

A true Story

One morning I awoke early and immediately sensed my frustration from the previous evening. We have an issue in our relationship that we had talked to death over the previous two decades. Lisa acknowledged her need to grow in this area, but events of the previous weeks had convinced me that nothing had changed.

I felt resentful, and in my resentful mood, I can slip into what I call “brain suck.” I start building my case. Like a lawyer, I recall every slight, every conversation, and prove to my imaginary jury how wrong my wife is and how right I am.

So, I tried this ‘overdosing on appreciation’ trick.

I started consistently thinking of the qualities in Lisa’s personality for which I feel very thankful. That reminded me of something else, which reminded me of something else, which reminded me of yet another quality. After about fifteen minutes, I literally started to feel completely different towards her.  I saw so much to be thankful for that it seemed preposterous that I should waste time fretting over this single issue.

I highly suggest making use of this powerful tool. We have to give it time—one session of thankfulness will not fully soften a rock-hard heart. But over time, thankfulness makes a steady and persistent friend of affection.

4. Accept that you need to take control of your mind

Your mind will want to remind you where your partner falls short, and it will try to stir up the fire of resentment and anger.  You can count on it.

You’ll find yourself growing resentful: “Why should I appreciate that my husband works hard when he comes home and won’t even talk to me at night?” “Why should I be appreciative that my wife is such a good mother when she’s so critical of me?”

When this starts to happen, start to think about your own weaknesses that you need to work on.  Respond to temptations to judge them by thinking about the areas in your own life that you need to work on.  Take the focus off of them and put the focus on how you can work on improving yourself.

5. We’re All in This Together as Imperfect Humans

Every one of us has an imperfect partner.

We confront different trials, different temptations, and different struggles—but each one of us faces the same reality: living as imperfect people, in an imperfect world, with an imperfect spouse.

Learning to love, appreciate, and to be thankful for that imperfect spouse is one of the most transforming things you can do for your relationship.

It’s not an easy journey, but it’s a PROFITABLE one long-term.

Disclaimer

I feel a need to put this disclaimer in.  I do believe there are situations that happen in marriages, like abuse and addictions where this advice may not apply.  It’s important to do what you need to do in order to stay safe too. 

___________________________________________________________________________

Fay Prairie is a counselor, personal life coach and speaker specializing in personal development, relationships and empowering mindsets. She helps set you free from stress and negativity so you can start creating a Better You…Better Relationships…Better Life…

Fay also provides workshops and trainings.  Check out her speaking page by  Clicking Here

Contact Fay to set up a FREE 30 minute call to discover how Personalized Life Coaching can help you to begin making positive changes in your life!   (e-mail fay@fayprairie.com or call 507-829-0181)