Spam Filter For Your Brain - Episode 122
I think most of us, probably since the beginning of the pandemic, feel a bit burnt out by the idea of goals. When I first started SelfCarSchool and when I first started coaching, the idea of goals, go and build your dream people felt like something we were all trying to strive for. And I think there's a lot of people are really tired. And I wanted to look at the opposite of what getting your goal might be this week, rather than, you know, if I'm like, "Hey, let's make these big life plans!" Most of the people that I know would probably be like, "Oh, I would rather have a sit down". And actually, both of those things can be useful little maps as to what we're looking for and what we're hoping to feel.
Normally, the whole idea of why we have a big or a little goal is because we're hoping to feel something. And when we can identify what we think we would feel if we got that thing, we can work out how we can get more of that emotion in our life in the first place. And it's not always as simple as that. So always probably useful if I talk you through an actual example rather than random tangibles. So if I go for, like, the smallest, like smallest and inconsequential goal in many ways, let's say, I keep being targeted advertised some dungarees that I really like. I don't need any dungarees, but they're really nice. And I think that if I got those dungarees, I would feel, quite cool. I'd have some clothes that fit me, which give me a sense of ease and actually that sense of ease in my own body. And feeling a bit cool out there in the world is the emotion that would give me is that I would feel confident. And so rather than thinking, shall I buy some? Shall I get some dungarees? It's such a weird old goal to go for, but let's make it, you know, accessible, rather than I want to be an astronaut, if I'm thinking, "oh, maybe, maybe I could get those dungarees, and I can feel confident", if it's confident that I want to feel, where else in my life do I feel confident already that I can kind of look at, notice, notice what I'm thinking, because it's our thoughts that cause those feelings and amplify that.
Now, on a bad day, most of us would probably go, oh, there's no areas of my life. I feel confident. On a bad day, I could bring the house down with how unconfident I am. And it's not true. There's loads of things. Even on my worst day, there are loads of things that I'm super confident about. I'm very confident I can make a cup of tea. I am very confident that if I see a big wave crashing into a wall, that I'm probably going to make some noise of glee. I am very confident that if my toe, if I've got a pebble in my socks, I absolutely want to get it out immediately. I am very confident that the number of emails that are sat in my inbox right now makes me uncomfortable.
Having a think about some of the things that I am super confident at, I can go, so let's look at the pebble in my shoe analogy. The pebble in my shoe energy is like, the confidence that I'm going to get that, like, my thought that takes me to confidence is "This has to change immediately. This is not continuing." The thought that kind of takes me to the sense of I'm going to giggle at seeing a big natural explosion of water is probably like, I'm delighted by this. I'm delighted by life. "I'm someone who looks at the world and and finds joy in the enormity and in the microscopic". When I, when I think about me having a cup of tea, I'm like, "I want it. I'm gonna get it". All of these thoughts are super useful. And, you know, it could be that I apply some of these to "I want it" "I get it".
I'm gonna do that for the dungarees. The truth is, it isn't actually a bit of fabric that has probably been made in some questionable factory across the other side of the world that will give me that sense of confidence. It's thinking that it's I going to feel okay in my body. It's the I am able to hold myself with that joy and glee that I see in the external environment. It is knowing that it's the confidence that I want. The more things I think that are along the lines of, "I delight in nature", "I delight in my body", "I delight in the things that are around me". "If it's something, this has to change immediately". "If it's something that I want, I'm gonna get it". Thinking these kind of thoughts, rehearsing them to myself, almost like I'm rehearsing lines for a play are gonna make those thoughts more accessible to me, and that's gonna bring more confidence into my life.
And when I've got more confidence in my life, I can go, I mean, do I actually want or need these dungarees? What I want need are interesting different angles in a similar direction, but they're not the same thing. I absolutely don't need them. And do I want them? And what I really want is the confidence. And I can create that without participating in some, some pretty grim, fast-fashion choices on the Internet.
And that's not to disparage. You know, everyone has choices, and this is one that I'm choosing to make in this moment. And I absolutely don't always make this choice. And I don't want you to be coming on the podcast sounding like I'm some kind of anti-fast-fashion saint, because, you know, we've all made some questionable choices in our time. I absolutely have. Primarily because it's quite hard to find clothes for fat women in high street shops.
But looking at this idea of confidence being something that is a choice, not something that purchasing something else would give me, I can expand that to all areas of my life. And I always try and check in with where I am, hoping that the external thing is going to generate an emotion in my body because it doesn't have the capacity to. An emotion in my body are chemical sensations which are caused by the thoughts, the electricity going off in my brain. And I can train that.
That is what I teach at wwww.SelfCareSchool.co.uk And, you know, I hope even on the podcast, you get a little idea of the ways that we can learn how to train our brains to give us more of the sensations that we want in our. In our own physical magic bodysuit. When we work out what the actual emotion that we want is, we can work out whether that's something that we want to work towards by training our brains or if it's something that you want to actually maybe put some extra thoughtwork and some time into mulling over why that's an emotion that you're seeking, where you think it's lacking those kind of good journaling questions, most of us are prone to thinking, I want to feel more of that, and so I'm going to have to do more things. But it's not the things that give us the emotion. If we put this into a work context, for example, we might feel like what we want to feel is more ease. And the way to do that is to do five more hours work, and then we'll be able to feel relaxed actually relax and our thoughts cause those sensations of ease.
And so if we were to be able to be rehearsing thoughts that enabled us to feel more relaxed and feel more calm in our bodies, chances are we'd actually get through the work a lot quicker and not be feeling such a deficit of that emotion in the first place. We can't act our way to our emotions, but we can strategise the things that we want more of, and we can rehearse the thoughts that are going to get us to a place that we want. Acting your way into things, or acting your way out of things to try and generate an emotion in your body only leads to burnout.
We all have way too many things that we are holding right now, and I urge you to just notice where you're trying to do more things so you can feel different things. If there are thoughts that can take you there, that are in your environment at the moment, just spending five minutes with a notebook, trying to note some of those down and rehearsing them is going to take you a lot further than grinding yourself into the ground.
This has been Spam Filter for Your Brain's little weekly lesson. What would be super lovely for me, if you have the time and if you have not done so already, is to go on to Apple podcasts, which is, I'm aware there's lots of platforms, but Apple's a really big one, that reviews make a difference. And if you are able to leave me a lovely five-star review, I'm aware that this has been very directive.
What it means is that other people are going to be able to get the podcast, and none of the time that I put into producing this and trying to make sure that the transcripts are accessible and everything is here so that you can get free information of lovely little nuggets in your ears every week is heard by more people. If you can leave a review, more people are going to hear it, and that would really hugely help me out. So I try and do this every week for free for people, but that review would make the world a difference. So if you're able to do that, I'll be super, super, super grateful. And hopefully this has been a useful week for you, and I'll speak to you next week.
Comments