Virginia WaltonI had the most amazing realization and I have to share it with you! Are you ready for it??
Here it is….. our minds can be traps if we let them. Before you start to think “HA, I can’t remember why I went into a room two seconds after I enter it.” That is not where we are going today. We can cover improving our retention another day.
Today, we’re talking about the mental creation and spinning we do. Do you have entire conversations with other people in your own mind? Do you determine what others are thinking about you and then judge yourself based on that? Do you analysis the tone and intention behind every text and email?
If any of these statements resonated with you, keep reading. Trust me, this is good stuff!
Yes, I’m sure my Catholic school teachers taught me that it is not my place to judge and only God can do that, but I applied that learning to passing my classes and ‘learning my faith.’ Coaches are trained to not judge our clients- everything is neutral. Got it! Leadership books talk about the fact there is no tone in an email so do not assume one when you read it. These are all great lessons. You may have already heard some of these. But here is where they fall short and we’re going to close that gap.
These are all about your interactions with others! They are not helping you with the messages in your own head. Think about the last time you had a fight or disagreement with your spouse or significant other. Did you continue to replay it in your head? I bet you have at least once. It’s what we do. We don’t just replay the conversation as it happened. We determine what was really meant by those words or maybe it was actions. I had would play out the follow up conversation entirely in my head. I mean to the point where I deemed, we were ending the relationship or we would never be married because he really doesn’t love me because he did …fill in the blank. Sound familiar? Did it do you any good? NO! We exhaust all of this mental energy and emotional drain over something in our own mind, not an actual expression or statement from the other person.
This can apply at work or other types of relationships. I have offered to help others on various efforts and when I do not get a response, I start to tell myself “They must think I’m trying to take over”, “They want to be the one to do everything and be the martyr. This prompts me to be annoyed with this person. Guess what, I have NO IDEA what that person is thinking. Why am I spending my mental energy assuming I know their thoughts and then reacting to what may or may not be accurate.
I am sure you have come up with at least one time when you did something like this and as you think about it I would be willing to bet you are also recalling that you were not accurate.
So here is the exciting part! We can stop this! I had a client who was dealing with some relationship stress. I could see she was physically stressed over the situation. As she explains what was going on, most of the stress and fear was coming from her thoughts around the behaviors and actions of the other person. She even asked me, “Don’t you think it’s shady?” To which I responded, I don’t know. There are lots of reasons he responded that way, but I don’t know what prompted him to say or do that. Do you? We are humans and no two of us have had the exact same life experiences. Even if we’ve all had break ups or challenging peers, each one is unique because each of us is unique. We all have our own baggage.
I am guessing by how, you are thinking, YES, I do this and YES, it’s not helping me, but I have been doing it for years, so what are you going to do to change that.
Well, I’m not going to do anything! You are!!! Here’s the secret.
- Agree that when you do this whether with a spouse, child or co-worker it does not help. The coaching term “It does not serve you.”
- Recognize when you start to do this. Awareness is the key. With practice you will start to realize you are doing this sooner, so don’t beat yourself up for how long it takes you to realize you are doing this before you catch yourself.
- Once you realized you are wasting your energy and your time. STOP!
It may require you to physically move so you can disrupt the thought and refocus on another task. What works best will be unique to you. Here are some suggestions iIf you are at your desk stewing over a co-worker cutting you off in a meeting, sending a ‘snotty’ email, barking at you.
- Get up from your computer
- Go get a coffee, water, tea
- Go for a walk and focus on what you see or nature
- Put laundry in the washer or dryer,
- Get lunch.
Whatever you need to do to that will force your mind to focus on another task. The client in my example practices yoga so we talked about getting up and doing an inversion pose, which helps calm the mind by shifting your blood flow.
- Remind yourself, you do not know what is going on in that person’s head right now. Maybe they just got chewed out by their boss, or got a flat on the way to work, had a fight with their teenager about school that morning. Odds are that you and your reaction to their email or tone were the last thing on that person’s mind.
The point is you have no idea what is in the other person’s thoughts. You are not a mind reader. So, stop wasting your mental energy on the unknown. This is not scientific exploration. All you are doing is draining yourself and potentially damaging the relationship with the other person. If you want to know what drove their behavior or statement, the only way to find out… ask that person! Ask when you are calm and can be curios or matter of fact in the way you ask. Do not ask it like “Why the hell would you say that you, big jerk?”
Remember you never know what others are going through so even if this did not resonate with you right now, it may be just what a friend needs to hear, so please consider sharing it with your friends. It may be just what they need.
As always, please drop me a comment or a message for more information. Be well!