Daily Practice: Brain Dump!

6,000 thoughts run through your mind on the daily!

(It used to be 60,000 but new studies show 6,000.)

80% of them are likely negative.

And MANY of them are subconscious.

How can you become aware of what is going on up there when there are SO MANY thoughts?!

Well, here is my FAVORITE thing to do EVERY DAMN DAY!

Brain Dump! Sit down. Ask yourself, WHAT IS GOING ON?! Write. Don’t edit yourself. Just let it go!

Pro Tip: If you have something specific you want to write about, prompt yourself with questions: Why am I feeling anxious/stressed/angry? What am I currently thinking that has me wanting to punch my hubs in the face?

Look at all of it & decide, what are FACTS & what are thoughts.

Pro Tip: Facts are things that happened, words that someone said, stuff going on in the world, something everyone can agree IS, indeed a fact. The facts (aka circumstances) are shit you can’t change/control.

But the thoughts, those are optional. Sometimes our thoughts serve us & sometimes they don’t.

FYI: A lot of the time, we think our feelings are coming from the fact of the situation or the circumstance but it is really our thought about it!

Pick a few of your thoughts & ask yourself “how is this thought making me feel? When I am feeling that way because I am thinking that, how do I show up? For my biz? For my fam? For me?!”

That is when you can start to see the result those thoughts are creating for you.

The best part, you get to decide if you want to keep those thoughts or not.

Get curious! How else can you look at it? Is there a way that the thought MAY NOT even be true? Does it serve you to think it? Or not think it?

Last but not least, DO NOT JUDGE YOURSELF FOR YOUR THOUGHTS! You are learning to be more aware! Just be curious & compassionate.

Like I said, most of them aren’t conscious thoughts & they lean more towards the negative than the positive! BUT that means you are just a human with a human brain! There is NOTHING wrong with you!

The goal here is to:
-become more aware.
-start thinking more on purpose, less by default.
-create more of the results you WANT!

Unicorns & Rainbows...

Every single thing we DO or DON’T DO in our life is because of how we think it will make us feel. (Read that again.)

We want to dodge the negative emotions.

And we want to feel ALL of the positive emotions.

We are so used to thinking that life should be unicorns & rainbows so when negative emotions do pop up - many of us don’t want to allow it - so we push it away & try to pretend it doesn’t exist, we react to it (like losing our shit when we are angry) or we avoid it with food, booze, scrolling social media…

Basically, we find any way to feel better so we don’t have to feel like shit.

Lemme give you a PERFECT example.

How many times have you ended your work day & thought to yourself, “damn, that was a craptastic day, I deserve a drink.”

Welcome to being a human. You had a HUMAN day. Some days will be craptastic. And that is ok.

FEELING NEGATIVE EMOTION IS OKAY!

I know you are like, “what did that bitch just say?!”

And I said what I said.

If you didn’t feel like shit sometimes, you wouldn’t know what it was like to feel fucking amazing.

If you didn’t experience sadness, you would never know true happiness.

If there wasn’t hate…you wouldn’t know love.

If life was only unicorns & rainbows you wouldn’t even know what unicorns & rainbows are…there would be ZERO contrast.

It is fine to feel not so fine sometimes.

And if you allow the sadness, anger or fear or any other feeling you would normally push away to be there, eventually everything WILL be fine.

When you don’t try to stuff them in a teeny tiny closet, most feelings pass in 90 seconds. But when you freak the f out about it - that is going to make it worse & soon enough the closet door will bust open & ALL the shit will come pouring out. It’ll be a shit show. See what I did there...

What you resist will only persist.

What you allow, embrace & move towards will dissipate.

Lovability

Can I tell you something?

….I’ gonna tell you anyway.

You are 100% lovable. How do I know? Your lovability is based on someone else’s ability to LOVE, not on you. There isn’t a damn thing you can do to be more lovable that you already are, in this moment.

Think about it - say your best friend loves the shit out of you, obvi, you are besties, but her husband doesn’t love you. That has ZERO to do with you being lovable & everything to do with their capacity to love you. His lack of love for you is not a reflection of you. You are 100% lovable.

If you aren’t feeling the love for yourself…that is a choice you are making. It is NOT because you aren’t lovable. It is based on YOUR capacity & willingness to love yourself without any strings attached.

And how you treat yourself is a mirror image of how you think about yourself.

But here’s the kick in the nuts, our brains LOVE LOVE LOVE to find all the dirt on us & judge like it is their job…I mean, it is sorta conditioned that way, so I guess you could say it is like your brain is currently the VP of the “You Aren’t Enough” Department.

BUT here is the amazing thing….you get to step in & train your brain for a new position, The CEO of the “Loving Yourself On Purpose” Department. It is a hands on role & requires daily attention, some days more than others, but I hear the benefits of being the CEO of this particular department are...well, mind-blowing.

First place to start….
Awareness.
What are the mean things your brain tries to tell you about yourself? You will think they are FACTS. These are things you have probably thought for SO long that you BELIEVE them with every bone in your body but now is your chance to question that….
What are some ways those thoughts are NOT true? Your brain will WANT to find evidence for how it IS true but challenge it, with love. Get curious.

And you might just slowly start to recognize that there is more to you to love than you were able to acknowledge before.

Your spouse is NOT your golden ticket to happiness...

Meet the younger, less “aware” versions of us…

Veruca Salt (aka: the emotional child).
The people pleaser.

Guess who WAS who?!

I thought he had my golden ticket to happiness.
And at first, he genuinely wanted to do whatever it took to get me that ticket. He thought his main goal in life was to make me happy.

But EVERY TIME I relied on him to do something to make me happy…it was short lived.
I was never satisfied ENOUGH.
I expected more.

And if things didn’t go my way, I’d get all angry like Vercua. “I want it now!” (Hello unrealistic expectations.)

He kept saying yes, even when, deep down, it was NOT a genuine YES anymore.
Little by little without him realizing it, he was building up & holding in resentment for me in a way that led to him just being angry. A lot.

I thought, if I can change HIM, this can work. So I tried to control his behavior. I wanted him to be less angry. It was obviously “ruining” our relationship. (FYI folks, you can not, I repeat, can not change other people.)

We weren’t really aware that this is how we were showing up in our relationship.
We both blamed each other.
But we also didn’t REALLY talk about it.
If we did argue, it was a shit ton of blaming & yelling, with very little resolution.
Our favorite activity as a couple was to sweep problems under the rug.
It was a mountain of a fucking rug.

We were both miserable & neither one of us realized WE were both the problem.
He couldn’t figure out how to make me happy + he had anger issues.
And I never took responsibility for how I felt.

So what changed?

He realized he was done compromising what he wanted, ALL OF THE TIME, in order to try to make me happy.
And I started taking responsibility for my own damn emotions.
Then there was less tension. Less anger. Not perfect, but WAY better.
And from that place, we were able to be reasonable human beings & talk.

We both realized he wasn’t my golden ticket.
I had it all along.
And as much as I resented him for it at first, he had to stop doing every single thing for me, in order for me to figure that out for myself.

Long story short: Own your happiness. And don’t lose sight of who you are just to please those around you.

Wait..my husband doesn't read my mind?

“I wish my hubs would just plan an entire evening, take me out & I don’t even have to ask…”

You’ve said it, right?

Then, a holiday or special occasion rolls around & he hasn’t read your mind…you get all pissy that your date night (that you made up in your head but didn’t tell anyone about), didn’t happen.

You pout.

You get irritated with him.

And he has NO CLUE what he did wrong.

Or you do this…

You drop hints hoping he will get it & then, NOTHING.

No date night. Like ever. Planned.

And again, you pout.

You get irritated with him & he still has NO CLUE what he did wrong.

Hear me out…what if you:

1. STATE exactly what you would like & IF he wants, he can plan the date night. Like we tell our kids…“USE YOUR (DAMN) WORDS.” Keep in mind, you can request what you want, but he is a grown ass adult, he may not WANT to do it. And get this, that is ok…because you have a second option.

2. Just plan it yourself? I planned our date tonight. I knew what I wanted, I asked if he was in & then I set it up. Get this shit…we both had a GREAT evening.

Men are NOT mind readers. And you know what you want BETTER than anyone else.

I get it, trust me.

BEEN THERE.

We think they should know that we want candy & flowers on Valentine’s Day or that we WANT them to plan date night for our anniversary. We think that if we tell them, it is not the same or it doesn’t count. But he is not going to GUESS what you want.

And I can tell you that not once during our date night did the thought run through my mind that he didn’t care about me enough because HE didn’t take the time to plan our night out.

Do you always know what he wants? Prob not.

Think of how much less disappointment there would be if you just SAID what you wanted. Or if you just took control of the things you wanted & dropped the expectation that he has to do it all (& without being told…)!

“On my birthday, I would love….”

“For our anniversaries, it would be awesome if….”

And if you’re mad about not getting something you didn’t ask for, don’t be mad at your husband because YOU never clearly stated what you wanted.

Just bc they MAY have gotten shit right every now & then without you having to tell them EXACTLY what you want doesn’t make them mind readers - nor does it mean they don’t love you when they don’t meet the expectations you have in your brain (that you kept to yourself)…