Yesterday I had the great pleasure of being one of 5 speakers at the Inaugural Balance by Deborah Hutton conference in Brisbane. Cynthia Morton was one of the other speakers I was honored to present with and she is an astonishing woman. She set up the foundation - Emotional Fitness - to help people recovering from addictions. She has had amazing results for many years since she recovered from her own addictions and has helped hundreds of thousands of people.
She is astonishingly accomplished, recognized and the MOST beautiful woman inside and out! She taught me many things one of which was this:
Anger is always - always - an alarm for us. It’s a trigger for us to ask ourselves - ‘what do I feel I have lost?'.
Anger is always about exploring ‘what do I need for emotional wellbeing’.
Anger is always about disconnection from ourselves.
The way to make anger a useful emotion in your life is to recognize it for what it is - an alarm - you are allowed to feel it (as long as you are not cruel) and then use it to remind you to:
- reconnect with your emotional self and
- ask yourself “what have I lost that I need for my emotional wellbeing?”
This is the way you can process your anger and then you can - as Cynthia says - get to your happy place!
While I was reflecting on what she said...and how I felt afterwards - it connected with another concept I had been exploring for a while - that of how our thinking controls our feelings, which controls mindsets, which control our lives!
I created a rather complicated (as it turns out) map of my ideas!! But hopefully if I explain them, it will all make sense!
Starting at the top:
Most of the time (95%) we are unconscious of what we are actually THINKING - it is just running in the background as our ‘operating platform’ controlling our behaviors.
These thoughts - the patterns of thoughts are created from our family thinking (Optimistic? Pessimistic? Victims? Proactive? Encouraging? Supportive? Building self esteem?); from our life experiences; from information we gather from everywhere; from the world culture as installed into us via the news and most significantly the unconscious fears that have been installed in us especially during the time we are 0-7.
These patterns of thinking become cemented in with repetition and reinforcement and they become our MINDSETS - collections of thoughts, beliefs and stories that we tell ourselves about who we are, how we operate, how we react to things (like stress for example), how open we are to learning and growing or embracing change or new ideas etc.
Those mindsets (and random thoughts that have not yet become a habit) determine how we FEEL - which rules pretty much everything else.
They also determine our PERCEPTIONS - the way we see the world - which is not reality - but seeing the world through our own set of ‘glasses’ which filter everything. Think ‘rose coloured’ glasses - where everything we see looks positive and optimistic. They are mindsets - unconscious mindsets until we choose to become conscious of them.
Our perceptions influence how we feel and vice versa.
Our mindsets and consequent perceptions out manifest in our lives - in other words, the life we are living is the one we have CREATED through our mindsets and perceptions. It’s a hard pill to swallow but we are truly responsible for our lives as they are right now!
Because our mindsets and perceptions limit our ability to see all sides of ‘truth’ or to see other people’s points of view and perceptions - in fact to see the big picture (reality), we see only what we expect to see! Repeat - we see only what we EXPECT to see - which we use to justify and defend our mindsets - not what is really in front of us.
All of the above REINFORCE the mindset that we have already created as true and meaningful for us. ‘SEE, I TOLD you this would happen!’
If we ever SPEAK the thoughts out loud - it adds a whole new dimension of manifestation! And makes it MUCH more likely to happen - be VERY careful of what comes out of your mouth or is thought inside your head!
The starting point is UNCONSCIOUS thinking patterns and thoughts! Just like for most of us, until someone like Cynthia points out the anger is an alarm to warn you that your emotional self needs help, we have no idea where the anger REALLY comes from. We justify it and judge others and blame others - but really, the anger is coming from our fears, feelings and stories that we have lost something important to us.
Until we become conscious of what it is we feel we have lost, by connecting with ourselves again to find the answers - we can’t really resolve the anger. And it will affect our relationships with everyone else.
So, your mission should you choose to accept it! Become conscious of your thinking and mindsets and beliefs and the stories you tell yourself to reinforce all those thoughts, mindsets and beliefs!
Once you are conscious, you can challenge the stories and beliefs.
And remember - the next time you feel angry, stop, reconnect with your heart and ask yourself ‘what is it that I feel I have lost here - or in the past?’ or 'what fear is behind this anger - fear of losing something, or fear of something else?'
I would love to hear about your experiences if you actually did try this! And how you changed your life by changing your thinking and mindsets.
Zooties
Amanda
Zooties again!! And remember - your mission is to OBSERVE your thinking and see if your stories are working for you - and if not, change them!
