Today I’m continuing the conversation around the most powerful and freeing tool I teach my clients how to use, the thought model. Last week I talked about the power of getting our thoughts out of our head by doing a thought download and I shared this relationship thought download worksheet to help you with the process. This step alone can move you forward but if you follow this seven-part series and step beyond taking the “junk out of the junk drawer”, you will see how to start creating the life you dream of.
This week I’m going to teach you the difference between the facts and the drama on that list you took out of your head and why it’s so important to know the difference. So often we think that our life circumstances are creating good or bad things in our lives but I teach my clients something different. I teach them that it is the thoughts they have about those facts that are creating the good or bad they are experiencing. This week I’m going to share a freedom that when it was revealed to me, kind of broke my brain. Read on.
Let’s start by looking at facts and thoughts, or drama, separately.
Facts
These are provable, non-emotional statements. Everyone in the world would agree and they are clearly provable in a court of law. Some examples of facts:
- My husband had three beers last night.
- My husband said, “I don’t want to go out to dinner tonight.”
- My husband vacuumed the floors last night.
- My husband spent $4,000 at the casino last month.
Drama – Thoughts
Thoughts are purely our interpretation of what is actually happening in the world. Thoughts are our opinion of the facts, not the truth. Thoughts usually have emotion, description, subjective words in them.
Some examples of thoughts that we might think about the above factual sentences:
- My husband drinks too much.
- My husband doesn’t like going out with me.
- My husband is so sweet.
- My husband is selfish.
The fact that our thoughts about reality are optional and changeable is that one completely freeing fact I have to share today. It allows us to question it all, everything we believe.
Does it hurt your head to imagine this concept? It did mine. This might seem simple silly or it might sound completely abstract difficult, either way, please just play along for a bit, just entertain the possibility. If you do this work consistently you will eventually understand and experience new freedom. Knowing certain thoughts you’ve believed most of your life are optional, that the pain they bring is optional, knowing the thoughts that feel like raw truth can be thrown into the trash, liberating. If you learn how to find the facts and separate them from your thoughts you will create magic knowing all of your thoughts are optional. It makes all the difference in re-creating your most important life relationships.
The freedom in knowing that a thought is 100% optional means you have the power to change it. You have the power to change it to something that brings you different results, not the results of your past. Just knowing this fact logically will make your mind start looking for something different and testing new ideas. Knowing that every thought you think is optional, that you get to decide whether it is serving you, whether you want to keep it, is the crack that can let the light in.
Now know this, I also suggest you start questioning thoughts you want to believe and to not let this scare you. Some people are afraid that questioning a thought they want to believe in, like their faith in Jesus Christ as their Savior, could cause them to change their minds. This is 100% possible, you might find evidence that could cause you to change this belief, yet having more evidence allows you to have stronger evidence of what you choose to believe.
I won’t be suggesting you just change, or stop thinking the thought that isn’t serving you. Before you can actually change your thought and produce something different you really have to understand what is going on right now, that you are actually producing a negative result with your thinking. Fun work; just stick around and practice, I promise this works because it’s the real truth.
Benefits of separating out the facts from the drama
Once we can get to the point where we can see the facts as 100% neutral, we can start conceptualizing that any thought is possible. We can start to see when a thought produces pain or tightness and be able to dig into what thought is causing the negative vibration in our body. Even when a thought feels awful, noticing that thinking anything different is impossible at the moment allows us to feel the sting while allowing it, recognizing it and not fighting it. Knowing that it’s just a thought that hurts at the moment and that something different is possible allows the pain to ease a bit. When you’re ready to open up to the possibility of something different, that your thought might be wrong and that it is truly just a thought, then you can start exploring something different.
Next step: implementation.
Last week you practiced doing thought downloads and this week I suggest you continue that practice, just adding a minute on to the end of your practice to look at each sentence. As you look at each sentence decide if it’s fact or drama (a thought). Draw a line through all of the facts on your list. Not many facts in your thought download? No surprise, that’s why it’s called a thought download! Our brains love to fill up with all sorts of thoughts, many of which don’t serve us and glaze over the truth. Follow up next week when I share some information to help you understand those thoughts on your download.
Move ahead to next week’s post to learn how to start creating your love list and separating out the facts from the drama.
I am a life coach who works with individuals to break down relationship barriers by awakening their true self. My process isn’t about changing your partner, it’s about discovering who you are so that you can AwakenYou in your marriage. If you’re ready to take your life and your love relationship to the next level then schedule your program inquiry call today and let’s decide together if this is your next step to creating the life you’ve been dreaming of.
