What do you spend most of your time thinking about? Are your thoughts benefiting you and your body?  Or are they hurting you by rehashing the past, worrying about something you have no control over?  Perhaps your thoughts are in the future dreaming of what your life could be like?

Did you know that you think 60, 000 thoughts a day and most of those thoughts are negative. Your brain thinks negative and it’s your job to retrain and redirect your thoughts, but we don’t always know what we are thinking about, because we are running on auto pilot.   

One way to know what you are thinking is to pay attention to your feelings. Just notice if you feel happy or sad, relaxed or stressed. This is a hint to what you are thinking. Feelings follow thought. This pattern of the brain is left over from a time long forgotten. The reptilian brain was our first brain. It is the oldest of all the brains components. It controls the body’s vital functions such as heart rate, breathing, body temperature and balance. Its job is to keep us safe. The second brain is known as the emotional brain. The limbic brain emerged in the first mammals. This part of the brain is the seat of our value and judgments that we make. It records memories of our behaviors that produced our experiences.

Now you know about the brain and that feelings follow thought. Here is a key to changing your feelings. If you don’t like what you are feeling, then change your thoughts and your feelings will change. Now I bet you are thinking sure that sounds easier said than done. How do you go about shifting your emotions? One way to do this to think of a happy event. Remember when you went to a great concert or saw a funny movie that made you laugh. Do you have a special pet that you love? If you have a child do they do silly things that make you smile?

The memory I use to make myself feel better is about my son. He was two years old and it was Christmas morning. I gave him a gift to open. At first he was not sure what to do with it, but once I showed him how to open the gift he went wild. Every time anyone received a gift he was right there helping them open their gift. He was so cute and the room was full of love and laughter.

The reason why this works is because your mind can only think of one thing at a time. In the beginning it will take awareness, but after you do the exercise a few times it becomes easier to shift your emotions to a happier state.   

Just for today practice tapping into how you feel. To remember you might pick a time such as the top of the hour to check in or post a sticky note saying, “Feeling?” Let me know how it goes. Leave a reply below.