We live in a world today that easily confuses thoughts with feelings. I am certain you’ve heard someone say: I feel like….followed by a whole sentence of thoughts. But the reality is a feeling is a one word descriptor. It is one word used to describe a vibration in our body. And many times, we are not in tune with our bodies to find out how we feel.

Our thoughts create our feelings. Many times a thought comes on so quickly, followed by our feeling, that we don’t notice how it came to be. I’ve also noticed many of our thoughts are repeated quite a bit in our brains. This simply means our brain receptors have a well defined path towards those thoughts, therefore thinking them often is familiar. And we all know if something is familiar to us, it’s comfortable and usually requires little effort. Which means if we keep repeating the same thoughts, then we probably keep repeating the same feelings caused by them.

I’ll give you two examples of this. I have the thought, I love spending quality time with my family. This thought then causes me to feel joy.

BUT, someone else may have the same thought, I love spending quality time with my family and feel deprived because according to them it’s not enough time they get to spend. One thought, followed by two feelings. As you can imagine, this happens a lot.

A well intentioned lovely sounding thought can also cause you unwanted feelings. So you’ll want to choose your thoughts carefully. And question the ones you currently believe. I was holding on to a thought thinking it was serving me, when really it only caused me anguish. My thought was, “I want to show up as the best version of myself.” Sure, it sounds lovely and inspiring to some. But to me it felt heavy. The pressure I associated with “being my best” did not work for me. Anytime I did/thought/felt something I thought wasn’t my best, I beat myself up. It’s almost like my brain created a perfection expectation by believing this thought.

So I questioned everything about this thought. Why did I believe it, how is this serving me, do I want to keep thinking it? And I realized, after asking myself these questions, that it was not a useful thought. Even though it was one I had held onto for a long time, I decided I no longer wanted to keep it.

I have eventually swapped it for a more fitting thought: “I want to show up, authentically as myself.” This thought caused me to have a totally different feeling. A feeling that felt good in my body. So of course I am keeping it and going to practice it over and over.

What small shift can you make in a thought that does not serve you?