Can you believe one whole year has already gone by?! I feel like the older I get, the faster time passes. I was always told that as a kid, and never believed it. Nothing said to me was ever so true! Time is precious, that's for sure! Even today I looked at my calendar and realized we are already near the end of January!! I also realized it's been a few weeks since I've posted. Life gets in the way sometimes... and that's ok!
I didn't set a New Year's resolution this year. I didn't because, working on my Self is a life long journey. This isn't something you undertake for a day, a month, or a year. When I committed to becoming more mindful, I understood that it meant that I would be committing to a lifetime of growth and development. We don't know what we don't know. As such, when we commit to mindfulness, we commit to becoming more aware of the things we don't know - and that is a life-long journey!
When I began my journey in practicing mindfulness, I learned that my past experiences in life had so much influence over my emotional stability. For a long time, I let the emotions linked to my past influence my behaviour in the present. My emotions about the past affected my personal relationships, my work and even my relationship with myself. How well we relate to our past and the assumptions that we've made about past experiences, will always influence how we respond to people and events that occur in our lives today. Many of us live life defined by the choices we've made in the past - stuck in the past, so to speak.
Life for many is not always easy, if at all. I get that. Life is hard. Life's not fair. A hard lesson for many of us, including me.
But, we are 100% responsible for our own emotional responses. This is often a difficult concept for many people because they don't realize how much we allow our emotions to drive our reactions. The best way I know how to explain this is by referring to a basic concept I learned when I trained in CBT (Cognitive Behaviour Therapy). Our thoughts influence our feelings, our feelings influence our behaviour, and our behaviour influences our thoughts. It is a continuous cycle that, if damaging, can affect the way we relate to other people. When we allow our emotions to get the best of us, it affects the way we think and behave as a result.
“If your emotional abilities aren’t in hand, if you don’t have self-awareness, if you are not able to manage your distressing emotions, if you can’t have empathy and have effective relationships, then no matter how smart you are, you are not going to get very far.” – Daniel Goleman
There are different approaches that we can take when evaluating and assessing a given situation in our lives. One framework refers to the A, B and C of mindful living.
A = Activating event in our lives that trigger an emotional response;
B = Behaviour (how we choose to process information before jumping to a conclusion)
C = Consequential outcome (behaviour, emotional response or action)
A = C Thinking (Reactive)
This is a reactive approach to life. You'll notice there is no "b". That's because A = C is a cause and effect equation. Let's consider someone said something that offended you (activating event), and without thinking much about what just happened, you become quite upset and react (consequential outcome). This type of thinking only promotes putting blame onto others and assigning reasons to our emotional responses without taking responsibility for our reactions.
Reactive thinking doesn't tell the whole story. It doesn't account for the part we play in the processing of information inside our own minds. That's where mindfulness or mindful awareness comes in. When we understand how we are processing information, we can take full responsibility for how we choose to respond to that information. That variable alone can lead to a very different consequential outcome.
This is the missing link that helps us go from feeling out of control to having self-control; from being reactive to proactive in how we live our lives. When we account for our behaviours ("b"), we consider how we're processing this information before jumping to conclusions. It means we think before we act, often, leading to between better outcomes ("c") which leads me to...
A + B = C (Proactive Thinking)
Let's revisit the example I gave earlier. Someone said something that offended you. This time, you take time to think about what was said ("b"). Taking some time to think the situation, or in this case what was said to you, allows you some time to take a step back and breathe before reaching conclusions. You evaluate how you feel in this situation, then you plan your reaction accordingly ("c").
When we become more mindful at how our emotions affects our behaviour and thoughts, the better we are able to stop in the moment of that situation. When we take a quick moment to consider how we will allow ourselves to feel in a difficult moment, we are better able to control our reactions. I always tell my boys, no one controls your feelings but you. It is true, no one can make you feel anything, only you can! When we start owning our feelings 100%, that's when change and growth happens!
“When I discover who I am, I’ll be free.” – Ralph Ellison
Perfectly Imperfect,
Stephanie
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