The Weekly Reframe: We don’t Live in Our Circumstances

Supporting you to free your mind so you can live from your heart!

“Transformation begins when we stop shining the spotlight on ourselves and realize we don’t live in our circumstances - we live in the feeling of our thinking.” 

- Michael Neill

"We live in the feeling of our thinking." When I finally saw this in my own life. I couldn't unsee it. For most of my life, I thought if I could just get my circumstances to line up - the right job, the right place, the right version of me - then I’d finally feel better. When I compared my life to other people’s, which I used to do often, it never measured up. So I doubled down on self-improvement, studying myself like a problem to be solved.

What I couldn’t see then was that my suffering wasn’t coming from my life, it was coming from my thinking about my life. My mind was running stories on repeat: “You’re behind. You are not enough. You don't matter. There is something wrong with you and you need to fix it. You should have figured this out by now.” Those thoughts created the dread and hopelessness I lived in, no matter what was happening outside me.

On the surface, it looked like anxiety and depression that I attempted to numb with substances and a hunger for external validation. Underneath, it was self-loathing dressed up as self-study.

(Sidenote: my brain STILL runs these painful stories, although less often, and it is painful when they are activated. I sometimes act out in ways I wish I didn't. And the difference is I am aware of them now, and sometimes quickly and sometimes slowly see when they are up at bat. I am also way more compassionate with myself because I see, "oh, it's that old familiar you- are -not- enough story cropping up.")

When I started getting coached, I finally saw what was actually going on in there. In my mind. I saw that my mind isn’t the enemy, it’s just doing what it evolved to do: protect me and keep me alive.

Our primitive brains equate discomfort with danger. Back in the day, “danger” meant stepping out of the cave and getting eaten by a saber-toothed tiger.
Now it means feeling our emotions, those electric sensations that course through our bodies when we’re scared or sad or uncertain or content or joyful or ecstatic.

To evolve as humans is to stop hiding from the feeling of being alive, and to recognize that, as Michael says, i'm paraphrasing here: we think the feelings of worry and stress and insecurity are problems. They are not problems. They are smoke detectors.  You don't want to get rid of them. You just don't want them going off all of the time if there isn't an actual fire. 

There is no such thing as a solution to a feeling. Feelings are our guides and the uncomfortable ones are just as important as the delightful one because they guide us to help us see if we have lost our way or gone off the road and are now on the rumble strips.

That’s what coaching helps with: it brings the unseen into sight. When you start to notice the thought loops and narratives that have been running your life with compassion and question the validity, you can actually see there might be another way to live based on your gifts, values and intentions. These are always there, the mind just needs to be taught how to shift the focus there instead. And once you learn this you can develop the skill of noticing the fear and worry with compassion and allow it to guide you and then shift your focus to creation and contribution.

So I’ll leave you with a question:
Where in your life might a hidden thought be shaping your world and what could open up if you saw it clearly?

Step By Step,

Jessie