The One Core Thought Fueling Your Stress and How to Shift It

Spam Filter For Your Brain - Episode 143

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One of the things that I noticed when I started getting into thoughtwork was I was worried to unpack some of this stuff because I definitely thought "I have too many thoughts. I'm so complicated. This is all way beyond the methodology of a simple formula that can be broken down, which could help me understand myself. I'm way more complicated than that..." And turns out I'm not. Turns out that rarely anyone that I've coached is, like to say nobody. Even though I think nobody.

I think a lot of this sort of "I don't think you understand quite how hard it I have it"-ness that I used to carry around was really based on this idea that I have a lot of very complicated thoughts and they're all very self deprecating and I couldn't possibly let them out of my mouth or you might hear what a dreadful failure I am. I'm even a failure at being mean to myself. Look how mean I am to myself. I'm, you know, it's sort of like I'm both winning and losing at this.

And actually, when I strip it all down, when my teacher stripped it down for me and when I pare it down for other people, actually, it's really only about three thoughts that most of us have most difficulties that people are struggling with in their brains could be nailed down to the core things through the middle of "I'm not good enough", "I'm going to be rejected", or "I probably am going to die alone".

That's the core of most of our issues. And actually, if you sort of group all of those thoughts together, the I'm not good enough, I'm going to be rejected, I'm going to die alone thoughts, they sort of, they can all be branded under the umbrella of I don't really feel safe.

And once we can identify that's what's going on for us, we can start to look at how we can support ourselves in the story that we're really telling ourselves as the foundation with all of these like terribly important details that we layer on top. When we can start examining the root of what's actually going on, we can begin to feel better in our lives, in ourselves, in our bodies, and in our relationships.

All of these core narratives we keep returning to, even though lots of the surface details can change. If we're not looking at some of the ways that we speak to ourselves and just take these underlying stories as fact. This idea that we're not safe Then of course, everything on the top can change and we still end up feeling the same. It's this idea that we are taking these narratives as a given that means we can sometimes do a great deal of work on ourselves and still find ourselves looping back into the same circles.

It's trying to untangle our sense of identity that is attached to a personal flavour of self-critical story and allowing ourselves the grace and the forgiveness to get under the story and work out what we're actually telling ourselves. And then not to judge it, but just kind of go, "Is this something that is getting me somewhere that I like, somewhere that I enjoy? Is this turning up results in my life that I really like? Or is it something I'd like to change?" And there's no right or wrong answer for that. It's just "Do I like it? Do I want it? Do I want to keep it?"

You don't have to fix every thought. I know it feels like we can catalogue an awful lot of errors that we have and tell ourselves that each one of these million problems needs to be fixed. But if we look at some of the foundational core stories that we tell ourselves, how can you make yourself feel like you are good enough? How can you stop looking to other people to not reject you? By fixing the idea of us not rejecting ourselves, how can we stand up for ourselves? How can we have our own back? And how can we look at the idea of, you know, this fear of dying alone and no one being around us being something that, you know, it's probably not something that you need to be adjusting the whole trajectory of your life to try and circumnavigate.

Speaking as someone who's had some the most important people in my life die in my arms, I can tell you that even when someone is right next to you, you still die alone. You do it all by yourself. There's no going with someone on that journey for you.

When we can undermine these messages of "I don't feel safe" by bolstering ourselves with as much safety emotionally, physically, mentally, relationally, financially, all of these things are impacted when we start undermining these stories that we've rooted in ourselves as a core seed of poison that, that everything else rests on and undoing some of these stories and trying to excavate them and just put a little magnifying glass under them and see if it is something that you would like to transform in your life.

That's what we teach in www.selfcareschool.co.uk I knew that, you know, that was where it was going, but I really do have a really brilliant toolkit that enables people to live a life that is less based on stress, confusion, overwhelm and suffering. And I would love to share that with you in the show notes for this episode and all the episodes, there are some brilliant free resources, and there are also courses that you can sign up for to come and help learn some of this stuff so you can apply it to your own life.

It isn't about me thinking I've got all the answers that you need, but I certainly have a toolkit that will help you find your own answers. And that's what I would like for all of us, for all of us to feel a little bit more safe and all of us have more days where we feel more at ease with ourselves and with the world.

I hope that some of these tools may be useful for you, and I hope that at some point this week you're able to stop a story that might be an old spiral and just check in with yourself and ask yourself what's really going on here. I'll speak to you next week.

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