Four Simple Ways to Change Your Thoughts and Change Your Life

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Memories have a powerful impact on our lives.  They shape how we feel, how we act, and the choices we make.  When painful memories emerge, it can be especially hard to shake the negative feelings that bubble up and the way they affect our quality of life.

A new study by the University of Alberta provides us simple ways to manage the level of emotional intensity that we experience when recalling past memories.

Researchers report that when we recall our memories from a third-person perspective we are able to decrease the emotional intensity of that memory. “Specifically, the results show that recalling memories from an observer-like perspective, instead of through your own eyes, leads to greater…interaction among brain regions that support our ability to recall the details of a memory and to recreate mental images in our mind’s eye.”

Not only does this third-person perspective allow us to recall memories with higher accuracy, but it also enables us to experience relief from troubling or even traumatic memories more successfully.

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Do you want to overcome past hurts and live a whole, healed, and healthy life?

Check out Unworried—A Life Without Anxiety

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Learning to decrease the emotional power of negative memories is especially important because it helps us overcome limiting “core beliefs.”  Cognitive behavioral therapy defines core beliefs as central beliefs that people hold about themselves, others, and the world. These core beliefs then influence what CBT refers to as automatic thoughts—those thoughts or beliefs that seem to pop into our mind that shape our daily self-talk.

In addition to recalling our memories from a third person perspective to decrease their emotional power, here are three ways to re-story our core beliefs and develop healthy self-talk:

Label Thoughts—One of the best ways to get control of our self-talk is to label our thoughts as either helpful or hurtful. When we do this, we can learn to lean into helpful thoughts and let go of hurtful thoughts, just like we would listen to helpful advice from others and dismiss unhelpful advice.

Live Intentionally—When we live busy lives it’s easy for us to operate on “auto-pilot.” We go about our day moving through our tasks without really being present. But when we live in this more passive state, we are living more out of reaction rather than intentional action. Gain control over your negative feelings by being intentional about your actions and your self-talk. This can be as simple as changing your self-talk from “I have to go to work,” to, “I’m choosing to go to work because…(of this benefit I get from it).” Likewise, instead of saying “what is the day going to bring?” you might say, “what do I want to make happen today?” Living intentionally helps us regain control over our emotions and our lives.

Focus on Strengths—We often focus on what we didn’t do well or what we wish we could do better. However, this kind of thinking often leads to negative core beliefs and automatic thoughts.  Instead, practice focusing on what you CAN do instead of what you can’t do. Make a point of acknowledging your successes throughout the day. Even in the face of hardships, identify the strengths that you displayed and give yourself credit. For example, did you have a positive conversation with your spouse, co-worker, kids, or friend? Acknowledge that as a success and identify, “I was thoughtful, respectful, empathetic, (etc.) in that conversation which helped me be successful.”

For more ways to re-story your core beliefs and self-talk, visit us online at CatholicCounselors.com

Get a Grip—Mastering Your Emotional Life

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What feelings tend to get the best of you?  Do certain people or situations provoke emotional reactions in you that are hard to get a handle on?  For that matter, does someone you love struggle with their emotions and you’re not sure how to support them?

In order to handle these difficult situations for ourselves and others, it’s helpful to understand the answer to the following question: Are our emotional reactions universal, or are they conditioned by culture and environment?  

Researchers at the University of North Carolina examined the words used to describe feelings in over 2500 languages to see how people in various cultures experienced emotion.  They did find differences in the ways different cultures describe the experience of certain emotions.  For example, some languages view grief as similar to fear and anxiety, whereas others view grief as similar to regret.  But researchers found that ALL cultures think about and categorize emotions in a similar way. Specifically, all languages distinguish emotions primarily based on whether they are pleasant or unpleasant to experience, and whether they involve low or high levels of arousal. For example, no languages view the low-arousal emotion of sadness as similar to the high-arousal emotion of anger, and no languages viewed the pleasant emotion of “happy” as similar to the unpleasant emotion of “regret.”  This suggests that there are universal elements of emotional experience that are rooted in biology more than culture.  The takeaway? The challenge of  understanding, expressing, and cultivating a healthy emotional life is a universal human experience.

Theology of the Body reminds us that just like the rest of our bodies, emotions and feelings can only do what they were designed to do–that is, help us recognize what is happening in and around us and respond to it in godly, effective ways–if we learn to bring our emotions to God and ask him to teach us how to use them. 

Emotions and feelings are two different but related things. Brain scientists tell us that emotions are the body’s monitoring station. Emotions represent the primitive brain’s general, collective sense of both our overall state of our well being and the circumstances in our environment.  Feelings, on the other hand, are what happens when our cortex, our higher brain, gathers all these general impressions and creates a story about what these impressions mean and how we are to respond to them and that’s where things tend to get complicated.  Because of sin, we often do a poor job of evaluating emotional impressions well and developing responses to those impressions that work both for our good and the good of others.  By bringing our emotions to God we can relearn how to let our feelings serve our physical, emotional, relational, and spiritual wellbeing.

Here are a few, effective ways to understand and gain control over your emotional life:

Pause and Pray–Get in the habit of briefly pausing and praying before you act on an emotion–especially a negative emotion like anger, sadness, or anxiety.  When you notice yourself having a strong emotional reaction, pause–even for a second–and say something like, “Lord, help me correctly identify the specific thing I am reacting to and respond to it in a way that will glorify you.”  Brain scientists tell us that pausing even a second or two allows the higher brain to catch up with the emotional reactions generated by our more primitive parts of our brain.  This allows us to make better, and more complete,  responses to the situations that provoked our emotional reaction in the first place.  On top of this, bringing our emotional reactions to God reminds us our feelings aren’t God.  God is.  And everything we do–including acting on our feelings–has to be motivated by a desire to serve him.  If we can get in the habit of doing this, we give both God, and the natural talents for emotional management God built into our body–the opportunity to teach us to handle even the most provocative situations gracefully.

Add Feathers–Do you know how people can be really good at telling others how to manage their emotions but really bad at managing their own?  A new study by the University of Waterloo found that practicing one simple habit can allow people to manage their own responses as well as they can help others manage theirs.  The trick?  Add feathers.  Just like an arrow that has feathers flies straighter than an arrow without them, people who ask themselves what virtues they need to express their emotions well are much better at identifying and hitting the right emotional targets than people who just act on feeling.  If you want to be as good at taking your own advice as giving it, before you act on an emotion, ask yourself, “What virtue would help me express this emotion well?”  The study found that asking simple virtue-based questions like this helps people both avoid the temptation to repress negative emotions and also helps people make better emotional choices by reminding them to keep the big picture in mind. Next time you feel a strong emotional reaction welling up, don’t just let it fly with your feelings.  Add feathers, and let virtue guide the path toward the right response.

Get a Boost–Sometimes it can be too hard to learn to handle our feelings on our own.  If your emotional reactions are consistently complicating your life or relationships, seek professional help.  Psychotherapy is like physical therapy for the brain.  New research shows that modern therapy techniques help boost the brain’s ability to process emotional reactions more efficiently and identify healthy responses to emotions more effectively.  You don’t have to be a victim of your emotional reactions.  If you aren’t happy with the way your feelings are causing you to respond to the people or situations in your life, getting professional help sooner than later can help you get the skills you need to have a healthier emotional life.

For more information on gaining control of your emotional life, check out God Help Me! This Stress Is Driving Me Crazy!, and visit us online at CatholicCounselors.com.

When Your Emotions Get Derailed: Here’s How YOU Can Get Back On Track

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18447716_1326200774095096_1823817419_nYou overslept through your alarm, you’re late for work, and—on top of that—your kids are sick… With all of this going on its easy to feel overwhelmed and out of control, which only adds to the stress of daily life, instead of helping to solve the problem. So how do we get back on track when our emotions get derailed?

Theology Of The Body reminds us that God made our bodies to work for our good and the good of others–that includes our feelings which are a function of our bodies. If our emotions are making it difficult for us to function at our best or treat others well, the answer is not to blame others for the feelings our bodies are making, but rather to learn to take responsibility for our bodies and our emotions. Taking responsibility for our emotions doesn’t mean shutting them down or shutting them off, but rather making sure that we express them in ways that help us meet our needs efficiently and make our relationships with others stronger and healthier.

Here are three More2Life hacks for getting your emotions back on track.

1. Reclaim your Power–When feelings throw us off track, we can feel powerless over our emotions.  The good news is that both psychology and theology agree, no one is in a better position than we are to manage our emotions effectively.  The trick is to not see it as a choice between venting your feelings or stuffing your feelings.  Instead, let the goal be expressing your feelings in a way that serves you well.  Before acting on overwhelming emotions, try to remind yourself of times when you handled high pressure situations well.  Ask yourself how you could use those same strategies in THIS situation.  Remembering past successes helps you connect with the fact that–despite how it feels right now–your emotions are not the most powerful force in your life.  GRACE is.  Bring these feelings to God and ask him how to express them in a way that solves the problem AND respects both you and the people around you.

2. Remember the True Opposite of Anger–The opposite of anger is not calm. It is empathy.  If you are being derailed by anger, frustration or irritation with someone, don’t focus on calming down so much as focusing on trying to see things through their eyes.  The point of empathizing with the person you are frustrated with is NOT excusing any offense or explaining away a problem.  The point is trying to get yourself to the place where you can stop seeing the other person as an obstacle to your progress and, instead, inviting them to be a partner in helping you make progress.  Research shows that problem solving works better when the problem-solvers feel like a team.  Acknowledging your anger doesn’t mean you can’t empathize with others as well.  It just means being able to keep your needs and theirs in mind at the same time.

3. Return to the Scene of the Accident–Often, when we lose our cool, we allow our guilt and shame to cause us to refuse to return to the topic. We MIGHT apologize, but beyond that, we may feel like we have surrendered our right to address the problem that provoked our reaction in the first place.  Nothing could be further to the truth.  By all means, if you need to apologize for something you said or did, be sure to do so, but don’t forget to circle back and address the problem that caused the train to jump the tracks in the first place.  For instance you could say, “I’m really sorry that I lost my temper.  You didn’t deserve to have me speak to you that way.  I would like it if we could make some time to talk about X, however, because as long as that’s an issue, there’s a chance we’re going to end up going through this again.” Returning to the scene of the accident allows you to learn from the past and avoid repeating it.

For more information on how to keep your emotions on track, check out Broken Gods! And tune in to More2Life on EWTN Global Catholic Radio, SiriusXM 139—Monday-Friday 10am E/9am C!

Not Listening! Three More2Life Hacks for How to Get Your Feelings Heard

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Sometimes it feels almost impossible to get your family, friends, or significant other to listen to your feelings and meet your needs. Here are three More2Life hacks, inspired by my book, God Help Me, These People Are Driving Me Nuts! that will help you effectively communicate your needs and start living a happier, healthier life!

1.  Don’t Bury the Lede–When writers don’t start with the juiciest parts of the story, it’s called “Burying the lede.”  Often, in our attempt to either be polite or give people all the facts, we talk around things rather than stating our needs and feelings up front, then we get offended when people’s attention wanders or they miss the point.  When communicating, state your need or feeling up front.  For instance, “I’d really like to get some time together, when are you available this week?” or “I was really frustrated with the way thus and such turned out. Let’s talk about how to do that better next time.”  If you really want people to listen, don’t start with “Once upon a time” and get to your point around chapter three.  Start with your point.  Let any additional context come out in the conversation.

2. End With A Plan–When you talk with someone about your needs or solving a problem, don’t ever end the conversation without clear follow-up points. Too often, we feel like venting is the same thing as problem solving.  Clients tell me all the time, “we talked about that problem a lot.”  But when I say, “Great, and what did you decide to do about it.” I’m met with stunned silence.  When people say, “I talked to him about that.” What they usually mean is, “I complained about that.” Complaining isn’t communicating, venting isn’t problem-solving.  If a problem or need is important enough to talk about, don’t leave the conversation without know who is going to follow up with what, and when you are are going to check in with each other about it.  If you want to feel listened to, always end with a plan.
3. When Words Don’t Work, Don’t Use More Words–When someone doesn’t want to listen to you, when they ignore your needs or refuse to deal with a problem, continuing to talk about it is not only fruitless, it is counterproductive.  If someone doesn’t want to deal with a problem, one of the best ways to delay it is to simply agree to talk about it more without ever agreeing to do anything.  If you have spoken to someone about your concerns a few times without getting any result, stop using words.  Take action.  Ask yourself what steps you will need to take to address the problem or meet the need on your own, then do it.  If the other person complains, firmly, but gently, point out that you tried to enlist their help but they refused to talk about it, so you had no choice but to handle it. Then explain that next time, if they want a say in the solution, they should help you make a plan when you come to them in the first place.  Don’t get caught up in the game of talking something to death so nothing ever has to change.  When words don’t work, take action.

For more tips and tricks on how to improve your communication and relationships, tune in to More2Life, Monday-Friday 10am E/9am C on EWTN Global Catholic Radio Network.

Can You Be Mindful And Still Feel Angry?

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Mindfulness is a powerful technique for helping individuals develop a healthier relationship with their emotions.  Unfortunately, many individuals have fallen under the misunderstanding that practicing mindfulness means they will be completely at peace at all times. Then, when this doesn’t occur, they become more upset or believe that mindfulness doesn’t work.

To combat this, we must first understand what mindfulness really is. Mindfulness is, essentially,  the ability to experience your emotions fully without feeling controlled by those emotions. Mindfulness allows you to observe your emotions without “feeling like those emotions are so unbearable that you have to engage in dysregulated behavior (substance use, overeating, self-injury, etc) to ‘turn them off.’”

In other words, mindfulness does not cause us to “stop feeling” and always be in a state of peace. If this were the case, mindfulness would in some ways be detrimental since emotions are there to help us function. For example, “Anger helps us stand up for ourselves and motivates us to fight against injustice.” Instead, mindfulness, particularly when practice with a mental-health professional, “can help anger and other emotions feel more tolerable and easier to manage so you are less likely to feel controlled by your emotions.”

For more information on how to experience your emotions through mindfulness check out Calming The Emotional Storm 

Coming Thurs on More2Life Radio: The Grapes of Wrath

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Thurs on More2Life–The Grapes of Wrath: In light of the recent firing of a Rutgers coach for abusive behavior toward his players, we’re reflecting on anger. We’ll look at those times anger goes too far and how to respond more effectively both to your own anger and the angry outbursts of others. Call in from Noon-1pm Eastern (11-Noon C) at 877-573-7825 and we’ll explore more effective ways to deal with anger, and the angry people in your life.

Don’t forget to answer the More2Life FB Q of the D: 1. What situations are most likely to provoke you to anger? 2. How do you tend to respond when other people start yelling at you?
Listen to More2Life live weekdays from Noon-1pm E (11am-Noon C). Can’t get M2L on a Catholic radio station near you? Tune in live online at www.avemariaradio.net, listen via our FREE AveMariaRadio IPhone or Android App (Check your app store!), or catch the M2L Podcast!

Newsflash: Yelling isn’t Communicating.

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I talk to a lot of people who have a hard time with their temper but excuse it by saying that they are just being honest about their feelings.

I think it’s important to remember that your emotions are God’s gift to you, and not the people around you. When you are angry about something, that’s the Holy Spirit’s way of prompting you to look at a  potential  injustice.  Having been prompted, your job is to pray about whether the injustice is something in your environment, or if it has something more to do with your unreasonable expectations about how life should work as opposed to how life does work.  Either way, there is a problem to be solved and prayer will help clarify both the nature of the problem and the direction you should take.

Having prayed about your feelings, the next step is to prayerfully reflect on a respectful course of action.  If the course of action requires addressing a problem with someone, the rule of thumb is, “Lead with solutions, NOT emotions.”   For example:

A.  Leading with Emotions looks like this:  “I can’t believe you’re such a selfish jerk!  I have to do everything around here!”

B.  Leading with solutions look like this:  “I’m really overwhelmed.  I need us to sit down and come up with a plan for getting things together for our company this weekend.”

Now, there are a host of irrational thoughts that stop a person from doing B instead of A–but they’re all irrational.  If you tend to do A more than B, you’ve let Satan get in your head and he’s going to tempt you to actions that will drive the people you love away from you.

The second challenge (beyond the variety of irrational thoughts) people offer to this advice is, “Well, that’s just the way guys think about problems, not women.”  No.  That’s the way rational men and women think about problems.  Look, both men and women are equally capable of tantrumming and both men and women are equally capable of being reasonable, proactive, and effective.  If you find that you can’t consistently pull this off, don’t hide behind your gender.  Get the skills you need to be a more effective man or woman of God.   God wants to use you mightily, but he can’t do that if you love your emotions more than you love him or the people he’s placed in your life to love and serve.

Here’s another article on why shouting isn’t communicating.

For help getting a better handle on the emotions that are ruling your life, contact the Pastoral Solutions Institute to make a tele-counseling appointment with a faithful, professional, Catholic counselor today.  740-266-6461.

Coming Tues on More2Life Radio: When Feelings Attack!

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Coming Tues on M2L: When Feelings Attack!– Our emotions are a natural part of us and therefore a gift from the Lord, but when our feelings of anger, anxiety, sadness, and frustration run away with us (as they often do) emotions easily become the gift we’d like to return.  Today on M2L, we’ll talk about developing a healthy attitude toward our emotions and what it takes to control your feelings instead of letting them control you.

Don’t forget to answer our M2L Facebook Q of the D:  (A Two-fer:  Answer one or both)  1. When are your feelings most likely to get the best of you? 2. What feelings are the hardest to deal with in others (and why)?

Listen to More2Life live weekdays from Noon-1pm E (11am-Noon C). Can’t get M2L on a Catholic radio station near you? Tune in live online at www.avemariaradio.net, listen via our FREE AveMariaRadio IPhone or Android App (Check your app store!), or catch the M2L Podcast!