Ep #05: How to Feel Less Stressed
episode summary
In this episode, I’ll walk you through how your stress is created by your thinking. But, before you get frustrated about that - there’s good news! You can change the way you think, and create a feeling of calm instead.
For the full show notes and transcript, head over here.
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What You’ll Learn:
Our thoughts always create our results. Here’s the breakdown: A thought creates a feeling. A feeling creates an action or inaction. Action creates our results.
You’ll learn that our thoughts are so powerful, that we can create a terrible day - or a great day - with thoughts alone.
You’ll learn why sunshine and rainbow thoughts DON’T work to change your mood.
By the end of the episode, you’ll know how to start “watching” your own thoughts in order to get the results you want.
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Hey, I'm Michelle Gauthier and you're listening to the Overwhelmed Working Woman Podcast.
Hi friends. Thank you for tuning in. You're listening to episode five. At the end of the last episode, I was telling you how my kids and I got electric bikes. I'm reporting back to say that they're so much fun. We have been cruising all over town.
They're cool if you haven't ridden one before, they're so cool because you can ride them just like a normal bike or you can turn on the electric part and drive it like a little moped or motorcycle, or you can kind of do a hybrid so that it can help you. We live in a neighborhood that has tons of hills, so it's pretty sweet to be able to get a little assistance.
Anyway, we've been having a really fun time with those. The only problem so far is that we keep riding our bikes to target, and you know, every time you go into Target, you just have to drop a hundred bucks on who knows what. But anyway, on the business of the day, today we are going to be thinking about our thoughts.
How's that for deep? You might have heard the term “thoughts become things” or “what you think you become”, or maybe you've heard of the thought model or cognitive behavioral therapy. There's lots of different ways to talk about this concept that I'm going to share with you today. But the basic idea is that the thoughts we think create the results that we get in our life.
So a result that you have in your life can be traced back. If we could magically trace it back to the thoughts that you had about it. And I want to break this concept down for you so that you can think about how to apply it to your life. Realizing what you're thinking is not always easier. Obvious because 95% of our thoughts are unconscious.
So the thoughts that are happening in our mind, we can't process them all at the same time. It would be way too much for our conscious mind to deal with. So a lot of times our thoughts are unconscious and it takes a little bit of practice to learn how to see those unconscious thoughts and bring them over to the conscious part of our brain.
But thinking on purpose, knowing what you're thinking and deciding if that thought works for you or choosing a different thought is the number one way to change your life. I've been coaching people for over five years, and I promise you the root of all change and all success and all feeling better starts with the thoughts.
Let me explain a little bit, here's how the whole thing works at a high level. When we think of thought, it makes us feel a certain way. Then when we feel that certain way we take action or inaction, we do something from that energy or emotion and the action that we take creates the results that we get.
I'm about to give you an example. So if you're right now, if you’re like “what are you talking about!” it's okay. But just in general, know that your thoughts create your feelings. Your feelings create your actions or what you do. Your actions create the results that you get in your life. So essentially, everything starts with a thought and ends with the result.
So, for example, let's talk about a real life situation that happened in my house. I made breakfast for my daughter, and by breakfast I mean peanut butter toast. And I looked over and saw my dog eating the toast off the plate on the counter. If you were looking in my kitchen window and you saw the scene, you would've seen me yell at the dog and put her outside in the backyard.
You'd have seen me stomp back over the toaster to make more toast. I yelled about the dog to the kids and said, “we all need to be better about this!”.
Everyone was kind of crabby and quiet at this point, I was also thinking “Ugh, I should have been watching, you know, I need to do better about this.”
I was kind of beating myself up as well. So the result that I created was a crappy morning. So let's use that tool that I was just talking about to go back and re-look at that situation and find out exactly what happened in that cycle there. So the first thing that happened is my dog ate the toast.
Then I had the thought, I'm laughing now, wasn't laughing then - then I had the thought, if I go back and ask myself, what was I thinking in that moment, the thought I had was, “this is my fault. My whole life is out of control, even my dog.” So based on seeing my dog eat toast, the thought that my brain threw out was “my whole life is out of control”. As I say this to you now, intellectually I can say that that is silly, but that is the thought that my brain suggested.
So I'm just telling you as it happened. So when I think a thought like “my whole life is out of control” it creates a feeling, and the way that it made me feel was overwhelmed and disappointed and mad. And from that feeling or energy of being mad and disappointed and overwhelmed, I took the action of yelling at the dog and being annoyed with my kids and beating myself up internally and telling myself that I should take more time to follow up on the dog training than I paid so much money for that clearly, clearly I have not kept up on.
So from the thought of “my whole life is out of control”, I got the result of having a crappy morning with my kids. My dog eating the toast off the counter did not cause the worst morning. I caused it with my own thoughts and the actions that I took from there. The great thing about this situation is that we can notice our thoughts and we can choose a new one.
So I can't help or prevent the thought of my whole life is out of control from coming into my mind. But what I can do is decide if I believe that thought, and then I can choose a new thought. Did you ever read those “choose your own adventure” books? I used to love those. If you know what I'm talking about, you're totally shaking your head right now.
They were so awesome. I think I checked out everyone that our library had, but in those books at the end of the chapter, so you'd read a chapter and at the end it would give you two choices and it would say like, if you decide to stay in the house with your friend, turn to page 132. If you run out of the house screaming, turn to page 96.
This is just like that. So if I were to choose my own adventure, when the dog eats the toast, instead of thinking my whole life is out of control, or even when I do think my whole life is out of control, I could choose a new thought. Something like, oh goodness, she ate the toast. I guess I'll make some more toast.
I feel slightly annoyed honestly, even in that situation, but okay, I wouldn't be overwhelmed and disappointed and mad and from that energy of feeling pretty okay. My action would be to just scold the dog and make some more toast, and maybe even laugh about it a little bit with my kids. We have like a running total of all the things that she's eaten at the counter.
It's not funny, but it's kind of funny, so we can laugh at it sometimes. And when I take those kind of actions, just making more toast and kind of laughing and you know, scolding the dog as I should, the result is that everyone in my house is in a normal mood and maybe even a good one. So in this version, the thought of “I guess I'll make more toast” creates a morning that was just normal, maybe even a little bit good.
And in both scenarios, the dog ate the toast, but one ruined my morning and one didn't. And the only difference was, the thought I chose after I saw the toast eating situation.
Okay, so what? Why does this matter? Why does it matter that my morning could have been better even when the dog ate my daughter's breakfast?
It matters because we can actually change our thoughts and when we do. We can change our results or our outcomes. We can choose our own adventure. I just gave you the example of my dog, but let's look at another example where you're having a bad day at work and feeling really overwhelmed. Let's apply this same methodology that I just went through and see if we can improve the results of your day.
First, let me say in episode one, I talk about how to notice when you're overwhelmed. So if you haven't listened, that would be a great episode to check out too. It will help you figure out some of the triggers that make you feel stressed and overwhelmed. But back to your bad day. So let's say your boss is someone who really stresses you out.
This morning she called you out of the blue and asked you how a project was going. And even though it's going well, you notice that you're fumbling over your words and she's trying to put together, this is something that, a story that a client told me also, something that I have been through myself. She was trying to put together a, you know, like a slide or a deck for a presentation and she's trying to get all this information from you and it's information that you know so well, but you just can't quite get it out because you're kind of flustered.
And by the time you hang up, she seems annoyed. And as soon as you're off the call, you just feel overwhelmed and stressed and it kind of sets the tone for the rest of your day. Now that you know that overwhelm is a feeling and that it's caused by a thought, it's powerful to go back to that situation and see what happened with your boss and just break it down.
So let's just back up that bus and see what happened. So when your boss called, what did you think in that moment? So between seeing your phone ring or seeing her name come up on your phone and actually picking it up, what did you think? Again, I said this before, but I think it's worth saying again when I ask you that question and you think, I don't know.
I don't know what I was thinking. That's okay. Sometimes it just takes little practice because 95% of our thoughts are unconscious, so if it doesn't come right away, just keep practicing and trying to watch your thoughts. Here are some thoughts you might have been thinking in that moment.
Maybe as soon as you saw her name come up on the phone, you thought, Ugh, I hate her. I hate talking to her.
Or “she always criticizes my work”
Or “she never leaves me alone”
Or even “I'm in danger”
You might laugh at that last one, but this is an example from a real client. Our brain is always trying to protect us and keep us safe. So sometimes it throws out thoughts like we are in real danger, like in danger of being eaten by a lion, when really it's in response to an incoming phone call from an annoying boss.
So no matter what thought your brain suggested, don't judge it. Just notice what it is.
Let's look at the whole cycle. Let's just say - your boss calls and the thought you thought was, I hate her. I hate talking to her.
When you think that it makes you feel overwhelmed and stressed, and then the action you take from those feelings of overwhelm and stress are that you can't listen and you're upset about her words and you can't get out what you're trying to say, and the result is it just takes you a while to recover and you can't focus on your other work even after you get off the phone with her.
So once you notice what that thought was, in this case, “I hate her and I hate talking to her” ask yourself if there's a better thought you could think instead. Now, a better thought means a thought that lessens your stress and overwhelm instead of making it worse. So here's what doesn't work in terms of a better thought, sunshine and rainbows.
Thoughts that just don't feel true. So, for example, substituting in, I love her and I value her so much for the original thought of I hate her and I hate talking to her. Just won't work. Your body will know you're lying. You will know you're lying and it won't work. Instead, you want to think of another thought you could use in that moment that also feels true.
So the thought of I hate her, feels true to you, but a thought like “my boss is calling” is also true and much more neutral. So, for example, you could think the thought
my phone is ringing.
that's just Gloria being Gloria. (I just gave her the name of Gloria. Don't know where that came from.)
I get to decide if I answer my phone.
I'm safe. I'm sitting here in my office by myself.
Any one of those thoughts you could choose, but let's just say we choose the thought of my phone is ringing instead of, I hate her. We're not making the thought about her anymore. We're just making about, sometimes just stating the obvious of what's happening helps you just become more calm and neutral.
So the phone rings and it's Gloria, your brain offers the thought. I hate her and I hate talking to her. You notice that thought and instead think, okay, my phone is ringing, thinking my phone is ringing, creates an energy of less stress and overwhelm. Maybe it's just a neutral feeling, or even slightly calm, and your energy allows you to take different action.
You take the call, you answer her questions clearly, and you move on after that, and it really doesn't ruin your day. So it's a five minute call that affects you for five minutes instead of your whole day. So let's look at the two options. The first is when you think the thought of, I hate her and I hate talking to her, the result that you get is you don't have a good call with her and you're still stuck in that conversation for the rest of the day and feeling overwhelmed about it.
Or if you think the neutral thought of my phone is ringing, you have the conversation with her and the result you get is you just move on. There's like no effect from the call. I wanted to explain that to you just as a concept. What I just did right there where I talked you through noticing the thought that you're having and then substituting in the new thought and feeling in a new way is something that takes practice.
But what I want you to do as a takeaway from this episode is not work on doing that whole full process. All I want you to do is start noticing what you're thinking, so when you have a feeling, any kind of feeling, be it. Joy or contentment or boredom or anger, just ask yourself, okay, I know this feeling was caused by a thought.
What was that thought? And start practicing watching your thoughts and noticing what your thoughts are, because that's something that I'm going to talk about a lot. It's something I talk about on every single session with my clients. Because like I said, that is the key to changing your life. So even though you understand the whole process now, or are starting to understand the whole process, just work on noticing what you're thinking and when you have a feeling what thought that caused it.
That is all for today, my friends. If you found this episode enlightening and helpful or enlightening or helpful, I'd be delighted if you'd leave a review. When you leave reviews, it helps the podcast get shown to more people so that more overwhelmed working women can start to feel better. Thanks so much.
I'll see you next week.
Thank you for listening to the Overwhelmed Working Woman Podcast. If you want to learn more about my work, head over to my website@michellegauthier.com
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