Welcome back to my Mindset 101 Series! Throughout this series I will be sharing the fundamentals of mindset work. In this episode, I’m going to explain:

• Where all of your emotions actually come from
• Why it’s so important to have awareness of how you are feeling

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Emotions (or feelings – they will be used interchangeably) are probably the most important component of our lives, yet they are often one of the most overlooked and underestimated. Understanding your emotions and the role they play in creating the results of your life is essential in order to gain control over your life.

Feelings/Emotions are simply one-word descriptions of the vibrations in your body. Some examples include frustration, anxiety, anger, stress, love and happiness.

Most people think that their emotions just pop up based on their external circumstances:

• Your partner doesn’t put the dishes in the dishwasher so you feel annoyed
• You have a lot to get done for work so you feel stressed
• Someone cuts you off in traffic so you feel angry

This line of thinking has us believing that our emotional life is dependent on our circumstances and on other people. When we feel a certain way, we often believe we don’t have any control over the emotions we are experiencing which makes most people feel very out of control in their own life.

The truth, is that our emotions do NOT come from our circumstances. They all come from our THOUGHTS about our circumstances. The last couple episodes have explained how circumstances or situations in our lives are neutral (they are just factual) until we have thoughts about them which assign meaning/interpretation. The thoughts we choose to believe are what cause us to feel the emotions we experience. The way you feel begins with a sentence in your mind and is then felt as a vibration in the body.

Here’s what is really happening:

• Your partner doesn’t put the dishes in the dishwasher – you think, “why can’t he just do it the right way?” – which causes you to feel annoyed
• You have things to get done for work – you think, “I’m never going to get all this done in time” – which causes you to feel stressed
• Someone cuts you off in traffic – you think, “What a &$(@! People shouldn’t do that to me” – which causes you to feel angry

Understanding and accepting responsibility that the way you feel is dictated by your own way of thinking, (as opposed to circumstances that are out of your control,) is one of the most empowering realizations of mindset work. This changed my perspective on everything!

Now that you know where your emotions come from, why are our feelings so important? All the action we take – the things we do (or don’t do) – stems from the way we feel, which ultimately creates the results we have (or don’t have) in our lives. Our emotions serve as the driving force behind every action we take.

My weight loss clients often come to me saying, “I know what I should be doing to lose weight, but I just can’t seem to do it…why is that?” The answer is always because of the way they feel. When you are thinking, “It’s impossible for me to lose weight,” that creates a feeling of unable, unmotivated, or something similar, which is going to make taking the action of going to the gym 5x/week virtually impossible.

When we feel angry about getting cut off in traffic, we tend to react by yelling, swearing, honking our horn, riding up on their tail, making it known to the driver that they wronged us, etc. Everything changes if the thinking, and therefore the emotion, changes. The circumstance of someone cutting you off could be exactly the same, but you could choose to think, “hmmm, they must really be late for something” – which causes you to feel curious or perhaps even somewhat accepting. When you feel those emotions you would just keep driving calmly as if it were no big deal.

The way we feel determines how we act, react, how we show up and engage with ourselves and others, and all the things we do or don’t do. Knowing how to shift your thinking in order to change the way you feel will have a serious affect on all of the actions you take which is why it’s so crucial to have awareness of your emotions and to understand where they truly come from!

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