How to Master Your Mind

Ever noticed how when you’re feeling happy, excited, annoyed, frustrated, relaxed or any other kind of emotion, you’re always looking outside of yourself to pin 📍 the tail on the donkey so to speak? To pinpoint what’s ‘creating’ that feeling? 

You might decide it’s an overly demanding client. Or the number of emails in your inbox. Or the piece of cake you scoffed (which might make you feel great or guilty!). Or the phone call you’ve just had. Or your kids not keeping their bedroom tidy. Or the divorce you’re going through. Or your ex-partner being difficult with childcare. Or the rise in energy bills. Or a colleague at work. Or your boss….

Are you open to the possibility that you can create a different experience no matter what you are going through?

One of the reasons I love Life Coaching is helping my clients see the kind of experience they are creating for themselves. Because the fact is, you are always creating your experience.

I know it doesn’t seem like that and you REALLY want to blame other people, your parents, your childhood or your boss for how you feel – and I don’t blame you for that!

I know there are 101 different reasons you have decided why you feel the way you do! Today it could be having to speak in public, or the anxiety that follows you around. Or it may be a bad night’s sleep. Or challenges you’re facing in your role at work. Or because your ex-partner is being incredibly difficult about child care arrangements. The list is endless!

I know that when you’re on that merry-go-round of thinking, those thoughts create all kinds of scenarios in your mind. In fact, those thoughts are THE best special effects department EVER! They have you going around in circles in your head and believing pretty much anything!

They even have you replaying conversations in your mind days and sometimes weeks (and even years!) after they took place – be honest how many of you have had a ‘disagreement’ with a colleague at work and you are still re-running it your head when you’re lying in bed trying to get to sleep?

While it’s the path of least resistance to blame everyone and everything for how you feel, it’s a very powerless place to operate from. And it’s also an illusion. And one which Caroline found so powerful to see though….

I contacted Sara for help with anxiety which I’d struggled with for so many years. After using a mixture of different therapy techniques and a learning of how my mind was working, I’m now enjoying areas of life again I hadn’t been able to before. Sara is warm, always understanding and just excellent at what she does, I can’t recommend her highly enough! I’ve come away from our sessions with a completely different outlook to life that will stay with me forever.

You are the creator of your reality

Being the creator that you are, creation is all about understanding the nature of our thoughts and feelings, and how they impact our experience of life. 

It’s like, we have this whole world inside our head and the way we think and feel about things is what shapes our reality.

Therefore, to stop being a victim of circumstance, take back control and start creating a different experience, the first step is to understand that there is a Universal Intelligence that gives life to everything. I could give you a load of science about Quantum Physics here, but a simple way of thinking of it is to imagine the BIG MIND that is the Universe.

The second step is to know that this BIG MIND is a limitless field of energy from which you are creating your experiences.

And the third step is understanding that your consciousness is what makes you aware of these experiences.

Take the example of having a disagreement with your colleague which left you feeling wound up and frustrated. Once you walked away from your colleague, or put the phone down, if it was about the conversation then those feelings would be neutralised the second the conversation finished. But if you are still wound up that evening – it’s not the conversation that’s doing this, it’s your thinking about the conversation! It’s what you are creating. All of those thoughts about what was said in that conversation, or what you wish you’d said are simply thoughts that take form in the moment which is giving you an experience. And you believe these feelings are coming from that earlier conversation….

How to create a different experience

The concept is a simple one. You don’t have to change the world around you to be happy or calm, or in control, you simply have to learn what’s creating your experiences.

Those thoughts are never real. Thoughts are completely neutral. It’s only the meaning and emotion you attach to them that brings them ‘alive’. And those feelings that get stirred up in you are never really about the content of your thinking, but if you think about anything for long enough it’s going to seem real!

This is another reason I love Life Coaching because when I’m asking powerful coaching questions, I see my clients untangle themselves from their web of thoughts to create a whole new way of thinking.

Next time you find yourself getting lost in those thoughts that wind you up, get you frustrated or have you loosing your cool, reflect on….

• What am I making this situation mean?
• What am I ‘believing’ to be true about this situation or the other person?
• What might the other person believe to be true?
• Where is my thinking contributing to how I’m feeling right now?
• Where is my ego trying to use me as a sock puppet? (check out this blog on all the ways your ego is trying to run the show!)
• If all my thoughts about this situation were neutralised, how would I handle this situation instead?
• What experience do I want to create?

You’ve spent a lifetime of believing those pesky thoughts are real so learning to understand the true nature of thought and what’s creating your experiences isn’t an overnight job, but I promise you, when you really ‘see it’ for yourself, life will never be the same again 😊