I use this on myself daily. It really works!
If you try this and have any questions about it feel free to message me. Let me know how it works for you.
Grab a pen and paper and give it a try.
- NAME IT – What emotion are you feeling?
- DESCRIBE IT – What does the emotion feel like in your body? Where is it in your body? This is a great brain hack that shifts your focus from feeling the emotion to analyzing it.
- FIND THE SENTENCE that is causing the emotion from step one. What thoughts are you thinking? Write them all down. Read through the sentences you wrote and see which one is causing the emotion. Seeing the thoughts you are having will help you understand. This is another brain hack. It takes you off auto pilot and makes you aware of your thoughts.
- CHANGE IT – Change the sentence. First, question the sentence that was causing the unwanted feeling. See if that thought is true or if there are choices you are missing. Ask your brain to try a new thought. Once you find a new thought, you will have a new feeling.
This process shows you how you have a choice about how you feel.
Here is an example of one I did when my daughter moved out:
- The emotion was grief.
- My body ached, yet felt numb at the same time.
- My thought was I don’t get to be a Mother to her anymore.
- My new thought was I am still her mother; it just looks different than it used to. That thought brought a new feeling of acceptance. When questioning my original thought, I realized I had a choice about how I parent whether it feels like it or not. I just have to choose to focus on how I get to show up as the mother of an 18-year-old who lives on her own vs when she lives in my house.
I chose this example on purpose because the emotional makeover did not take something I felt was bad and make it good. It gave me peace of mind and changed my experience of the situation because I explored my original thought and realized that I had other thoughts available to me.