Emotions and Beliefs
Mind Lesson Three: Emotions and Beliefs
This lesson is our first step into expanding the Self Worth aspect of the Mind Pillar in the Powherful Program. This aspect covers the emotional part of the mind, which is often very misunderstood. This aspect is about developing your Self Worth, or your belief in your value, which is an extremely important aspect to developing Self Love. Understanding your emotions and beliefs is a key proponent in developing your sense of worth and trust in yourself.
EMOTIONS
Emotions are feelings that arise in your body and mind, based on an event or stimuli externally, or a thought or sense internally.
Emotions serve their purpose as a survival mechanism, in response to stimuli, and are crucial to you perceiving what is happening in your environment or to communicate to others. However, many people are very out of touch with their emotions and they can create a confusing web of feelings that manifest in ways that they do not understand. Emotions are primarily subconscious, influenced by external stimuli and as a response to your thoughts and tend to drive your actions. However the power comes in when you can determine your actions, not just influenced by your emotions.
Many people are ruled by their emotions, particularly when they are stressed or overwhelmed. Firstly, before delving into emotions a bit more, we need to understand that the body and brain switch from a sympathetic state to a parasympathetic state. Sympathetic state is survival mode, where adrenaline and cortisol are released, and the body is ready to respond to threat or injury, blood flow to systems related to rest and recovery (like digestion and cellular renewal) are sidelined for high alert (such as muscle contractions and heavy breathing to run away). While this is extremely valuable when you were escaping sabre toothed tigers in the stone age, these days remaining in a sympathetic state is detrimental to your health and leads to health problems, hormonal imbalances and poor gut health due to constantly being stressed. The Parasympathetic state is when the body is calm, ready to rest and recover, digestion and repairing bodily processes are prioritised. There are three primary states I like say that the body goes into: Fight or Flight (or Freeze), Rest and Digest, Stay and Play.
In Fight or Flight (or Freeze) the brain and body are switched into survival mode
Sympathetic nervous system activated
Ruled by survival instincts
Negative emotions
Digestion, creation, repair and recovery sacrificed for adreneline
Increased cortisol release over time
In Rest and Digest the parasympathetic nervous system
Parasympathetic nervous system activated
Body and brain are relaxed
Rest and recovery, digestion, reproductive system are prioritised
In Stay and Play the brain and body are in Creation Mode
Parasympathetic state with slower brain waves
Emotions are positive and creative
Ability to create, play, explore
Connection, contribution and creation are prioritised
It is important to understand these states and when you are in one or the other. Because it can be very hard to understand your emotions, be rational if you are in fight or flight. It is better to focus on relaxing your state down to Rest and Digest and then Stay and Play.
The best way to change state is by breathing and controlling your thoughts.
Breathe deeply into your belly, expanding your ribcage
Focus on slowing your mind down by being mindful
Choose thoughts that serve and uplift you rather than tear you down
Focus on what you can influence, rather than what you can’t
Many people’s emotional state determines their actions and how they feel. While is is great to be in tune with your emotions, they serve only to send you messages. Being ruled by them ultimately leads to inconsistency towards your goals, and lack of trust in yourself as you can be so turbulent. On a daily basis a turbulent emotional profile can mean irrational decision making, increased stress and overreacting.
Being able to understand and be aware of your emotions is very powerful as it means you can choose the way you feel, rationalize with yourself and continue to make good decisions.
An emotion is a great way to connect with how you internally value what you are doing. Often if you are doing something that aligns with your internal values, you will feel a positive emotion. If it doesn't often they will be negative emotions. Our emotions affect not only the way others treat us, but our inner sense of well-being.
However, what many people do not realize is that emotions aren't strictly controlled by your body's physiology the way that reflexes are. You're not stuck for life with the emotional equipment programmed into your DNA. It is important that when a thought comes to your mind, recognize it for what it is, a thought and say "oh I'm thinking this" rather than "I am this". This can help immensely with overthinking, anxious thoughts and help you to stay in the moment.
It is important to know that expressing your emotions is healthy and important. There is nothing more toxic than bottling up how you feel until one day it explodes or manifests in your body. A healthy way to express your emotions is through:
Talking and letting it out - Councilling, Life Coaching
Physical expression - Exercise
Journalling - Self-reflection
Channeling the emotion into a creative venture
Meditation to let go
Make sure you are aware of the emotion and how it is affecting you, let it out and let it go.
UNDERSTANDING EMOTIONS
A great tool to help understand emotions a bit better is Plutchik’s Wheel of Emotions. This simplifies that many emotions of humans down to 8 key emotions, and that every emotion people experience is either an intensification or dilution of these emotions or a combination of two emotions, a bit like a colour wheel.
The emotions are, with their opposing partner:
Joy, Sadness
Trust, Disgust
Fear, Anger
Surprise, Anticipation
This tool can be very helpful if you are feeling a certain way, to determine what the original emotion might be so you can express it more completely.
EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
Emotional intelligence refers to the ability to identify and manage ones emotions. It is said to consist of at least four things:
Emotional awareness
Ability to identify and name ones feelings
Ability to harness and control emotions without repressing them
Ability to recognise and empathise with others emotions
Using the Wheel above and your self-reflection questions each week, practise becoming emotionally intelligent. As you do, your trust in your self and emotions will begin to grow, you will be less reactive and more proactive, plus are less likely to have a meltdown when something surprising happens.
BELIEFS
When we came into this world, we had only awe and appreciation for what we were and what was around us. However, over years of influence, we often develop what are known as beliefs.
Beliefs are ideas that you deeply hold to be true, and they are formed by repeated thoughts or an emotional event. They become your own created filter on the world and help us to navigate life through what we have learned. These are mostly subconscious and sometimes you may have no idea you have them because they are so automatic!
Some beliefs are helpful and hold you steadfast to your goals. However, if you have some deep beliefs (mostly from childhood) around certain situations, actions or feelings you will find that you keep "sabotaging" yourself, procrastinating or not being congruent with the things that you need to do! Beliefs can change in an instant with awareness and repatterning, or they can be deep-seated for years. So luckily if you have some big beliefs in there, getting them out in the open and recognising them is your first step to changing them to empowering beliefs.
While we may never truly unravel all the beliefs that we have, often there will be some big ones that are holding us back from becoming the person that we want to become. These are called “limiting beliefs”.
Many times limiting beliefs will be about self worth or safety. A common statement is “I am not _______ enough to deserve that”. However, nothing stops you from chasing your dreams or becoming anything you like other than your own limiting beliefs.
Beliefs are a heavy influence in our state and our actions. Our unconcious beliefs affect the way that we percieve events around us and our thoughts, which then affects our attitude, which affects the actions that we take, and actions become the habits that shape us. From this you can see how powerful beliefs are to shaping our identity.
Belief -> Thoughts -> Attitude -> Actions -> Habits -> Identity
But luckily they can be changed. Transforming your beliefs means letting go of what doesn’t serve you for your desired future. It starts with being aware of the beliefs, particularly your limiting ones that are stunting your progress.
AWARENESS OF BELIEFS
“We cannot solve out problems with the same mind that created them” - Albert Einstein
While beliefs can be changed in an instant by letting them go, we often emotionally and familiarly hold onto them because that is where we feel safe. Many beliefs were formed in a time when they kept us safe from what was actually happening around us at the time, but now they are no longer useful, and instead very detrimental. The harsh truth is that you cannot move forward with the remnants of the past that didn’t serve you, particularly fears.
Changing a core belief is surprisingly easy. You simply stop believing in them. It doesn't take much effort to not believe something. But you have to be aware of it first, which can take more effort.
Ways to be aware of your beliefs
Become aware of certain behaviour, reactions or thoughts that trigger you to do something you don’t want to, self sabotage or limit you in any way towards your goals
Pay attention to your internal dialogue when an event or thought triggers you, what statement is your mind saying
Write down the fears and emotions behind the thought
Write down the assumptions that have been made from that triggering event or thought
CHANGING LIMITING BELIEFS
“You can’t see the picture when you’re inside the frame”
While bringing awareness to beliefs is the first step, you can’t change them from the same place of thinking that created them. As the above quote says, when you are inside an ideology, its hard to be able to see the external perspective, or to think creatively from another view.
Without this shift in perspective it is very difficult to change a belief. When you are deep within the influence of a false belief it appears completely true so you continue to believe in it. Like the person that believes the earth is flat. All counter evidence is ignored until you shift your perspective, and you do not need proof to do this, particularly when it is something you KNOW that you want.
This is why sometimes affirmations do not work well to changing a belief, but do work well to reinforce an actual belief. An affirmation is just that, affirming and strengthening what you already believe, the statement in itself doesn’t change your perspective. From the original point of view of our existing beliefs our affirmations look like a lie. We can end up feeling like a liar or a fraud trying to adopt new beliefs that go against our current ideologies.
Break the chain by choosing to look at the deeper belief in a new light, when a belief truly comes to the surface it can seem rather obvious
To change a belief you must:
Highlight your awareness of it
Remove judgement of the belief and yourself
Changing your point of view or perspective
Reinforce new belief and rewrite your internal stories
HAVING FAITH
“I’ll see it when I believe it”
When you have become aware of your limiting beliefs, changed your perspective around them, and reinforced your belief, a very important step to remember is having faith. While we often look for proof before we do something, this often becomes another way to procrastinate and develop another limiting belief. Especially when it is around something we really want to do, like change our eating habits, our body image, our commitment to training, we want to put forward the actions to do it. However if you do not develop strength around your beliefs, they will limit you and old automatic habits can creep in.
Put down a belief BEFORE you see the results and your actions will reflect it. You must sow seeds before you get the crop, otherwise you will never have a harvest.
A good equation to put this into practise is this. If you are wanting a certain consequence, you must reinforce the belief in the action or thought that created the old result.
Activating event + belief = consequence
For example, you have been going to the gym, and are wanting to get good results. You have been eating well but feel that you are not seeing results. Your internal belief will keep reinforcing the attitude, action and habit cycles that keep you in the loop, never seeing improvement. You must change your perspective.
In relation to an emotional activating event.
Be aware of your reaction
Pause before you react
Reinforce the empowering belief
React in a calm and rational way
Also be aware that being in a healthy state physically, mentally and emotionally will reinforce empowering beliefs, so completing your Move, Mind and Munch targets each week are extremely important for having the power to change your beliefs!