by Ashley Pennewill<\/p>\n
In the last issue, we talked about Feelings 101. I once heard our society described as being \u201cfeelings-phobic,\u201d and wow, what a term! It\u2019s so true, especially for men, and understanding our feelings is a big shift that\u2019s happening now. And it\u2019s a very important one because the less our feelings run the show, the more peace we will have. Don\u2019t get me wrong, there\u2019s absolutely nothing wrong with feelings. But when we don\u2019t understand them for exactly what they are \u2014 temporary energies \u2014 we\u2019ll inadvertently let them run the show. When this happens, we tend to say and do things we regret, and mole hills routinely become mountains. All it takes to live differently is some education, followed by lots of gentle, loving practice.<\/p>\n
So why would we follow up Feelings 101 by talking about Thinking 101? Because in general, our feelings come directly from our thoughts. You can think of feelings as being the body\u2019s reaction to what\u2019s going on in the mind. In this sense, feelings become a very useful guidance system reminding us to look at the quality of our thinking. And trust me \u2014 we\u2019ve all done some very low quality thinking before. It can be frantic, negative, critical, exaggerating, and even outright lying. This type of thinking can be called \u201cthe voice in the head.\u201d For most people it never shuts up! And it\u2019s typically nothing more than conditioning that we learned as children and that hardens into an old habit as we live year after year.<\/p>\n
Well, folks, there\u2019s good news because we also have a good voice that\u2019s built-in. You can call it wisdom or plain old common sense. Every culture and religion probably has its own name or names, and a Christian might call it the voice of the Holy Spirit. What I do for a living is teach people how to live their lives listening to that voice, rather than the chatterbox. And you know what? The more we practice this, the more we experience good feelings automatically. A deeper feeling of peace already exists inside of us, but we constantly create layers of other feelings on top of it.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s talk a bit more about our wisdom. First of all, it\u2019s a quieter voice than the chatterbox. It\u2019s not trying to talk first or loudest \u2014 that\u2019s what the voice in the head does. But it\u2019s always there. I love the book Somebody Should Have Told Us by Jack Pransky; it\u2019s simple, relaxed, and conversational, yet deep and powerful \u00a0at the same time. Pransky describes our wisdom as being like soft flute music, while the voice in the head is a loud brass band. Whenever we stop listening to the brass band, we can hear the flute music. This is because it\u2019s always there, anytime we listen for it. For most people, it seems like the voice in the head is like a tape that\u2019s playing and they have no choice but to listen to it. But if you really look, you\u2019ll see that you\u2019re the one doing the talking, and you can stop anytime.<\/p>\n
And of course it starts again, so you stop again. Wash, rinse, repeat. So we practice. And over time, it loses its power. Another thing about our wisdom or common sense is that it doesn\u2019t have a whole lot to say \u2014 it gets right to the heart of the matter. The chatterbox, on the other hand, talks all day long, taking both sides of the issue, unable to make up its mind, and it just doesn\u2019t really get anywhere. So it\u2019s as if there are two radio stations, and only two.<\/p>\n
Lots of counseling is about dissecting and analyzing the chatterbox and trying to upgrade it. So what do the clients do? They judge themselves for \u201cnot thinking right\u201d or \u201cnot doing it right.\u201d Just as in changing the radio station, my approach is much easier and more effective because it simply says to stop listening to that trash! After all, nobody else hears it or even cares. We have a good source of thinking that came with the package, so let\u2019s use it. If we look at a pie chart illustrating how much time we spend listening to each station, we want our wisdom to be the biggest piece possible. And when we notice we\u2019re listening to the voice in the head \u2014 because it\u2019s no less than an addiction that we\u2019re breaking-we simply switch the station on the spot.<\/p>\n
Once we do, we\u2019ll feel better and better. We\u2019ll handle situations better. We\u2019ll communicate better, and so our relationships will become better as a result. And this will make our work lives and social lives better. And you know what else it\u2019ll make better? It\u2019ll make our family lives better. Learning about your thinking and the two radio stations is the number one thing you can do to improve every aspect of your life. So I wish you well on your journey. You\u2019ve already learned all you need to know right here, so it\u2019s time to gently and lovingly practice. And people like me are always here to help.<\/p>\n
Ashley Pennewill lives in Pensacola where he provides counseling services to anyone interested in getting out of the way of the awesome life that’s just beneath the surface waiting to be discovered. You can learn more about letting go and waking up at acleanmind.com.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Ashley Pennewill In the last issue, we talked about Feelings 101. I once heard our society described as being \u201cfeelings-phobic,\u201d and wow, what a term! It\u2019s so true, especially for men, and understanding our feelings is a big shift that\u2019s happening now. And it\u2019s a very important one because the less our feelings run […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":942,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_cbd_carousel_blocks":"[]","footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[82,325,326,324],"class_list":["post-1179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-self-help","tag-communication","tag-feeling","tag-relationships","tag-thinking"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/tallahasseefamilymagazine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/tallahasseefamilymagazine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/tallahasseefamilymagazine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tallahasseefamilymagazine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tallahasseefamilymagazine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1179"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/tallahasseefamilymagazine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1179\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1180,"href":"http:\/\/tallahasseefamilymagazine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1179\/revisions\/1180"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tallahasseefamilymagazine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/tallahasseefamilymagazine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tallahasseefamilymagazine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tallahasseefamilymagazine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}