Thoughts are things – very important things.

Did you know that thoughts are things?

And not just any old kind of things – thoughts are important things. They are very important things.

The thoughts we think determine the emotions we feel; how we feel determines how we act; and how we act determines the results we get.

These things are the starting point of everything in your life. Everything you see around you came into your life because of a thought.

They are like the seeds you plant in the ground that determine what you grow.

Yes, I’d say thoughts are very, very important things, after all.

Knowing this, it may alarm you to also learn that most of the thoughts we have are not true.

The human mind is a beautiful tool, gifted with many miraculous abilities. Among them, we have the mental superpowers of pattern recognition and extrapolation.

These abilities make it easier to fill in gaps of information in the present with the things we have learned previously.

However, these abilities are a double-edged sword; filling in these information gaps means that most of our thoughts are colored by our past experiences, distorted by our fears, and warped by our insecurities.

This means we are making decisions and living our lives based on mere shadows of the truth. These, more often than not, are harmful to the achievement of our goals.

I have always loved to use my imagination creatively. From a young age, I would ferociously devour any book I could get my hands on.

I loved to imagine all the things the characters could be feeling and thinking and everything that could happen next in the story. I spent my childhood living many lives, experiencing many adventures.

But as I got older, that creative power got turned against me as I began wondering about what perilous things might happen next in the story of my actual life.

I had so many dreams, but instead of pursuing them, I worried about all the things that might go wrong. 

Before I could stop myself, I was acting on triggered negative associations and anxieties.

My mentor and associate, world-renowned brain expert Dr. Daniel Amen, calls these thoughts ANTs (automatic negative thoughts) because of how quickly they spring up, and how devastating they can be to our psyches.

Unfortunately, we cannot control whether or not we have ANTs at all. But we do have the ability to keep them from taking over our lives. As the saying goes, “You cannot stop the birds from flying overhead, but you can stop them from nesting in your hair.”

In my years battling my negative thoughts, I have learned just how important it is to pause between thinking and acting. And in that pause, I try to identify what I am feeling, recognize that it is valid, and then ask myself 3 questions and answer them candidly: 

1. Is there any evidence that what I am feeling is actually true, or could my biases (past experience, beliefs, fears, insecurities, etc.) be affecting my perception?

We wear glasses of our histories and our worries, and we see everything through that lens. What do I know for sure to be true, and what other explanation could there be for the facts in front of me?

2. Should I take action right now, or can it wait?

Would I respond to this situation differently after I have had a good night’s sleep?

Is this matter objectively urgent, or can it wait until I have taken care of my sleep debt, my hunger, my hydration, and other physical needs?

3. How would I advise my best friend if he or she were having this concern?

Often, we are too close to a situation to see it fairly. Does it look differently when I look at it from a third party perspective?

I am not sharing this with you because I claim to have mastered the art of pausing before acting or because I have vanquished all of my ANTs.

In fact, quite the opposite is true. I share these things because I have studied them thoroughly and I am still learning how to apply these things each day.

I am still on the journey of improving my thoughts to improve the rest of my life, and I know there are others who have the same goal.

Consider these questions in that important pause between thinking and acting.

Find someone trusted you can discuss your thoughts and feelings with.

And as you do, you take one step toward better thoughts, better feelings, better actions, and better results.

Make today your masterpiece!

Florina