Thoughts and feelings are part of our internal world and even though they are very different, they are linked to each other in many ways.
If we are feeling tired, stressed or overwhelmed and running late for an important meeting, it is easy to start creating thoughts like ‘I ‘m always late’, or ‘I am so disorganized’ and ‘I am a lazy procrastinator’’ or ‘ I’ll never be able to cope’ or even ‘My father was right. I’m useless’.
On the other hand, we may start blaming others and tell ourselves stories like ‘I would have been on time if that idiot in the blue car in front of me got out of my way’ or ‘if I had more support from my husband I wouldn’t be so disorganized.’
You can see how our thoughts could get out of hand here, blaming and shaming self or others and making us feel worse and worse.
When we step back from ourselves a little and look at the interconnection, but real difference between thoughts and feelings, we have a better chance to stop blaming and shaming and start putting strategies in place to think better, feel better, and in turn perform better.
Thoughts are at a ‘head’ level and are continually running round our brains. If we could stop and notice our thoughts and really look at what we are telling ourselves, we could choose to tell ourselves different things.
We could create more helpful thoughts like, ‘I am running a bit late, but Joe is a lovely man and he will understand I am under pressure’ or ‘I’ll feel better if I let Joe know I am a bit late. I’ll pull over for a second and send him a text’ or even ‘Joe may be angry because I am late, but that’s OK. I can handle that. I think he is going to really love the ideas I have for him’. These thought choices are likely to calm our feelings and enable us to act in ways that are better for us and those around us.
I remember once being very anxious before giving a performance to a large group of administration staff from a local council. My partner and I were delivering a day of communication training and we had decided with full support of the university business school we were working for, to start the day with a cabaret style drama piece. So here we were at 9 o’clock getting ready to begin (black frocks, stilettos and bright red lipstick) and I was thinking “this is a really stupid idea. We’ll lose them right at the beginning of the day and never get them back. We’ll make fools of ourselves. The whole day is going to be a disaster.’ etc etc. My thoughts were getting really out of hand. I remember expressing a little concern out loud to the organizing academic and he said to me in a cool, calm and wry way, ‘Don’t worry; you’re not going to die from it.’ At that moment I loved him. What a way to put things into perspective. I laughed and immediately my overblown fears settled and my body relaxed ready to sing the opening number. We delivered what we intended, all went well and of course no lives were lost.