I recently had the privilege of being asked to be a contributor to a blog post for Cassi and Alexa at cheersmt.com https://cheersmt.com/preparing-for-the-wedding-day-with-cheers-mt-vendors about heading off the jitters for the ‘Big I-DO Day’. I talked a little bit about the stories in our heads that hijack us and get us all spun up into a ‘hot-mess’ or impatient or any other negative emotional state. It got me to thinking, how short my little blurb was and how much more I wanted to say but for the sake of brevity, I had to whittle it down.
Sometimes we find ourselves in this place that just feels negative, stuck, unmotivated, de-energizing or stressed. My friend, Amy, calls it being ‘wrapped around the axle’. I love that metaphor and use it all the time. It’s such a great word-picture, isn’t it? Like when a string gets sucked up and twisted up in the beater bar of the vacuum. Stuck. The trouble is, when we find ourselves in those states, we think they just ‘happen’. ‘I just happen to be in a funk’, or ‘I just happen to be depressed’, like there is no other option given my circumstances. I beg to differ. Our thoughts are incredibly powerful for good or for bad. We often make something that is tough-tougher, what is crappy, crappier. We also have the option to take some of the sting out of the wound by expanding the story or thinking differently.
What we don’t realize is we are in a constant state of internal dialogue with ourselves. We are constantly telling ourselves stories at a subconscious level and have been since we came into being, interpreting our world. The problem is that we often tell ourselves stories that aren’t true or are maybe part true but aren’t the whole truth. When we are only in part truth, we can get into trouble because we are deceived into thinking it’s the whole truth, end of story. We don’t question our stories; we don’t take them to the mat; we buy them, hook, line, and sinker, find ourselves at the bottom of the lake and don’t know how we got there. Those thoughts, or stories effect our nervous system, and we feel emotion, lots of emotion. Tell yourself a sad, crappy little story and you will feel sad and crappy. Tell yourself a scary story and you will feel stressed, anxious, or scared. You will, for all intents and purposes, get wrapped around the axle. And that axle has implications. Health implications, (elevated blood pressure, heart disease, or weight gain because we are eating our emotions). Relational implications, (the crabby, short with your mother-in-law or fiancé factor). Productivity and efficiency implications, (literally stuck in freeze, fight, or flight).
Keeping with the wedding theme, so how does the scary wedding story go? It often goes something like this…..’I HAVE TO get this, that and the other thing done or the day will be a ruin!’ Or… ‘I have no options but to do all of this myself’. Or…. ‘If I am not a size …(whatever) then I will be unattractive’. Really? Is that true? (Take the story to the mat!) I think if we did a poll, the most attractive thing a woman can wear at her wedding is a smile-emit joy and you will infuse joy, it’s infectious. Word choice is critical. ‘I choose to’ instead of ‘I have to’ is a much more empowering story to tell yourself. It suggests the truth, which is….we usually have options but we don’t tap into them because we aren’t in a creative mindset. When we realize we have options, we take ourselves out of freeze, fight, or flight. We are more creative with problem solving and are less crabby, stressed and short with those around us…..which makes us more attractive. And more attractive means more harmony. And more harmony means………you finish this story (wink wink).
Sometimes we are between a rock and a hard spot. Sometimes we are choosing between two non-optimal things, but when we tell ourselves we are ‘choosing’ or ‘get to choose’, we stay in the creative, solutions-oriented mindset and that is optimal, because truth be told, stuff often does come up on the wedding day. Fires sometimes need to be put out and when we are grounded in a solution-oriented mindset they can often be extinguished quickly.
So, what stories are on repeat in your head? Are they empowering? Encouraging? Or the opposite?