Feelings and Wisdom

Update your thinking and beliefs regularly to manage outdated thoughts and feelings

Talking with my twenty-five-year-old daughter always brings me joy. Like me, she finds being human interesting and perplexing, and we often discuss how emotions and feelings can torture one’s life. I recently shared with her that it was not until my late fifties that I understood enough about my mind to disengage from troublesome and emotional turmoil, not always, but mostly. For her, the obvious question is, why did it take so long? Great question.

Most of my life has been spent believing that all thoughts, whether emotional or rational, are equally valid and significant. As I grew older and wiser, I realized this is not true and that I can choose which thoughts I give attention to. Many thoughts and feelings get generated for reasons that are not relevant, or worse, are habitual patterns. These thoughts and emotions can be harmful and should be released.

Underlying insecurities or fears generate some of our thoughts, while survival instincts create others, and false information that we wrongly perceive as true generates even more. Many of our thoughts are outdated, incorrect, and unnecessary, which in turn lead to obsolete feelings and emotions that affect our state of being and how we perceive ourselves. We want to sort through and discard outdated thoughts, which in turn will release obsolete feelings, much like cleaning out the garage after twenty years.

Occasionally, you will discard thoughts that no longer serve you and still hold onto emotions and beliefs that were formed by those thoughts. This is not a problem, as a matter of fact, and because many of our emotions naturally fall away after we release the thoughts that created them, it is best to release old thinking patterns first. It takes time to release emotional states and beliefs, longer than it takes to release the thoughts, which can be released once you have the awareness and logic to see they are incorrect and have decided to release them. Therefore, it is best to release these thoughts as soon as possible, and then work on your emotional states when you have more time. Reviewing our feelings and the thoughts that lead us to feel them is less complicated than it sounds once we begin to practice using our awareness and discernment. It should become an annual ritual, and is at least as important as spring cleaning of your home.

A note about our thoughts and how to release them: when we review our feelings and thoughts, we recognize that there are not only single thoughts, but often multiple streams of thought. This is important and normal. We frequently have many competing thoughts about the same topic. Sometimes it can be difficult to get comfortable with multiple streams of thought, and it may feel as if numerous people are talking in your head, but you will get used to it. Just look at each thought individually and use your logic and the new information that you have acquired since the origin of the thought occurred. Some of the thoughts will be obviously outdated and can be discarded, and others will take a bit more work. Do not overthink the process; you can easily update and revise any decisions about what thoughts you keep or discard at any time.

Remember, life is complicated. Your mind is capable of analyzing everything from many perspectives. Many of your thoughts originated from a six-year-old mind or information you received that was not correct. Honor your own pace; some people process information quickly, others process it slowly. Gaining awareness of how your mind works and then improving your ability to work with it is important. Feelings are a type of thinking that has an extra kick, which gets your attention, even if that means creating a physiological impact, such as sweating or breathing faster. It can also give you the physiology to hear more acutely or run like the wind if an animal or a threatening human is chasing you. Evolutionary safety mechanisms that can save your life. Unfortunately, these same feelings and thoughts can cause significant turmoil and discomfort when they become overactive or are not regularly reviewed and updated.

So, my answer to my daughter is that it took a lot of time and experience for me to realize many of my thoughts were unnecessary. Now I realize the process is simple once you become aware of it, and it has a huge impact on my quality of life. Awareness and self-care are the keys.