A LOT with Audra

Ep20
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Welcome and Introduction
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Audra Dinell: [00:00:00] Hey, welcome back to a lot with Audra. I'm excited to have you here this week.

The Chaos of Maycember
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Audra Dinell: If you are anything like me and a parent to an elementary schooler, you know that May is a lot. We call it Maycember. Lovingly. Anxiously for a reason. It is very similar to the feeling that happens during the holidays when all the things are going on and it's just like a rollercoaster ride.

In fact, when I was a mom of preschoolers and below, I remember a friend who's kids are slightly older than mine, talking about [00:01:00] December, or I think I asked her to grab coffee in August, and she was just like, girl. I can't even until, I can't even look at my calendar until September and I just thought, huh, what a life.

And now I'm here in December. December is a lot. I personally love it, but there are so many mixed feelings about it. So thank you for listening. If you're listening in December. Just know you're not alone. It's a lot for all of us.

Understanding Our Thoughts
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Audra Dinell: Something else that's a lot that we're gonna talk about today are our thoughts.

This is a topic I love. I love mindset topics mostly because I didn't realize that it was actually work that one could do until I was probably in my thirties really. And so it's just a topic that I feel like I'm barely scratching the surface on and wanna continue to dig in and learn more and more about.[00:02:00]

But our thoughts can be a lot. Now studies used to show that we have between 60,000 and 70,000 thoughts a day, and that counted every variation or repeat of a thought. But the more recent, widely accepted number is about 6,200 thoughts per day based on a 2020 neuroscience study that tracked thought worms, which are distinct patterns of brain activity.

Here's the thing, most of the thoughts we think are repetitive. Some say that up to 80% are the same thoughts we had yesterday. Many are subconscious, we don't even know that they're happening. And a large percentage can be negative or self-critical, which is why thought awareness is so important and so powerful.

The Power of Thought Awareness
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Audra Dinell: So that's what we're gonna talk about today, how we can be aware of our thoughts. And for me, I just like to break these [00:03:00] big concepts down to such basic actionable steps so I can actually implement them in my life. So that's what I'm gonna bring to you today. Becoming conscious of even 5% more of your thoughts can significantly shift your mindset and mood.

So let's dive into it. Have you ever heard that quote? Watch your thoughts. They become your words. Watch your words. They become your actions. Watch your actions. They become your habits. Watch your habits. They become your character. Watch your character and it becomes your destiny. This is a quote by a Chinese philosopher and writer, and it all starts with our thoughts.

Isn't that wild? It's a concept that I try to explain to my kids, and I don't think they're anywhere close to getting it yet. I mean, they are six and eight, but. The thinking goes that it starts with your thoughts. [00:04:00] It just blows my mind.

The Impact of Thoughts on Feelings
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Audra Dinell: So when I started my business in 2020, as soon as I was paying myself, which was 2021, I decided to invest in a coach.

And she and I worked together closely and we worked on a lot of thought work. We all have maybe heard of the sort of like circle that goes. Our thoughts create our feelings, and our feelings create our actions. It's a shorter, more condensed version of the quote in my opinion, but it all starts with our thoughts.

They're so powerful, and yet, I don't know about you, but I have to keep coming back and reminding myself to do the thought work, to actually move at a pace where I can understand some of, at least what my brain is coming up with, what thoughts I am thinking because those thoughts create feelings. And with this coach I had never [00:05:00] before.

Realize this, but the thoughts, I think create feelings which show up in my body. So oftentimes I'll think a thought and it'll show up as anxiety. And what that feels like in my body is my chest gets tight, my stomach kind of drops. Oftentimes when something is impactful to me or there's a thought that has really hit me, I will find myself with my hand across my chest, and that is such a sign to me.

Oh, okay. What did you just think there? What is going on? Because my thoughts will create that something in my chest, and then I'll physically bring my hand up to touch it. Like I'm nurturing myself. I'm mothering myself. Mm. But before I knew that I had lots of thoughts that created certain feelings that led to certain actions.

[00:06:00] Some were great, some not so much. But the point is truly the thoughts we have create a feeling in our body, and oftentimes we take action from there. It all stems in our thoughts, so. Being aware of our thoughts is extremely important.

Practical Thought Work
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Audra Dinell: What thought work is not is it's not toxic positivity. It's a choice.

So. Let's say you're texting with someone, okay, this happens frequently, right? We do lots of work and life via text, and you send someone a text and you don't get a response right away. One of your thoughts could be, oh my gosh, what have I done wrong? Are they mad at me? Have I done something? Should I text again?

You know, you can kind of start spiraling. Or what? Why? I think thought work is not toxic. Toxic positivity is like in this case you [00:07:00] can just. Let it go and realize I text a person, they didn't text me back instead of spiraling because I don't know if that is true. These things I'm thinking, I'm going to choose to assume positive intent.

Maybe they're overwhelmed right now. Maybe they don't have their phone. Maybe they've got boundaries and they don't text back on Sundays or whatever it is. So thought work is so important. And it's not toxic positivity.

Tools for Thought Awareness
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Audra Dinell: So when I was working in Honolulu, I was having just a really challenging time in my career.

I wasn't. Loving the work that I was doing. I didn't believe deeply in the work I was doing, which is important to me. And every morning I would get to the office early and I was like, you know what? I've got to meditate. Like I was trying anything in everything. I was just in one of those [00:08:00] seasons where I didn't really realize what was going on yet, and I was just trying to give myself any tools that I could to like help myself become aware of, what's going on in my world?

Why am I feeling this way? So I came to the Headspace app and the Headspace app would often start like the free meditations by saying, you know, thoughts are clouds. Thoughts come and they go, we're going to think more thoughts than could possibly be true. And definitely we're gonna think more thoughts than that could be helpful to us.

And so I think that visual is genius. Letting thoughts come and go, like clouds, choosing which we're gonna keep and which we're gonna let float away. And oftentimes based on our. Family of origin or our experience, or probably even our wiring. Sometimes the [00:09:00] thoughts can definitely not be helpful. I have a coaching client that I was working with and she's launching something new and she mentioned it's going so well that she was scared it was gonna.

Get messed up or it was gonna, you know, bust. And so we really coached and worked through that thought process. And one of the tools that I mentioned that I have used in the past when thinking thoughts like that, that are they true? I mean, they're not really based on anything. Could they potentially be true one day maybe, but it wasn't helpful.

It wasn't helpful for her today. It wasn't helpful to her for the future. It was just a, a negative thought that kept creeping in, and there's definitely some deeper work to do there. But one of the tools that you can use, and I tell my kids this too, is to picture a stop sign. This is a tool I learned.

Early, early on in my early twenties when I first started exploring therapy, just [00:10:00] stop picture. The stop sign in your head. So when your head, when you're thinking starts to go down a route that you don't like, that's not helpful to you, that's not 100% positively true. Just picture a stop sign. Don't let your brain go there.

So I think for me, the cloud visualization is something that is helpful, but more advanced to just like, oh, see a thought and let it go. Or let it pass for me, when I'm first working on thought work, I need to actively picture a stop sign. And even now if my brain is wanting to go down roads that I don't want it to go to stop sign.

I just picture that stop sign in my head and that visual is really helpful for me. So last month we were in a workshop with our [00:11:00] current cohort. We're on cohort nine of the thread, and this particular workshop was about the power skill of confidence. I personally believe it's a muscle. And we had a great presenter there.

Her name is Emily Stevens. She's a licensed therapist. She's also a coach. She owns a business called Laid Back Achievers. She said this great quote that I had not heard before and she said, should leads to shame, should leads to shame. And you all know I do not like that word should. It's a red flag for me.

When it comes out of my mouth, I catch it every time. When it comes out of other people's mouths, I catch it. You know what I don't catch? All of the shoulds that I think unconsciously. Woof when things are [00:12:00] going well. In work in life. For me, watching my thoughts is much easier, but when bumps come as they inevitably will, my brain shoulds the heck out of me.

And those shoulds, those can lead to shame totally unnecessarily. So what I've done is I put together a handful of tips to help you if you are on a journey of starting to become aware of your thoughts. Because again, like when you're looking at a high level. Or like kind of fuzzy concept like this, at least if you're me, I'm like, yeah, sure.

It's like presence. I'm like, yep, okay. Be present. Check. I just wanna check the box, get it done. It's not like that. Being aware of our thoughts is not a check the box type of thing. It's a practice that's a [00:13:00] muscle. And I found in the several weeks post workshop with Emily Stevens where she said that quote that hit me should leads to shame.

I thought, gosh, I don't think I have been monitoring my thoughts much lately at all. So here's some tips that I'm doing and I'm sharing with them. I'm sharing them with you in hopes that they could potentially help you start to become aware of your thoughts. Or if you're a person who's done work on this, who's built this muscle, who has this skill, but perhaps has fallen out of it like me.

This can hopefully inspire you to jump back in. Okay.

Tips for Journaling and Reflection
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Audra Dinell: The first tip is to journal. Journaling has always been very challenging for me. I don't have the patience to sit and write things down. It kind of feels boring and monotonous and like, why am I journaling? You know, like, am I gonna write about what I did yesterday?

[00:14:00] That just feels like a waste of time and repetitive. My brain works too fast to write down my feelings in the moment, but what I have found. Over the past, honestly, since March, I believe I have been journaling more consistently, so that's probably like three months of journaling pretty consistently. I will bust my journal out in the morning and I.

Just kind of pour out anything that's on my mind. I don't really make lists in my journal very much. I really just kind of free write. If I come across a prompt that really moves me, I'll bust out my journal and write in it. Then I've started to carry my journal with me so that I could write down little aha moments I've had throughout the day, or thoughts that I'm having, or if I'm feeling anxious, trying to understand and track my life a little bit more via journaling.

So tip number one, [00:15:00] start a journal. Carry it with you. Start a practice like I have in the mornings, or maybe it's at night. I tend to weave it throughout my day. If I don't hit it in the morning, you know, a couple days might go by and I'll realize I haven't journaled. I'll just kind of do it when I feel prompted to, if I've gotten out of like that morning routine.

Sometimes it's so helpful at night just to dump things. Tip number two.

Evaluating and Naming Thoughts
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Audra Dinell: I like to do a before and after evaluation. So before I am getting ready to walk into a meeting, I will think about what I am thinking. I will specifically choose thoughts that will help me show up in the way I want to be in that meeting.

If it's a networking event, and maybe I am not high energy that day and I'm not super excited to go to it, but I've committed, [00:16:00] I am excited to see the person I've committed to. You know, I am looking forward to that relationship and talking. I will work on my thoughts and think, oh, you don't have to talk to everyone, Audra.

But go and enjoy, you know, the person that you're there with. And that truly helps me just be present and do just that. I also like to think about my thoughts after I've done something. So, for example, I often think about my thoughts when I'm walking home from dropping the boys off in the morning.

Sometimes our mornings go really great. And they have actually been going really great lately. Yay, win. And sometimes their craziness, as I'm sure everyone experiences, so. Either way, I like to think about, what was I thinking about? Because when you're in the moment and you're parenting, or you're in a meeting or you're at an event, sometimes we aren't [00:17:00] checking in on the way we're thinking.

So for me, I just use that buffer before or that buffer after. If I think about it and I'm on the walk, think about what I was thinking about. How did that affect my mood? What thought did I let go? Unexamined. This morning, how did that show up in my body? What, what way am I feeling? Did I take any actions with it?

I know oftentimes a thought will lead me to feeling like overwhelmed. And then I'll take actions as a parent that I don't wanna do. I'll be short with my kids. I'll snap. And so those are pretty easy to like work backwards when I'm doing this evaluation trick. Before I pick my kids up, I will definitely, I'm thinking of today, think about the way I'm thinking and what I'm thinking about the evening.

Tonight, we're on the soccer field. We have soccer games. I'm actually very excited about it, but it's gonna be hot. You know, I [00:18:00] wanna think about. My thoughts as I'm walking to pick them up because I know that energy is gonna project into them in the way I parent them tonight. Okay, tip number three, print an emotions wheel.

Oh my gosh. Emotions wheel. Is something that I'm sure we've all seen. If you haven't, it's this picture of a wheel with all these different colors and they have all these different emotions on them. You can print one off. So oftentimes what I will do as I am learning to feel more and more of my feelings, because that is healthy and helpful, is all work backwards.

Maybe I'm feeling anxious and so all. Look at the feelings wheel and identify, okay, is it really anxiety or is it, you know, something else? Because the feelings wheel has all these different feelings on it, all these different ways to say the different feelings. And I'll say, oh yeah, that's it. That's what I'm feeling right there.

What thought might be [00:19:00] causing this? And it's really helpful to get yourself out of your feels when you can trace it back to a thought or maybe you're feeling something super positive, like excitement and hope. Fullness, joy, and I guess I should backtrack. I don't wanna label emotions as good or bad or positive or negative, but I mean, I personally like to feel joy more than I like to feel anxiety.

It's just the truth. So maybe I'm feeling really joyful. Oftentimes I want to like, dig back in and think, what is making me feel this way? What, what thought might be causing this feeling of joy? Okay. Tip number four. Have you heard of time tracking? I'm a big fan of Gretchen Rubin and she is a big time tracker and now that I'm saying that it's not her, it's Laura Vander Cam.

I always mix those two authors up in my mind. Laura Vander Cam has written many books and she is a researcher, an expert if you [00:20:00] will, on time. And so I first started getting into time tracking. Following her 10 years ago or so, and she really loves to track her time on spreadsheets. And one thing you can do, if you are a person who is into tracking, you can create a spreadsheet.

So easily Google Sheets, you know, Monday through Sunday, all the hours of the day, write in what you're doing during them, and then here's kind of the hack for the thoughts. Write in what you're feeling. At certain times of the day next to it, and then make another column where you can see, okay, what was I thinking when I was feeling that?

It's just a more formal way to kind of track your thoughts if you're into that. I also, this is tip number five, like to apply this thinking to different areas of my life than I normally would. For example, [00:21:00] my physical health. So oftentimes I can get really stuck in a black and white space. It's either like I ate healthy that day or it was a waste, or I did orange theory and knocked it out of the park that day, or I laid on the couch.

Not really, because when you're a parent, when do you really lay on the couch? Examining my thoughts when it doesn't come to just work or relationships or everyday life, but when it comes to areas of my life that I have goals around, we can apply this principle of becoming aware of our thoughts to see where we can maybe dig up some blocks that we might have, or we can maybe dig up spaces where we're too black and white and we need to add some color, some creativity into the way we're thinking about something.

So as to accomplish our goals. Okay, tip number six, name your thoughts. So helping to name your thoughts like, [00:22:00] Ooh, that's a comparison thought, or, Ooh, that's a worry thought, or, Ooh, that's a future planning thought. Helps to create a pause. And in that pause you can ask yourself, do I wanna be thinking that right now?

Is that helpful? And that really actually leads to tip number seven, which is the last tip I have for you today, and that is to ask curious questions. Is this thought true? Let's go back to that text message example. And I say this because I just feel like this is kind of common in our culture today, although

if you know me personally, you know I am not a quick texter, and so it is never about you. It is always just about the boundaries I have with my phone and my communication and how available I am at times. But if you are a person who sends a text and don't get an immediate response back, it is so easy to spiral into [00:23:00] making up a story.

Oh, they're mad at me. Oh, they're ignoring me. Oh, I've done something wrong. And so start asking yourself curious questions to examine those thoughts. Is this thought true? Where did it come from? What am I making this mean about me? When we first moved back to my hometown, we have kind of a cool story of how we came into the house that we live in.

I'll tell it one day on the podcast if I haven't already. Maybe I have. But there was a piece of furniture in the house that was very comfortable and I hated and I would bring this piece of furniture up in coaching so often. It's kind of embarrassing. And if I would've stopped and, and my coach was so great and prompted me to do this, I'm sure, and asked, what am I making this mean about me?

That question, what am I making this piece of furniture [00:24:00] mean about me? That helped me excavate some thoughts that were deep down in my subconscious, and it's like a piece of furniture. It doesn't mean anything about you, especially one that you bought as a part of an Airbnb, but I held onto that baby for so long and it took up so much of my energy.

All because of my thoughts around it and what I was making that mean about me, which was not something positive. Okay.

Final Thoughts and Conclusion
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Audra Dinell: Those are my thoughts on becoming aware of our thoughts. I love this topic. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this topic. If you have any, you can reach out to me on Instagram. My handle is Audra Danelle.

I would love. If you left a review on this podcast, if you're not subscribed already, that helps so much. Thank you for subscribing, sharing with people you think will like this and find help in this podcast. I [00:25:00] really love being here with you every week and talking about these things that we talk about inside my business and bringing it to a broader conversation.

So until next time, be aware of your thoughts and I can't wait to see you soon.