Episode 14: Relief is Actually Available Now

Have you ever longed for a project, commitment or event to be over so you can finally get relief from all the stress?  A lot of people imagine the relief they will feel when their circumstances are different. But since relief is a feeling, and feelings are created by your thoughts (not your circumstances!), there are certain types of relief that are actually available to you right now, even if your circumstances don't change at all.  Listen in to today's episode to hear 3 "real life" examples of how this can be true. 

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Full Transcript:

You're listening to the Think New Thoughts Podcast with Emily Ricks, episode number 14. Relief is actually available now.

I'm Emily Ricks and this is Think New Thoughts, a life coaching podcast to help you find more joy in your relationships.

In each episode, I'll share a simple idea that will help you see things in a new way so you can love God, your neighbor, and yourself more deeply than you ever have before. If you're ready to literally change your mind, I think you'll like it here.

Hi there. Today we're going to talk about relief. So basic definition, relief is a feeling of reassurance and relaxation following the release from anxiety or distress, right? So we feel something uncomfortable, the discomfort goes away, and then we feel relief. Relief is a feeling.

So here's what's interesting. In life coaching terms, that means is created by our thoughts, not our circumstances, right? Circumstances don't create feelings. Thoughts create feelings and relief is a feeling.

So it's created by our thoughts. Now this might sound crazy to you, but hear me out for a minute. When we're trying to decide, let's say whether to quit something or keep going with it, maybe a relationship or a volunteer position, some kind of a commitment, maybe a job project, whatever.

When we want to quit something, we imagine that we will feel so much relief and we don't have to do it anymore. And this might be true that you would feel relief, but it wouldn't be because you're not doing the thing anymore. It would be because of the thoughts that you don't have anymore that you have about that thing, because the feeling of relief comes from your thoughts.

Let me give you an example of this. So recently I had a client who in his session wanted to talk about whether to keep going in his PhD program. He was feeling like it's time consuming.

It's tedious. I don't know if it's really getting me where I want to go. Will this even be worth it? And so we explored some different possibilities for him.

So we explored how he was thinking about the program and he realized he was dreading the assignments first classes. And then when he was dreading it, so that's on the feeling line of his model, he ended up avoiding or procrastinating doing the work, not being intentional with his time, the way he usually is not really being present to the coursework and not really giving it his honest effort. That's all on the action line.

And then his result was the looming dread of the assignments was creeping into his whole life. Even when he wasn't working on it, he was dreading it. So part of his desire to quit the program was he anticipated a great feeling of relief from this dread if he didn't have any of the classes or the coursework.

And as he became aware of the choices he was making and not making in the way he was thinking and feeling and acting with regard to his PhD program, he decided he wanted to make some adjustments just for the next few weeks. So he said, you know what, I'm going to finish out the semester no matter what. And then after that, I'm going to determine whether I want to finish continuing with the program.

And he imagined how he wanted to feel for the next few weeks, how he wanted to approach the workload. And he felt really energized as he decided to fully engage with it for the next few weeks, he decided, okay, I can choose to engage with it right now. And when he thought that thought he felt empowered and from a place of empowered, he visualized himself really engaging with it.

And so, okay, I would get out my planner. I would have a monthly weekly daily plan. Like I do with all the things in my life that I care about.

I wouldn't be procrastinating. I wouldn't be avoiding. I would block out time to work on my assignments, be fully present.

And then I would have other times where I don't think about it at all. And I lean into the other parts of my life that I actually enjoy. And so here's what was so cool.

Once he tapped into that energy of who he wants to be and how he wants to show up, he experienced right there during this session, a feeling of relief, relief from the dread, relief from the frustration that he'd been feeling relief from the discouragement that came from believing his program was a waste of time. And it wasn't getting him anywhere. He said at the end of the session that he went into the conversation thinking there were two options, either I suffer and stay in the program or I leave and I can get some relief.

And what he discovered during the session is that a certain kind of relief was available to him right now without changing his circumstances at all. So empowering. So he didn't decide in the session whether he was going to finish the program or not, but the feeling of relief is available to him either way, whichever he chooses, because the feeling of stress and dread and frustration wasn't actually being created by his program.

It was being created by his thoughts about the program, which deep down, he already knew this, but had temporarily forgotten. And after exploring his thinking, he remembered and he felt empowered and relieved. Another quick example of this feeling of relief being available right now is a client I had a few years ago who was heading into the holiday season and she was dreading hosting her in-laws for Thanksgiving.

And so she was imagining how relieved she would feel if she just went by herself to some tropical island and didn't have to interact with anyone for several weeks and nobody would be demanding anything and she wouldn't have to do anything for anyone. And after several sessions of exploring her thinking and realizing and owning that her thoughts about the interactions were creating the feelings of resentment and dread that she was having. Over time, she eventually experienced a huge feeling of relief without actually going to any kind of tropical island.

She did some worksheets. She did some journaling. We had a sessions and I remember being thrilled to get an email from her where she said, the feeling of dread is totally gone.

And she was ready to head into the holidays. The holidays hadn't even happened yet. Right? She thought the only way I'm going to get out of this feeling of dread and have relief is if I go on vacation or maybe when it's all over.

But she actually experienced a feeling of relief from the dread before anybody even came into town because of the power of her mind. It through understanding that your thoughts create your feelings, not your circumstances. A lot of times you don't have to actually change your circumstances to get relief.

There are a lot of types of relief that are available to you right now. So here's my last example. And this is when you are experiencing physical pain.

Physical pain is painful, right? Most of us don't like it when we're sick or injured, or we have a headache or a bruise or anything like that. Most of us want relief from that physical pain. And sometimes you can take an ibuprofen or take other measures and get relief from your physical pain.

And other times, even with interventions, we end up enduring physical pain that we don't have the power to get relief from yet. And here's what I have noticed. Most of us add emotional pain on top of physical pain, which causes us to suffer even more.

So I'm going to give you an example. Hopefully you can apply this to whatever type of physical pain you might deal with in your life. The last time I was sick, I decided to really notice the difference between my physical pain and my emotional pain.

So I was laying in bed and I was miserable. I was just like, I hate being sick. I hate everything about this.

You know, like I just didn't feel well and I was grumpy and miserable. So I was laying there being like, okay, let's sort of separate out what's physical and what's emotional. So physically I'm like, I have a sore throat.

I have a headache. I feel very physically tired. I'm having some trouble breathing.

I've got some respiratory stuff going on. Right? So these are very unpleasant physical symptoms. But then I asked myself, okay, how much of my suffering right now is being caused by these physical symptoms and how much of it is the emotional stuff that I'm layering on top by the way that I'm thinking about it.

And so I laid there and I tried to sort of distinguish the physical from the emotional. And that's when I noticed the thoughts like, I hate this. This shouldn't be happening.

I don't want to be sick. This is the worst. I have so many things that I need to get done today.

It's taking too long to get better from this. Right? So those were all thoughts that were creating emotional pain on top of the sore throat and the headache and all the other symptoms. So the truth in that situation is relief was available to me right then from the emotional pain.

Right? So I realized, okay, this emotional pain is optional. I can't wave a magic wand and get my sore throat to be all cleared up. Like I'm taking medicine, but that's not going to wipe the sickness away.

It's going to have to run its course. And I can't bypass that, but there is emotional relief that's available to me right now. Even while I'm sick, I can get relief from the emotional exhaustion of arguing with reality, which is what I was doing.

Right? I talked about that in episode 11, like trying to change something that you absolutely can't change is exhausting emotionally. It's arguing with reality. So my argument with, with reality was, I shouldn't be sick right now.

I hate being sick. This is the worst. It's like, well, okay, but that's, that is the reality.

Right? So what I decided to do in that moment was accept the reality. Okay. My body's fighting an infection.

My body's amazing. It knows how to beat this and it will, but it's not going to happen overnight. Usually it takes 10 to 14 days and I can rest and drink water and honor my body.

I could cancel things. I need to cancel. I can do things anyway.

If I feel like I can, whatever I don't get done is just not going to get done. I just can't get to accept that right now that I'm just going to lay here and not get certain things done. And I'll either do them later or not at all.

And as I started to think those kinds of thoughts, I experienced relief, not relief from the sore throat or from the headache or any of those physical parts of the sickness that wouldn't come until the sickness was over. Right. And then of course I would experience a feeling of relief when I'm no longer sick, but I did experience in that moment, as I was laying there, a feeling of emotional relief from the resistance and the frustration and the anger that I was adding on top of the physical pain that was making me even more miserable.

So that's what I want to offer you today. Relief is available to you now, even if your circumstances don't change yet, you can release the frustration, the resistance. And if you do, you'll experience a measure of relief right now.

So what do you notice that you're seeking relief from? What is it that you want to not be in your life so that you can experience relief? You can discontinue doing something you've been doing. You can release a commitment. You can move, quit a job, end a relationship, whatever.

You can make any decision you want to, but just notice all of those things are changing your circumstances, which you can do. But remember that if relief is what you want, relief is available to you no matter what decision you make, because relief isn't created by your circumstances. It's created by your mind.

Your thoughts create a feeling of relief. So the truth is the feeling of relief is actually only ever one thought away. Thanks for joining me today.