Episode 21: I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means

Our brains are interpreting facts all day long...and sometimes we end up making assumptions or drawing conclusions that aren't actually true. Did you know that you don't have to believe everything your brain tells you? In this episode, I share 2 simple strategies that can help you challenge your brain a little bit when it gets carried away in lots of drama about things that happen in your life.

Think New Thoughts Academy:

Join the Think New Thoughts Academy to get help applying the tools you're learning on the podcast.  

100 Thoughts for More Joy

Wanna think some new thoughts?  Here are 100 of my favorites that you can try out. Be warned, though. Choosing to really, truly believe even one of these thoughts could drastically impact the way you view yourself and others, and might completely change your life. :)

Full Transcript:

You're listening to the Think New Thoughts Podcast with Emily Ricks, episode number 21. I do not think it means what you think it means.

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.

Hey, how's it going? Okay, so you know in the movie, The Princess Bride, where Vizzini keeps saying, inconceivable, and then Ennigo Montoya says, how come you keep using that word? Do you know what he says next? Here's my son Jacob's impression of it.

I do not think it means what you think it means. That's what we're going to talk about today. What we think stuff means versus what it actually means.

So in the life coaching world, we like to say circumstances are neutral and thoughts are optional. The circumstances of our lives are facts, just the data, just the boring details without any drama. And then we draw conclusions or make assumptions about those facts based on our own opinions and our own judgments and our expectations and our experiences.

So here's a really basic example. When my oldest son Ethan was 16, he started driving a Subaru Outback and would park it in front of our house by the mailbox. So if I didn't see his car parked out front, I would conclude that he wasn't home.

And if I did see the car parked out front, my brain would tell me, oh, Ethan's home. So if we were to put this into a CTFAR model on the circumstance line, we would write dark blue Subaru Outback parked out front. And we could include my address, the numbers of the license plate or other details like that on the circumstance line, but no drama, no opinions, not what we're making stuff mean, just the facts on that C-line.

Then on the thought line, I would write, oh, Ethan's home because that's my thought about the facts. My conclusion about the dark blue Subaru Outback with a certain license plate number being parked outside of the address where I live is that this means my son Ethan is home, right? So can you see the difference between the facts and my thought about the facts? Ethan being home isn't a circumstance unless I actually see him inside the house. If all I can see is the car, my thought that he's home is actually just an assumption.

It's a conclusion that I've drawn based on the facts of his car being parked out front. So my brain has learned this interpretation. When the car is parked outside, it means Ethan's home.

Okay. Now, if this feels obvious and boring, stay with me for a minute, because I'm using a really simple example here to hopefully show you how to coach yourself through your thoughts about circumstances that are a lot more complicated. Okay.

So car parked out front, I make it mean Ethan's home. However, right now, Ethan is serving a mission for our church. And that car has been parked out front by the mailbox hundreds of times in the last year, even though he's not home.

When he first left on his mission, I would drive up to the house and see that Subaru parked by the mailbox. And my brain would say, oh, Ethan's home. And then I do not think it means what you think it means.

I would redirect my brain with a new thought, something like, nope, actually, Ethan's not home. He's on a mission. This is Jacob's car now.

So after months of practicing this new thought, when I would see the Subaru Outback parked out front, instead of my brain saying, oh, this means Ethan's home. It knows now to say, oh, this means Jacob's home. So mischief managed, right? Subaru Outback parked out front doesn't mean Ethan's home, it means Jacob's home.

But sometimes it actually doesn't mean that. One time Jacob had a friend come pick him up and they drove somewhere together. And when I drove up, I saw his car out front, but I went inside and he wasn't there.

Recently, Jacob went to a thespian conference with the drama department at our high school. And his car was parked out front by the mailbox the whole time he was gone. And during the two days he was gone, I would go somewhere, come back home, pull into the cul-de-sac and see Jacob's car and think, oh, Jacob's home.

But the car didn't mean what I thought it meant. The Subaru Outback being parked out front actually didn't mean what I was making it mean in my head. I do not think it means what you think it means.

I had drawn a false conclusion based on the facts that I was seeing. Okay. So why am I talking about cars being parked outside and whether it means someone's home or not? Because I want to help you strengthen your ability to notice what you make stuff mean in your head.

And I want to help you realize that you can choose anytime you want to, to draw a different conclusion about the same fact. And you can teach your brain to draw different conclusions about the same facts. So notice in the example with the Subaru, that the circumstance stayed the same in all the instances.

Subaru Outback parked in front of my house, but on the thought line, I have millions of choices of what thought I want to think about that fact. I could make it mean, oh, Ethan's home or oh, Jacob's home. I could make it mean, I'm so thankful that my son has a car to drive.

I could make it mean, I hate the hailstorm that put all those pockmarks all over that car. I could make it mean, oh no, his car is here. He was supposed to be at school.

And I bet he forgot about that event he was supposed to be at. Do you see how the thoughts are not the same as the circumstance? That any of those thoughts are options of what I can think when I see the car parked out front, but none of them is an actual fact. So that's what we mean by thoughts are optional is that any circumstance, there's millions of thoughts that you could choose to think about it.

And any thought you think about anything that happens in your life is your story of what you're making something mean. And you're entitled to whatever story you want to tell about any circumstance in your life. And you're also entitled to change what you make something mean anytime you want to.

So let's say that you feel really angry at a person for something they said. If the anger is persistent and you notice that it comes up every time you think about this person, you can stay angry as long as you want to. But if you want to dial down the intensity of this anger that's weighing you down, you can slow down at some point and ask yourself, what are the facts here? What are just the boring details of what this person said without all the drama of what I'm making it mean? So then you write down the facts, then ask yourself, what am I making this mean? And I recommend taking time to write it down.

Thoughts have a way of swimming around inside our heads. And sometimes knowing what you think can feel like trying to catch a slippery fish with your hands. So if you take three minutes and write down on paper, what you are making something mean, it can really help you get clarity and get into an objective place where you can witness your own mind.

So what are the facts here? Write down a sentence or two. Then what am I making this mean? What am I making it mean about me? What am I making it mean about my future? What am I making it mean about my past? What am I making it mean about this person? And then just write a few thoughts down. It might be thoughts like, she doesn't respect me.

She's a jerk. She ruined my whole day. This is called a thought download.

It takes one minute, maybe three minutes to write down what you're making stuff mean, and you don't ever have to take the time to do a thought download. If you don't want to, instead of taking the time to write down your thoughts, here are the other options that most people take. You can just let all the thoughts swim around in your brain.

You can feel the intense negative emotion that thoughts create. And then when those chemical vibrations in your body feel really unpleasant to you, you can try to press them down and see if you can get them to go away. You can scroll on social media, you can eat food, you could go shopping, you could yell at someone, and you'll get some temporary relief from that negative emotion.

You'll be able to diffuse it a little bit. And so if that works for you, go for it. Keep doing it.

I don't like the result I get when my thoughts swirl around in my brain. And I don't even really know what I'm thinking. I don't like how I feel when I do that.

And I don't like how I show up in my life. So when I am feeling intense negative emotion, I like to do a thought download. I write the facts of the situation and then ask myself, okay, what am I making this mean? This is a very empowering thing to do.

And sometimes you can't do that in the moment. So you may end up not showing up as your best self or you have an interaction with somebody. And so then you can do the thought download later as you're reflecting on it in a quiet moment, a day later, a week later.

If something is still bothering you, then you can write down, okay, what is it that actually happened? What did I say? What did this person say? What actually occurred? And then what am I making that mean? What's this anger about? So I want to encourage you to just start noticing what you are making stuff mean and take a few minutes here and there to write it down. I think that you'll be amazed at what you find out when you just start to witness your own mind on paper. And here's what happens.

Once you write it down, then you can realize the difference between the facts and the thoughts. And you can start to own that your thoughts are your interpretation. And that's great.

It's fine. It doesn't even mean you need to change anything, but just knowing that your thoughts are optional is really powerful. Our opinions, our assumptions about things that happen aren't facts.

There are thousands of ways we can choose to interpret any situation. And just knowing this is really helpful to remember. So when I feel intense negative emotion, I love to find out what I am making my circumstances mean.

And usually once I see it on paper, I go, Oh, I do not think it means what you think it means. I realize like, you know what? I don't think it's that dramatic. Or I realize, Oh, I don't even think this is about me as much as I thought it was.

Or you know what? I don't think that person has super dark ulterior motives here. This is most likely way less of a big deal than I'm making it out to be. So I love just gently suggesting to my brain, I do not think it means what you think it means.

I find this to be very liberating and empowering. One other tactic you can use with your brain to help dial down really intense emotions is to just say one word. Have you heard the Taoist parable of the Chinese farmer? It goes like this.

A long time ago, a poor Chinese farmer lost a horse and all the neighbors came around and said, well, that's too bad. And the farmer said, maybe. Shortly after the horse returned, bringing another horse with him and all the neighbors came around and said, well, that's good fortune.

To which the farmer replied, maybe. The next day, the farmer's son was trying to tame the new horse and fell breaking his leg. And all the neighbors came around and said, Oh, that's too bad.

And the farmer replied, maybe. Shortly after the emperor declared war on a neighboring nation and ordered all able-bodied men to come fight. Many died or were badly maimed, but the farmer's son was unable to fight.

And spared due to his injury. And all the neighbors came around and said, well, that's good fortune. To which the farmer replied, maybe.

And so the story goes. I love the idea of maybe, because just that one simple word, when I tell myself that, helps expand my mind so that I realize like, Oh yeah, that could be true what I'm making it mean. But also there are dozens, if not thousands, if not millions of other interpretations.

And just knowing that really is helpful to me. So try out the word maybe in your life. Next time you notice that you're making a situation means something really dramatic and negative in your mind, write your thoughts down, look at them and say, maybe that could be true.

Also, maybe it isn't true. Or next time you notice that you're making a situation means something really dramatic and negative in your mind. As you write your thoughts down, look at them.

And you could say, I do not think it means what you think it means. Maybe someone else's success means you're inadequate. Or maybe it doesn't mean anything about you.

Maybe being an empty nest or parent means your best years are behind you. Maybe. Or maybe it means the best years are yet to come.

Maybe the words someone said to you means they're trying to hurt your feelings. Or maybe those words mean that they're confused and in pain. Maybe you not following through on a commitment means you're lazy and irresponsible and you should never set another goal.

Or maybe it means you're learning from your own experience how to motivate yourself and hold yourself accountable. Maybe your child is struggling with something serious and that means you're a terrible parent. Maybe.

Maybe it means you have an opportunity to help and listen and love your child more deeply than you ever have before. What you think something in your life means might not actually be what it means. Which could be really good news.

Maybe. Thanks for joining me today. I'll talk to you next week.