Episode 25: Taking Control of Your Life Experience

We often feel like we are just at the effect of our life.  We want to feel better but it seems like the circumstances and situations and people in our life are making that impossible. 

In an effort to make ourselves feel better, our human brains spend a lot of time worrying about things outside of our control and trying to fix them or change them.

Control feels really important to our brains.  Our brain believes that the more control we have, the safer and happier we will be. 

But the truth is that how we feel is entirely up to us. 

Regardless of what is happening outside of us, how we feel is only ever created inside of us.  You never have to control anything outside of you to feel better.  It is only what is happening inside our own minds that makes us feel anything—good or bad. 

The key to taking control of your life experience is to recognize where your control really is.  It is never outside of you.  It is always the thoughts that you choose to think that creates your feelings and gives you your experience in the world. 

In this episode of the podcast, I’ll show you how to recognize the choice you are making every time you think a thought and how those thoughts are actually creating your life experience.  When you start to see the real control you have over your own life, you can then decide the optional experiences that you don’t want to have again and deliberately choose and create the experiences you want to have on purpose while you are here on earth.

Control as a Way to Feel Better

The whole reason that we want to control the circumstances and the people in our lives is because we think that by controlling those things we can then control our emotional experience.

We want to feel good and we want to feel good more of the time, and so our answer to this is to try to control the circumstances and the people in our lives so that we don’t have to have so much negative emotion about what’s happening.

Control feels really important to our brains. Because theoretically, our brains believe that the more control we have, the safer we will be.

Control is an INSIDE Job, Not an OUTSIDE One

We think if we can control everything outside of us, we can feel better.  But as we know, how we feel is what happens inside of us and it entirely generated by our thoughts.  

IT IS ONLY EVER WHAT IS HAPPEING IN OUR OWN MIND that makes us feel anything, good or bad.

We want to feel better and we go outside of us. When, in reality, all we have to do is go inside of us. No matter what the circumstance.

The only thing we can control is our own thinking and yet this is the last thing we think about. Our brain is constantly going outside of itself to find control and feel safe, when the only place this actually works is inside itself.

Powerful Thoughts and Questions to Consider

• Some of what you are dealing with right now is out of your control. This is when it's even more important to focus on what you CAN control.
• I always get to control my thoughts.  This allows me to control my feelings and my experience in the world.
• Of all the thoughts available to me, why am I choosing this one?
• Of all the thoughts in the thought store…why did you choose to own that one?  Is that the thought you want to keep and wear? Because you get to have ANY experience you want. Is that the one you want? Or do you want to return it and think something else?
• Would I buy this thought again?

Thought Store Exercise

Make a list and consider:  What are the experiences I am done having?  Then ask yourself, What thought do I need to stop "buying" in order to stop having this experience in my life?

Now make a list and consider:  What are the experiences I really want to have?  Then ask yourself, What do thought do I need to purchase in order to have that experience?

Mentioned in the podcast:

• My nutrition and fitness coach: Susan Dangerfield
• Kris Plachy
• The Javelina Jundred

To read or download a written transcript of the entire episode, simply click the link below.