Episode 129: Thoughts I Wish Everybody Had

Episode Summary

Thought is the most powerful creative force in the world. That’s why it’s so important to carefully consider the thoughts you are choosing to think. How often do you ask yourself what you want to think, rather than just observing your thoughts?

Any thought is possible and any thought is optional. You get to choose whatever thought you want, and nothing can ever take that choice away from you. And the better you get at choosing the thoughts you want to think, the more power you will have to create the life experience and the world you want to live in.

You can change your whole life with a few powerful thoughts and on today’s episode I’m sharing the five thoughts that I wish everybody had.

Episode Transcript

Welcome to the 100% Awesome Podcast with April Price. You might not know it, but every result in your life is 100% because of the thought you think. And that, my friends, is 100% awesome!

Hello, podcast universe! Welcome to episode 129 of the 100% Awesome Podcast. I'm April Price and I am so happy to be here with you today. How are you? I have really been like in it with my brain this week. This morning, my brain was going off again about all the things that were wrong with me, and I just finally, like, had had enough. I was like, all this shame, and all of this self-doubt is just so indulgent, and it is not serving me. And I remembered that I am in charge of my brain, and I decided, like, okay that's enough of that. What do I want to think about myself? So, I don't know where you are, but if your brain is giving you a hard time, I just want to remind you that you are in charge, that it has to do what you say, and then it has to choose the thoughts that you decide that you want to think. So, you have my permission to remind your brain that you're in charge, and choose the thoughts that are going to create the feelings that you want about yourself, and about your life.

And one of the areas that I think it's really important that we do this in, is the thoughts that we think that God thinks about us, okay? So, I've told you in the last couple of episodes that I have a free course that's called How God Really Feels About You: Three Secrets to Filling His Love. And it's all about these kind of painful thoughts that we have that we assume that God has about us, that that we're kind of a disappointment, that we haven't done it the way he expected us to, and he's really like, you know, kind of disappointed in our performance here on Earth. And these thoughts really get in the way, they create a lot of shame for us, and they create a lot of like obstacles in our relationship between us and God. It changes the way we feel about ourselves, and it changes the relationship we have with him.

And so, I really want to encourage you to download this free course. You can go to my website aprilpricecoaching.com/howGodfeels. It's all one word and you can download that. Or you can just text the word howGodfeels all one word again, 266866 And if you text howGodfeels 266866 that will register you, and the course will be sent to your inbox. And it's not very long, but the thoughts in there are really powerful, and they'll change your mind about how God feels about you, and it will change that relationship, and it will start to change how you feel about yourself. So, I really encourage you to do that, and I hope that it will help you as you are managing your brain, okay? So, speaking of managing our brain, and thinking thoughts that are powerful, and helpful to us, you know that everything in your life is coming downstream of your thoughts, right? And so, whenever we change those thoughts, we're going to create totally different results in our life, right? Everything's coming downstream of those thoughts. So, if we if we change the thought, that stream is going to end up in a different place.

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And so, today I want to talk to you about the thoughts I wish everybody would choose to think. Like if we all chose to think these thoughts, it would be amazing to think about what we can create in our own lives, and like in the world at large, like what kind of world we would live in if everybody adopted these thoughts. Now, I am not trying to take away your agency, and you get to choose any thoughts you want and you're not wrong for any thought that you choose to think. But I also know how powerful your thoughts are, they are creating our lives. And so, if I could pick the thoughts that powered your life, these are the ones that I would choose for you, for sure. Okay, so my coach often asked me the question what do you want to think about that, right? Like, what do you want to think? And like, I think that's just such a powerful question instead of like, this is what I think or like, I have to think this like, what do I want to think, actually. Like if I was choosing thoughts, what would I want to think is so powerful to look at it that way? What do I want to think? Because you do get to choose. And then that's going to create your life.

Okay, so here are the thoughts that I wish everybody had. And I think, you know it will change your life if you choose to think them. And of course, there are like so many like amazing thoughts out there. I just try to choose like the top five I think will make the biggest impact in your life if you choose to think them. Okay, so here are the five thoughts I'm going to give them to you all at one, and then I'm going to go through, and explain each one.

Okay, so number one, I can change. Number two, but I don't need to change, I am already whole. Number three, I can choose. Number four, there is nothing wrong with me, or the choices that I have made. And five, what I choose will create my life. Okay so, let's go through these one at a time and see how thinking these thoughts, I know they sound simple. I know they sound obvious, I know you think like you already believe most of these thoughts, right? You're like, well, I already think that my life is the way that it is, right? But just hang in there with me because the more you believe them, the more deeply you believe them. The more significantly they can impact your life, and the results that you are getting.

So, number one, I can change. I can change. Okay gosh, I really wish that you believed this, okay? And like, I get it. If you're like, yeah, theoretically, I can change. But I have no evidence that I actually can write because I spend decades of my life thinking that I couldn't not really write like trying, and failing, setting goals, and then giving up, trying so hard to be loving, and then failing miserably yet again and thinking, like, maybe I just don't have the capacity. Maybe I'm just such a terrible person, I can't ever really like change, and become the person that I want to be. But I want you to know that this isn't true for any of us. Every one of us has the capacity to change whether or not we believe that it is true. And I find, for the most part, if we have a lot of evidence that we can't change, it is just because we have been trying to change in the wrong way. We are always trying to change what we do, how we act, how we behave. And this is just like almost impossible to change us long term when we haven't changed what we think first.

So, our thoughts are like ingredients, right? Like they are the ingredients that are creating our life. And I want you to imagine that like you want to change the result in your life, right? And you want to like instead of making like spaghetti, okay this is a weird example, but instead of making spaghetti, you want to make chocolate cake. And every time you like are using the same ingredients and you're like, no matter what I do, no matter how much onion I put in, no matter how much onion I take out, I always like, I can't make chocolate cake, right? And it's because we haven't changed the ingredients. We're trying to change the results of our life or changing the actions of our life without changing the ingredients, the thoughts that are creating it in the first place.

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So, when we just try to change the outcome without changing the thoughts, we get tired like we're working against ourselves. We're working like we're trying to like formulate chocolate cake out of like spaghetti ingredients. You're going to get tired, you're going to get overwhelmed, stuff is going to fall through the cracks. You're going to feel like like, I just no matter how hard I try, I can't make this work and you're going to blame yourself. And it's just that you've chosen to start the process with the wrong ingredients. We can all change, but we need to change the right problem. The problem isn't that you can't create cake, it's that you were starting with the wrong ingredients were starting with the wrong thoughts. The problem is never what you are doing, that's a result, right? What you're doing is just an outcome of what you're thinking.

And so, you can change and you can change fast when you understand that your mind is the source of that change. You can change your mind in an instant. You can change the way you think in an instant, and that will change the rest of your life, okay? And this is what I show my clients how to do. This is what my coach taught me to do, right? And that has changed my whole life. This is what I show my clients how to do, this is what my coach taught me to do. I had all these behaviors and actions and results in my life that I didn't like, and she taught me to ask myself why? What was creating it? What were the ingredients that were producing this in my life? And that changed everything in my life, right? In some cases, I was able to change my mind quickly, like in an instant.

As soon as I could see what that thought was creating like, I was able to change that so quickly. And in some cases, I'm still working on thoughts, I'm still doggedly daily working on what I want to think. But I know that I can change those thoughts. Sometimes it takes work, sometimes that happens in an instant. But it is a matter of changing my mind, that is what creates change in our lives, and it will create it for you to. Your brain is designed with a feature called neuroplasticity, it is never stuck, it is never fixed. This feature is what makes life as a human possible, right? Like, we aren't doing the same things we were doing at two-months, and four years, and 14 like, our mind changes. And it is constantly being rewired by the thoughts we are choosing to think, so you can change.

That brings us to number two, but you don't need to change, you are already whole. And I think it would be so powerful if everyone thought this okay, because the one thought that plagues every one of us, every one of us are here. We are spiritual beings here on the planet, in a physical body. Every one of us has the belief that there is something wrong with me, that we are not enough. Every one of us is worried like about our flaws. That we are not enough as ourselves. And that is because that is the way our brains are designed to view us. But you are whole, you are worthy, you are enough. No change necessary, right?

Nothing you can do will ever change your ineptness or your wholeness. Nothing you do makes you better. Nothing you do makes you worse, right? If you can change, like I said with the first thought, if you change, that won't make you better or worse, you will still be you and you can't be better than that, right? The truth is that human beings can't be better than other human beings. My husband and my son just went to D.C. and when they were there, they visited the Holocaust Museum, you know. And they talked to them about how there really was a ranking system that, like certain humans, were considered more valuable, and other humans were considered less valuable. And we know that is nonsense, that we there is no ranking for human beings. But is it is it is the same for us. There's no ranking of us.

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Like, if you do this thing, then you are a better you. It's just impossible, if there can't be better humans, there can't be more worthy humans. There can't be more whole humans, there can't be more whole you's. There can't be better you's right? Like you can't be better than another human, and you can't be better than you, any other version of you. Or any other like form of you that thinks different thoughts, and does different things right? You are not more desirable or less desirable based on what you do. And you can change anything you want, but not so that you can, like, finally be enough, right? That is a game that just has no finish line and it is such a painful way to change. Like we're withholding love and approval of ourselves all the time, waiting for certain changes to go in place first, right? You can change anything that is your right is a human, but you don't need to to be enough. Pay, you will always be enough, no matter what you do or what you change, and if if people knew this, if people in the world had this thought that they were enough as they are, it would be the answer to so many problems in our world. Most of the actions we take that hurt ourselves or hurt others are coming from this deep insecurity that we aren't enough, and we are trying to prove that we are right.

Let's just go back to Cain. I liked the very first like like major mistake, like after the fall, right? Cain, like his actions, came from the idea that he wasn't enough, right? And that he couldn't compare to his brother. And we are doing this to ourselves all the time, right? We are like, we are causing so much pain in our own lives by telling ourselves we're not enough by looking around, and ranking ourselves, according to other people, or ranking ourselves. According to us, like how we should be, or how we used to be, or or any other number of things, okay? So, those go hand-in-hand, you can change, but you don't need to, right? You don't need to to be enough.

Number three is I can choose. Okay, so this is one of those thoughts that feels really, really obvious, right? You're like everyone knows that I can choose like the the first thing that you I mean, don't you remember those arguments you had as a kid when you were just like, this is a free country I can do what I want, right? Like, that's how you would argue with your brothers and sisters. So, like but it really is true, and it really is life changing when you really understand it, that you always get to decide your brain wants to make it feel like like your life is just happening to you, and other people are like, their choices are making your life, but you always get to choose. Now you don't get to make other people's choices. You don't get to decide what they do, or what they think, or how they feel. But when you really know that none of that is creating your experience, and your experience is actually only created by your choices. It changes everything. You become free when you understand my experience, no matter what is created by me, by my choices and no one else, you are free, right? Like, suddenly you understand, like how powerful you are that no matter what happens, you get to choose.

So, I want you to go back and think about the plan of God, right? He sent us all to Earth, and he said, everybody gets to choose for themselves, everybody gets to act for themselves. And like, when you think about that, like our potential to hurt each other is like enormous, right? Like you think about the history of the world and you're like, oh, my goodness, all of us humans come down here, we're all making a mess of it. We're all hurting each other, and it can kind of be overwhelming when you think about it that way, right? But what is God's answer to that? God's answer to that is that no matter what anybody else chooses, you still get to choose independent of that, right? No person's actions can make your experience. No person's actions can make you choose a certain feeling you do that in your own mind, right? That's what makes the plan work that like, no matter what somebody else chooses, you still get to choose what you're going to think, what you're going to feel, what you're going to do.

So, I'm just going to give you like a really simple example, but I think I've told you about a hundred times that David's work schedule changed last April, actually on my birthday, which I did not think was a very good birthday present. But he got a different assignment at work, and his work schedule is totally different now. He works really early, he works really late. And I have spent the last six-months feeling irritated about this, feeling frustrated about this and thinking that this terrible thing has just like happened to me, and forgetting I get to choose too, right? Like David gets to choose to keep working for his company, right? And they get to choose to, like, reassign him. But I get to choose how I'm going to feel about that, and I can spend six- months, and I can spend the next six-months again, like feeling additionally irritated, and frustrated, and pissed-off. Or I can remember that the choice is mine. The experience is mine. And like whatever he chooses with his work schedule, like I get to choose my experience of that, okay? So, it's just so helpful to remember, like, yeah, you can keep choosing irritation. That is, you're right, you get to keep choosing that. But there are so many other things available right that you're not choosing, and I like to show myself that choice.

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So, that's a really like simple example, but there are like extreme examples where the same thing applies, right? Like in the scriptures, Joseph in Egypt, his brothers, like, sold him to slave traders, and sent it to another country, right? Like he didn't get a choice in that his brothers made choices. But then he got to choose what he thought about himself when he thought about, like how God was treating him when he thought about his brothers, whether or not he was going to choose love for them, like he got to make all those choices. And like a little bit closer to our own history is like, of course, Victor Frankel, who was in the Nazi concentration camps. And he said the last of the human freedoms is to be able to choose one's experience no matter what, right? Like, you can take away all my freedoms, but I get to choose how I think about that, and I get to choose my experience of it, right?

So, always bring it back to that, what do I get to choose? My experience is happening because of what I choose, not because of what other people choose. You have to recognize that you are always in a position to choose. You always get to choose what you're going to think, and that's going to create your experience. And when you know that, and you can stop just like reacting to your life, and to other people, and you can start deciding for yourself who you want to be, and the experience that you want to have.

Now the fourth idea that has to follow right after that one is, yes you get to choose, and also, there is nothing wrong with you, or your choices. So, sometimes when we figure out that we have a choice, that we have agency, and that we are creating everything in our life like we kind of get mad at ourselves for the choices that we've been making, right? Like, for example, I could look at the choice that I've made to think about David's work schedule as like, okay, I just wasted six months. I just spent six months feeling irritated, and frustrated, and then I can be irritated, and frustrated with myself and say, like, that was a terrible choice. That was not useful. Why did you do that right? And I want you to know that like changing your choice, and like really being able to like, see, okay like I always get to choose. That is made possible when you look at your choices with curiosity and compassion.

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We have to leave our regret, and our shame, and our judgment out of it. We are all just here practicing. We are learning to choose. And it sounds so easy, but it is not. I have spent the last six-months like learning to choose, and I had to choose irritation over, and over, and over, and over again until I could learn, like, maybe this isn't the experience I want to have. And I don't have to make myself wrong for needing that long to learn it. And that long to practice it right? There's nothing wrong with choosing irritation, and frustration for six-months. Like, I needed to choose that enough to recognize like, yeah, I think I'm done making this choice. We are all just here practicing. I know you hear the thought like you get to choose, and that sounds so easy. Well, then I'll always just choose to feel good, and I'll always just choose the right, and always just choose positive thoughts. Like a lot of times we choose irritation, and we choose frustration, like when we show ourselves like, okay I'm making this choice and it's okay, then we can ask ourselves, but do I want to continue to make that choice, right?

Like you do not have to make yourself wrong for the choices that you've made. I'll talk to clients who say, like, Well, you know, I've just spent like so much of my marriage thinking these painful thoughts, and wasting this time and I think it's just so helpful to go and say that's okay. Like, of course, I needed to choose to be frustrated, and angry, and lonely, in my relationship until I was ready and able to see another choice. We are all just here practicing, and we're going to get that wrong a million times. And that is not a problem when we don't make ourselves wrong for it, we can change so much more quickly.

And I know that I've told you this example before, but very quickly, like last year, actually, I can't even remember when we went, feels like forever ago, David and I went to Grenada and like, I spent the first day like, kind of irritated, and frustrated, and like angry at him, right? And then I spent the next day mad at myself for that choice, and ashamed, and like that made me even worse, like worst company on this occasion. And finally, like halfway through that second day, I was like, no okay, it doesn't matter that I made the choice to be irritated yesterday. Like, I don't have to keep choosing that, and I can I can stop making that choice when I stop making myself wrong. When I'm like, it's okay that I chose irritation, what do I want to choose now? That's why these go hand in hand, and they're so important. Yes, you can choose, but also you're not wrong for your choices. And when you don't make yourself wrong, it's so much easier to make a different choice when you're ready.

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All right, so finally, then the last thought that I think will change your life is to recognize that whatever choice you're making is creating your life. Like choosing is creation, and that's like the coolest thing, right? God's choices created us, his choices created our world and like our life in it. And our choices create our experience, and we have inherited the exact same capacity for creation. There are divine creators, have they created everything through their choices? And the better that we get at choosing the realities that we want, the life that we want, the better or the more we increase our capacity for creation and become like them. Become like our creators, right? Creation isn't magic, it just doesn't like poof out of nothing, it comes from choosing. And when we learn that we understand that every choice I'm making is a form of creation. I'm creating my life moment by moment, thought, by thought. And as I learn to do that on this micro level, on this small level, in my own life, thought by thought, right? I'm learning the principles of creation on a huge universal macro level. The principles are the same, and I just think that that is the coolest thing ever.

The other day, my niece got married and I was, we were in the temple, and when she got married, the man that was performing the ordinance said to the room at large. He said, you are here today because of a series of small choices. And I was like, yeah, right? The smallest choices you can imagine tiny little thought choices. Tiny little thought choices, one at a time, one at a time added up to me being in that room with her, to her being in that room, right? And I just think it's like miraculous as you start to recognize, like I have been given the ability to choose, and all my choices have created what is, and if I don't make myself wrong for that, I can start to understand, like the power of creation in my own life.

Okay, so the other day, I was really frustrated with a result that I was getting in my business and my brain was trying to, like, figure out why I was getting that result without noticing my part in the creation, right? Like my brain is, like always wants to go outside and look for a reason like why this thing is happening outside of me, right? And specifically outside of my thoughts. Now again, my thoughts are always creating my results, even in my business. And yet my brain is like, what is it that I need to change outside of me to get a different result, right? Instead of like noticing the thoughts? So, I was talking to my coach about this, and she asked me if you aren't creating the result, who is? And I was like, oh, right, like, it's always us, right? And she's like, if your thoughts aren't creating the result, what is? And again, I was like, Oh, like nothing is created in any other way. It's all created in our thoughts. And so, if I'm looking at a result that I don't like, like the answer is always in my own thoughts. Your thoughts are the force of creation in your life. So, as you look around your life, if you see things that you wish were different, you see you think you want different results. Like, we don't have to be frustrated and wonder why that is. What we need to do is be curious, and figure out what are the thoughts, the tiny choices that are adding up to this result.

You are here at this moment in your life, wherever you are, because of tiny choices made first in your own mind. And those choices add up and create like the room you are sitting in metaphorically, right the room of your life, this is a creation. You are the creator. Nothing just happens. Nothing just springs into existence. It is all created. What is in your life is a creation made by you. And that is such good news because if you can figure out what thoughts created it as it is now, then you can adjust anything that you want. You can keep repeating the things you like. You can stop thinking the things that aren't creating the things that you don't, and it's all up to you. If it just happened to you, if it was outside of you, then you would be powerless. But it isn't how this works. Do you see how important the choices that you make in your mind are, you are more powerful than, you know. You are a god in miniature forming your world in the chambers of your own mind. And the better you get at that process, the better you get at the creative process, and making choices, managing your mind, choosing your thoughts on purpose, thinking the things you want to think. The more power you will have to create the life experience the world that you want to live in. That is why learning to manage your mind is the most important work you can do while you are here on Earth. It is why you came.

You came to learn to choose. You came to learn to create, right? We are learning to create by learning to choose what we want to think over the default thoughts of our natural human brain, right? Now, this is why I love coaching, I want to get better, and better at choosing, and coaching, gives me the awareness to see the choices I'm making and decide in my own life when I want to make a different one. I want to get so good at the skill of choosing. It is an eternal skill that would go far beyond this life, and far beyond what I am able to create here on this Earth, that's why I think it is the best investment you could ever make. It makes your Earth- life experience like exquisitely sweet. And that is only the beginning of your creative work. Your creative work will go on for eternity. And I think, like every one of you should have like the help and the awareness to develop that skill in your life. And I think coaching is the best way to do it. I would love to be your coach and help you do that.

So, I really want you to think about the power of these five thoughts. The deeper you know them, the more you believe them, the more impact and change they will create in your life. You can change, but you don't have do to be enough. You are already there. You can choose, but your choices don't make you wrong, and you always get to keep practicing. That practice is why you came, and all of your choices are creating your life. Can you believe how much power you have in your own life? Stop telling yourself that you can't have what you want. Change your mind. Choose what you want to think on purpose and create all the things you want in your life. You are more powerful than, you know. And that, my friends, is 100% awesome. I love you for listening, and I'll see you next week!

A lot of us think that God is disappointed in us, after all, he knows everything about us. Everything about us isn't always amazing, but God is never disappointed in you and I want you to know why. Download my free course, How God Really Feels About You and learn three secrets that will help you feel his love. Go to aprilpricecoaching.com/howGodfeels. And learn how much he loves and approves of you exactly as you are.