10. How to Change Your Perspective

Learn about a tool called The Model that lets you see how your thoughts and feelings lead to your actions and the results you create in your life.

Often it only takes a small change in perspective to make a large change in your life.

Lani: Caregiving Philosophy
Melissa: Wandering Missy - Start Living the Life You Want. How to find Joy + Purpose in your Life.

Transcript

The Model 

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

thoughts, feeling, circumstance, people, model, thinking, friends, caused, life, anniversary, interpretation, fact, mind, feel, july 3rd, story, condoning, happen, july 2nd, violence

M
Melissa
0:07
Welcome to happy life story - I'm Melissa.
L
Lani
0:10
And I'm Lani. We're discussing how to create your better life story. Are you ready to talk about the model?
M
Melissa
0:22
Yes, I am always ready to talk about the model. The best model, call it an invention, was the best thing I've learned in the last year and a half for sure.
L
Lani
0:32
One of the coaching tools that we learned in Life Coach School. He liked to use a model - do you use the model on yourself?
M
Melissa
0:50
Sometimes I do do self coaching, for sure. I mean, I think you know not to digress from the model. But starting with the thought download, I think it's really helpful for me. I do use that. Not daily, very often just to kind of get everything out of my head, which of course can lead to myself doing a model on myself.
L
Lani
1:14
Nice. You do it for about yearly?
M
Melissa
1:23
I definitely do that and that I definitely do models on my friends and not tell them.
L
Lani
1:31
Yeah, definitely.
M
Melissa
1:33
In fact, it consumes me sometimes hearing people tell their stories.
L
Lani
1:41
Making up stuff that they think is real. It's so fun.
M
Melissa
1:46
Before we sound catty, friends, let's tell everyone what the model is.
L
Lani
1:53
Let's not keep it a secret anymore. There's five parts to the model. I will go over each part first: circumstance, thought, feeling, action and results.
M
Melissa
2:07
Yes, the CTFAR are kind of, boom, boom, boom, whichI can look again if we're gonna keep talking about it. I'll put that in the show notes - some model sheets so that you can have it for yourself so that you can print one out, print several out and do models for yourself, once you learn about this magic tool.
L
Lani
2:27
It is great. Really, really great for self awareness. So start with the circumstance. It's just the facts that everyone would agree on.
M
Melissa
2:39
Yeah, that would be provable in a court of law. There's nothing you can dispute about it.
L
Lani
2:46
Right. I have some examples. I have three children. I weighed 215 pounds. That's not my example, but I'll make that up. He said I'll meet you at the restaurant at eight o'clock.
M
Melissa
3:00
Yes. I was born on July 2nd.
L
Lani
3:04
Yeah. When is your birthday?
M
Melissa
3:06
July 2nd.
L
Lani
3:08
July 2nd? Really? Mine's July 3rd.
M
Melissa
3:18
See? All these connections, I wonder why.
L
Lani
3:23
I used to have a best friend that was born on July 2nd, too. One of my old best friends was born on July 2nd.
M
Melissa
3:33
Yeah, now I will not forget July 3rd. See, people? See what we learned about?
L
Lani
3:38
A circumstance that we didn't even know about.
M
Melissa
3:44
My mother would say I was born on July 2, and oh my god, that delivery was so awful. It was terrible. That's our story. A big old description.
L
Lani
3:57
When you add the description, like you said, the adjectives and all this and all that, it turns into your thoughts. It's definitely not the circumstance.
M
Melissa
4:04
Exactly. Because if you ask the gynecologist or the obstetrician, they may say no, that was just an average delivery, so it's your own interpretation. First born.
L
Lani
4:15
First is always the hardest, right?
M
Melissa
4:21
Yeah, it actually was for me too. I digress. So another, thinking of a birthday I remember, a friend not too long ago went through this whole song and dance, I'll call it, of telling me the circumstance. It's my birthday, I'm a florist, and my husband didn't buy me flowers. Can you believe that? He's so inconsiderate. So going through that again, the only fact in that whole sentence was that today was her birthday, because everything else was a conjecture. But that's kind of what that word kind of comes up when people just give you throw all this stuff.
L
Lani
5:07
I was saying a circumstance could be I weigh 215 pounds. But your story around it might be I weigh too much, or I'm too fat, or something like that. But that's not, that's not a fact.
M
Melissa
5:19
No, because the fact couldn't be related to that. You could look at a body mass weight chart and, for six foot six, 215 pounds, average. So definitely, you can prove it. That's interpretation.
L
Lani
5:34
What's interesting is most people think that their circumstances are what caused their feelings. That's not true. They do not know that circumstances never cause your feelings. What causes your feelings, your thoughts - thats what's in there. It's sneaking into your circumstance; or what you think is the circumstance.
M
Melissa
6:01
Absolutely. In fact, it's your interpretation. What you add in to my story.
L
Lani
6:08
I have a little circumstance here. My boss asked me to finish a report by Friday, you think that might cause you to be all overwhelmed, but it's not actually the boss. And it's not actually the report that's causing you to feel overwhelmed by all your thoughts, like, maybe that's too much. It's too hard. I can't get it all done.
M
Melissa
6:31
I wanted to go out, I wanted to spend more time doing something else, how dare he? Right. He or she can't ask you to do this, it's short notice, and they start running through a litany of interpretation.
L
Lani
6:51
When your mind keeps going, that's all thoughts. And circumstances can't cause your feelings.
M
Melissa
6:59
No, your thoughts about them can. And then of course, that leads to...
L
Lani
7:04
That leads to your thoughts. Big, big, big. I think it's like your opinions, your belief, stories about the circumstances.
M
Melissa
7:14
Exactly. Story seems to be a really good one. It's really just the story, you're telling about something that if you asked 100 other people and told them the same line, they would might come up with 100 different interpretations. So you know, there are thoughts about that.
L
Lani
7:29
Right, exactly. Because it's all coming from our personal experiences, or environment, or culture, or values. All of our thoughts are just made in our mind from what we've experienced in the past.
M
Melissa
7:43
Exactly, and just like we were talking about the other day, the neural pathways: Like when you dig in deep and you've constantly programmed yourself to think a certain way, it takes a lot of undoing.
L
Lani
7:57
When we talked about that Catholic guilt you were talking about. I bet there's a lot of thoughts there.
M
Melissa
8:07
Oh, you know, something happened to me earlier today. And and not to throw Catholics under the bus, but I said to someone earlier today, again, that oh my goodness, that sounded like something my grandmother would have said.
L
Lani
8:25
Yeah, we can't even tell what a lot of times what all these influences society puts on us, but especially as women, we have a lot of cultural influences that we don't even recognize a lot of times.
M
Melissa
8:41
More than you can count that's for sure, as the guy coming at you fast and furious.
L
Lani
8:46
I did have a lot of thoughts. When I graduated the same optometry school as my husband three years earlier, I got a job at this one company. And then when my husband graduated, he got a job. He got the same exact job I did, at the same exact company. We went to the same school, and then he got paid way more. I was really pissed because of my thoughts. It wasn't because of the money, it was because when I thought about the money first I thought it wasn't fair. So that's why I was angry.
M
Melissa
9:21
Absolutely. And that's where that can open up a whole other model, about, what does that mean? That's a good one, because it's real. And that's the problem. I mean, a lot of these things are a real notion, a real feel.
L
Lani
9:43
Real circumstance, for sure. And then just because we're saying it's a thought doesn't mean it's a thought you don't want to keep. It could be a thought you want to keep, you want to be mad and you want to have those feelings. So just because we're saying it's a thought was thing, it's an option. Keep it or not by examining it.
M
Melissa
10:04
And that's the hard part. When you listen to people going through their models, it's not that you're condoning something, stop trying to push it away or keep it or, or whatever. It's just something for you to look at, to start. It's a starting point.
L
Lani
10:24
Right? I have some thoughts that people think that are like all or nothing examples there. You can't have it all. Violence is never the answer. And the only way to be successful is to work hard. These are all thoughts, things like that, that you can think about whether you want to keep that thought, whether it's not a fact, it's not a circumstance that you can decide whether you like it or not.
M
Melissa
10:50
Exactly, and repeat the one in the middle: violence is never the answer. To some people it is, and to me it's not, but that doesn't mean that to somebody. Maybe in the war in Ukraine, and they want to win, they clearly think that violence is going to be the answer. So I don't condone violence, but yeah.
L
Lani
11:13
You might think that or not think it, doesn't mean you're condoning anything. I would definitely say violence could be the answer. If somebody's attacking you, you might want to attack them.
M
Melissa
11:27
Yes. Self defense, or there's a million reasons when violence can be the answer. It's disputed.
L
Lani
11:37
Right. So if that's not in a court of law, you definitely can dispute that. A lot of people think the only way to be successful is to work hard too.
M
Melissa
11:47
And that can be debunked really quickly.
L
Lani
11:52
Especially with these young kids, like just going on TikTok or something. Then all of a sudden, they're rich and successful.
M
Melissa
12:02
They're like 14 years old. It wasn't the grueling education and the time they put in getting their masters, 30 years at their company.
L
Lani
12:15
Kids like 10 years old, or something, just unboxing stuff. I don't think it was because of their hard work.
M
Melissa
12:24
Not hard work. But again, these are some really good examples, because these blanket statements that people take as fact, and they're not necessarily.
L
Lani
12:34
Exactly. I think you were right before about the key to thinking of your thoughts is what we call a thought download or just journaling, writing down everything and then saying, oh, well, maybe, you know, this is debatable, this thought. I always just thought it with the fact that maybe I can look at it in a different way.
M
Melissa
12:55
And it could even be you just pick one little thought out of 15 that you wrote down, or you specifically maybe have something on your mind, and you do a thought download specific to something that's happening in your life. Or just a brain dump and see what is happening. In your head, pick something out.
L
Lani
13:16
And then they call it the brain dump, definitely. I think I said people sometimes think their circumstance because they're feeling, but also people think that their thoughts are caused by the circumstance. But that's not true, either. You can have a circumstance and, like you said, everybody's going to think something different. What you're thinking is not just the way to be thinking about it.
M
Melissa
13:46
So on point for sure.
L
Lani
13:48
I had this friend that was telling me, these other ladies in their office were just walking by them and they they didn't say hi to her. So she was thinking they're just ignoring me. They're so rude. I can't believe they did that, and having all these thoughts about it, even though them walking by is not what caused the thought.
M
Melissa
14:11
It's what she thought about her.
L
Lani
14:16
Exactly, you have to figure out the differences.
M
Melissa
14:18
Similar example: I didn't get invited to a party, and all my other friends did. That means they didn't want me at the party, That I was not chosen. That means you started internalizing all of that to mean there's something wrong with you, why you weren't invited, when really they could have overlooked and here again - here we go with the several reasons. You maybe never saw the email, it was in your junk mail, maybe they forgot, there's 10 other reasons why. And it couldn't be that they don't like you, that could be the reason, but that's not necessarily the reason. I think that  when we create these storylines around things, that can easily be explained away.
M
Melissa
14:19
Exactly. Try to look at things from all different perspective.
M
Melissa
15:01
And that goes back to some of the emotional intelligence stuff we were talking about as well. Because when you can have empathy or some self reflection and realize, hey, it's not about you, some people are not even thinking about you. You only think about you so much that a lot of this comes from, like I said 10 minutes ago, the thoughts that have been sort of circulating around in your head, since you were a child, that you can't quite get rid of. And then they affect every aspect of your life.
L
Lani
15:35
It's true that we always worry about what other people are thinking. But usually it's they're thinking about themselves.
M
Melissa
15:40
And even if they think ooh, look at her outfit. If they were thinking something like that, it's such a fleeting thought, and they tend not to dwell on it. But then of course, that leads us to being based around a feeling.
L
Lani
15:59
The next part of the model is feelings. So this one, thoughts do cause feelings? The circumstance doesn't cause the feeling the thoughts cause the feeling.
M
Melissa
16:11
In your example, if you think you're overweight at 200 pounds and now you feel sad or unhappy, that's caused by that thought, not the number. That's a cause to be said; There's something within you, your opinion of yourself, that's causing that feeling.
L
Lani
16:35
I want to do it like a scientific definition of feelings. In my mind, the feelings are a vibration in your body caused by the chemicals released in your brain. Because when you're when you have a certain thought, then your chemicals are released in your brain and they give you an actual feeling in your body. That is the butterflies in your stomach or a tight chest or something like that.
M
Melissa
17:01
And this is the connection between the brain and the stomach, your gut reaction, or why things happen or why you feel them. And you do feel them. We've all had our heart broken. Broken, obviously, is a little bit of an exaggeration, but your heart hurts right? Now, feelings are a feeling - literally.
L
Lani
17:24
People don't know that feelings are literally a feeling. I really didn't even know that at all.
M
Melissa
17:32
Never put two and two together. Never did. So obvious.
L
Lani
17:40
I know. So, a lot of times, coaches say the way to get through a feeling is to go examine the actual feeling in your body. While we know we shouldn't try to push things away, because it just comes back stronger.
M
Melissa
17:56
Doesn't go anywhere. It's a temporary solution.
L
Lani
17:59
Exactly. But I never got into the idea that you can go and look at the feeling and see the shape, size and color. Some people say how fast and slow the feelings moving and stuff like that.
M
Melissa
18:13
I've definitely heard people who are much better at describing what's happening inside them. And then I'm capable at this point in my life, obviously, broken heart or nervousness or things, certain things I can feel, but like some people can just actually describe it with adjectives, and I'm personally not there yet. Or maybe I'll never be. It's interesting, though, to hear what colors are deep and very interesting.
L
Lani
18:48
So what you should do is accept the feeling. And so I usually just say for the feeling, that there's nothing wrong with having any feelings. Feelings are just fine. It's always just caused by our thoughts. And so a lot of times thoughts are popping in their mind, and we're gonna get a feeling. Nothing's gone wrong, all feelings are fine.
M
Melissa
19:11
Exactly, and how you move through it.
L
Lani
19:15
I find that when you accept the feelings, that the feeling's fine, and you don't try to say I gotta get rid of this feeling. Then it doesn't bother you as much and then eventually just goes away on its own.
M
Melissa
19:27
Sit with it for a little bit, let it happen and then move on, move past it, or like sitting up, pretend it didn't happen because it's gonna going to come back. But do something where you sit with it and try to understand it.
L
Lani
19:42
Right. So I'll go over a couple of examples again, how the thoughts are the thing that caused the feeling. So somebody says, I shouldn't have said that I heard that person's feeling. Then if you think that in your mind, you're going to feel the guilty feeling in your body.
M
Melissa
19:44
Or when you interpret something as hurtful from somebody, and they may have meant it that way, maybe they didn't. But that's clearly like that hurt feeling, like you're thinking they don't like me, or they are ruining my life or whatever. That thought is that you're having, and you have that feeling of hurt. Or really maybe you misinterpreted everything. And maybe you didn't, maybe it just happened to me exactly the way it happened. But again, it's how the thought is just recognizing how the thoughts connected to the feeling that you get.
L
Lani
20:37
One thought that's really common: Have you ever read that book 'Daring Greatly' by Brene Brown? She says everyone has shame by thinking I'm not good enough. If I can't understand this, I'm not good enough to find love.
M
Melissa
20:51
And guess what will happen? Those thoughts, and then you feel inadequate, and then of course you're not going to attract what you want, right?
L
Lani
21:03
Because we know our feelings cause our actions, right? Yeah. Feelings cause our actions. What I mean by that is, another way of saying it is our emotions cause our behaviors.
M
Melissa
21:18
Yes, that's a great way to say it. And that's true. Like to that last example, somebody says something you interpreted as being hurtful and you're sad, and then you lay in bed for a day because you're feeling unloved.
L
Lani
21:36
You're feeling inadequate, you're just going to avoid things that need to get done. You're going to just do unproductive things like scrolling social media, watching Netflix, eating.
M
Melissa
21:51
Lots of buffering. Lots of avoiding.
L
Lani
21:55
Trying to avoid those feelings, put that buffer in between our feelings and ourselves, then we're not being productive. We're doing things that are not moving us forward at all.
M
Melissa
22:11
Exactly. And, had we stuck with one model all the way through, we could start tying this back. But since we're giving pieces of different models, we'll pick an example.
L
Lani
22:24
Yeah. Do you have an example?
M
Melissa
22:27
I think just in in general terms. Maybe I'll go back to my friend who's the florist, and oh my god, the circumstance was that it was her birthday. Her thought was, my husband does this every year, he knows I'm a florist, and he doesn't buy me flowers. So in the end, the feeling that she was having was that she was angry at him for not interpreting what she wanted.
L
Lani
22:56
She was really angry at him for her own thoughts. She thought it was because of him. And that's why I always people always confuse that. So she was angry, and then what did she say?
M
Melissa
23:12
She was let down and then her actions for that was she ended up giving him the cold shoulder, making him feel bad about not doing this as if he should have been interpreted or understood that she wanted this. But indirectly, she wasn't saying that. The typical fight between two people, whether it's friends or significant others, that think the other one should know what the other ones thinking.
L
Lani
23:41
Isn't that crazy, like thinking why doesn't he read my mind? He should know how to read my mind.
M
Melissa
23:52
And really, it's just: Were you together on your anniversary? That should have been the main point, that you enjoy being together.
L
Lani
24:00
Right. So her actions, she did everything to even make it worse?
M
Melissa
24:05
Exactly. So I don't know if that was a clean enough model.
L
Lani
24:12
Results are what we create of what we did. So she sounds like she created, more disharmony in their marriage than what was already there.
M
Melissa
24:21
Exactly. When really, the card and whatever the gift was that he gave for the anniversary should have been, could have been fine. I don't know. I don't want to put assume anything between two people. But instead of enjoying themselves, the result was that they ended up having an unhappy anniversary.
L
Lani
24:42
Yeah. All because of the thought. Thoughts lead to feeling leads to action, and that leads to a result so your results are always: Whatever you're thinking becomes your life. Whatever we think we usually do, if we're thinking he's rude, then usually I'm rude back. That's the crazy part.
M
Melissa
25:06
And I think a couple of podcasts ago, we were talking about, you get cut off when you're driving, and you start telling the person off, you've given back to them what they did to you.
L
Lani
25:22
You do what you don't like, that's the crazy part.
M
Melissa
25:24
And I feel like as time goes on, we'll get much clearer except when we have and run through some actual models that are happening, in front of us and run through. And I think we can do it on each other. I mean, these are pretty easy things to do, but things that are very productive, so it can really change the way you do something. And also like looking from the outside of your thoughts. It's kind of eye opening, you kind of look at your thoughts. And you're not even realizing I'm sure, if say my friend had really looked at her thoughts she'd see this is ridiculous, and I'm upset. I've got 4000 square feet of flowers in my store, what's more important is that him and I just, enjoy each other's company and enjoy our anniversary. So when you take a step back and look at what you're thinking and really analyze it, I think that it starts to be not easier, but to look into recognize thought patterns and behaviors.
L
Lani
26:26
Exactly. That's a good reason for coaches too because we can see what you're doing a lot easier than you can see what you're doing yourself. It's hard to see what you're doing yourself. But if you write it down, you are getting that distance from yourself. Oh, it's just on this paper now, so I can see what I'm doing.
M
Melissa
26:45
That's so true. And that clarity definitely can be life changing. Yeah. Well, that was a quick run through the model. But, I mean, I think as we move forward, we'll be hearing a lot more from the model.
L
Lani
27:00
Yep, it's a good tool to use for self coaching.
M
Melissa
27:05
For sure. Definitely, you'll hear more of it here.
L
Lani
27:11
Okay, bye - see you later.