“What are you making it mean?”
The most impactful question i’ve learned since finding life coaching is “what are you making that mean?” This is how you find the thought between your neutral circumstance and the emotion that you think the circumstance caused. The kid throwing cereal on the floor didn’t make you mad. What did you make it mean? Maybe you thought that he is so disrespectful since he just saw you sweep the kitchen two seconds ago and now he’s destroying all your hard work and what a jerk face. Sounds a bit silly when you take it out of your brain and look at it but this is what our brains do. So when we can slow it down and see the meaning we are making, we can deliberately decide what meaning we want to give it instead that will give us a different emotion and ultimately result.
How does this relate to dropping the mom guilt? I took the kids to “Old MacDonalds” for dinner. Neutral circumstance. It’s not good. It’s not bad. It just is. But what am I making it mean? That I’m a slacker mom who doesn’t feel my kids right. They will have health problems their whole lives from the poor nutrition in their early childhoods. I’m irresponsible with money. I am spoiling them. and on and on which ultimately mean that I’m a bad mom. and so I feel guilt. If I think i’m a bad mom, I will feel guilt. So. I question all those default thoughts my brain is offering. Does it really mean all that? I get to choose. And I get to decide to drop the guilt if i want to. Or maybe I’ll decide that eating McDonald’s food is not how I want to feed my kids tomorrow, thanks brain for the message, and I’ll do something different tomorrow. But I will not need to yell at my “entitled bratty kids for asking for Old McDonalds for the nine millionth time this week” if I have taken the higher brain approach and taken responsibility that my feelings are coming from my own thoughts and not what the kids are doing.
So, If you’re working on “thought swapping” but you can’t even find what the thoughts are that are causing the guilt, try the question “what am i making that mean?” and you could find some insight. And of course, if you need help digging in deeper to your brain, that's what coaching is for so I’d love to help you with your particular situations. Click here for a free session to try it out.
