00:00 

Well, hello there, this is Intentional Living with Tanya Hale and this is episode number 192, "Facts and Thoughts." Welcome to your place for finding greater happiness through intentional growth, because we don't just fall into the life of our dreams...we choose to create it. This is Tanya Hale and I'm your host for Intentional Living. 

00:20 

Alright. Hello there, my friends. So glad to have you here today. I love this podcast. I love being here with you every week. I appreciate you being here with me. Thank you. Hey, really quickly, if you have not left me a review yet and you are a consistent listener, someone who is gleaning some good information from this, will you please head over to either iTunes or to Spotify and leave me a review? That will help other people find this podcast so that we can share this message of how to really step into our own agency of becoming the kind of people that we want to be and choosing how we want to live and really moving into the space. I just think that what I have to share here, it has changed my life at such a fundamental, almost cellular level, that I can't get enough of wanting to share this information with other people and to help other people through my coaching practice. This is why I'm so passionate about what I do and because of the own changes that it's had in me. If we can share this, let's do it. That is an easy, free, cheap way for you to support my business and to help people in your life to move forward as well. 

01:45 

Today, we are talking about facts and thoughts. It may sound a little bit boring, but there's some good stuff here. Let's talk about it. One of the very first lessons when I started my six-month life coach training was the difference between facts and thoughts. And we may think that this is really basic, and in some aspects it is, but it is also one of the biggest things that trips us up as humans. So as a middle school teacher, one thing that I teach my students is the difference between a fact and an opinion, which is really kind of the same thing that we're talking about here between facts and thoughts. Okay? So this is important for my students to understand so that they can begin to differentiate between what information is really true and what is someone's opinion. So what information will lead them to draw correct conclusions because the facts don't change. When we're reading people's opinions, these will change depending on the person who is delivering the information. And we have seen this worldwide the last two years as we've worked our way through the COVID viruses. There has been so much muddling between fact and opinion that people get really frustrated and even angry about things that may or may not be true. And sometimes it has been really difficult as so many opinions have been passed off as facts. So it's super important to understand the difference between fact and opinion when we are doing research or when we're seeking to understand an issue better. This is a basic research skill that we teach in schools. 

03:22 

And here's the thing. It's an incredibly important research skill to understand the difference of how this works in our own lives as well. And sometimes we apply it in school stuff, but then we don't apply it in our lives. So most of us have just never considered there are facts and opinions in our lives as well. So I'm going to call them facts and our thoughts about the facts. In fact, there we go. Do you hear that? Okay? In fact, let's call the facts circumstances. Okay? Is this starting to sound familiar to you? Hmm. A little bit of thought model, right? The first line of the thought model is the circumstance line. The circumstance is always a fact. It is neutral and it is not harmful. It's not necessarily good or bad. It just is. It is something that could be proven in a court of law, something that everyone would agree on. If I could record everything going on, I could prove what happened, what exactly what everyone said and exactly what everyone did. These are the facts and they are very important in our lives. This is what is really true. When we look at the thought model, the facts are the only line of the five lines that we don't have any control over. That circumstance line, the only part we can't control. People will say things. Those things are facts. People will do things, those things are facts. Things will do things, like a car will get a flat tire. Okay, that is a fact. What happens is a fact. Circumstances are just circumstances. 

05:07 

Here's a list of circumstances I made just to give you some examples. My sister didn't come to my wedding. My boss fired me last Friday. I had a granddaughter born yesterday. My daughter-in-law didn't come out of her room when we were at their house on Sunday. My son hasn't texted me back for two months. I spoke with my son on the phone for 90 minutes last night. My youngest child just moved away to college. My husband came home from work an hour late and didn't call to tell me. My car got a flat tire on the interstate last Wednesday. My favorite team just won or lost the Super Bowl. Okay, all of these are circumstances. They are facts, meaning they are true, meaning they are neutral. Yep, neutral. Not good or bad, they just are. Circumstances actually mean nothing. Yep, nothing. Right? They are just words on paper. Now as I read that list of circumstance though, I'm sure that most, if not all of you, were having thoughts about those circumstances. 

06:16 

Let me go back and hit some of those and give you some thoughts that you could have been having. I'm sure you're having a thought. A thought would sound something like this. Circumstance: my sister didn't come to my wedding. Thought: that was so rude for her to diss me like that. Or here's another thought: it was a hard decision for her, I'm glad she made the best one for her. Circumstance: my boss fired me last Friday. Thought: he had no right, I've been a model employee. Or here's another thought: I'm so glad I hated that job. Circumstance: I had a granddaughter born yesterday. Thought: this is the most amazing experience. Thought: I don't know how this 15 year old girl will manage this. Here's another circumstance: my daughter-in-law didn't come out of her room when we were at their house on Sunday. Thought: I swear she hates us. Thought: I feel so bad she's been out of sorts lately. Circumstance: my son hasn't texted me back for two months. Thought: he's so disrespectful and rude. Thought: he's really struggling right now. Circumstance: I spoke with my son on the phone for 90 minutes last night. Thought: it was so great to catch up with him. Thought: I wish he would stop playing the victim card and get his life together. Circumstance: my youngest child just moved away to college. Thought: I love that she's growing up and doing great things. Thought: it's so hard that my children are abandoning me and not looking back. 

07:47 

Okay, that was kind of long, but are you getting the idea? I really wanted to drive home the idea that we can have such very different thoughts about the exact same circumstances. So which thought is true? Good question, right? Which of those thoughts is true? Well, here's the deal. We all think that our own stories are true but the story comes from our thoughts. And this type of truth exists based on our lives and on our perspectives, our experiences. It's what we choose to think is true. Here's a fascinating piece: for years most of us have thought that all of our thoughts are true. We've never questioned our thoughts. We just think that our brain puts out good information all of the time, that our brain would never lie to us, that we never really learn to question our brain because of that. But here's another fascinating piece. Our brain is always lying to us. So many of the thoughts we think are not true, they're just made up. That's why we can all have such different thoughts about the same circumstance. And until we start learning to separate out the facts from our thoughts, we will always feel as though we have no control over our lives. 

09:07 

So here's a fact, not a fact for my life, but here's something that would be determined as a fact. My car got a flat tire last Wednesday. Now, I do have a choice what to think here, although I may think I don't have a choice. We may just take the very first thought as truth and never question it. So my car got a flat tire. My first thought may be: this always happens to me; I'm so unlucky. And we believe it without a second thought. Isn't that a great phrase? I typed that out and I was like, "oh, look at that, a second thought." I thought that was so amazing. "Without a second thought," it's a phrase that so many of us have used often over the years and we haven't given it a second thought. But it's about time we start giving things a second thought or a third thought or a fourth thought because our first thought is often not a very helpful or useful thought. This means that we have to start paying attention to our first thought and recognizing that it is actually a thought and not a fact. "I'm so unlucky" is a thought, it is not a fact. So many of the thoughts that we think, we will automatically pass off as facts, mostly because we don't question them and we accept them right off. And it's a totally human thing to do. Most of us have never been taught to question our thoughts and to distinguish the difference between facts and thoughts in our lives. 

10:38 

So here's some more thoughts I want you to look at. "My mother-in-law is so rude," that's a thought. But there are times that we would swear that it's a fact. But guess what, it's just a thought. "My mother-in-law shouldn't have said that." Thought. Thought. But we really want to believe that it's a fact. "My mother-in-law hates me." Thought. It's not really a fact. It's a thought. "She is tearing our family apart." Thought. There we go. Not a fact. "She said she is not coming to the family reunion next week." Okay, that one would be a fact. We have to look at all of the drama that we create sometimes with our thoughts. Being able to figure out what the circumstances, or the facts, of our lives are and what the thoughts of our brains are is one of the first and most valuable tools that I teach my clients. This one skill will change your life. I know because it has changed mine. Because when I can take my own distorted agenda out of the story, I can see the facts for what they are. I can see the fact and I can acknowledge that it is neutral. And when I can start seeing the neutral circumstance, then I can more intentionally choose the thoughts I want to think, whether it's the first or the second or the third thought. 

12:06 

And when I work with my life coach, one of the most valuable things she does is this exactly, she helps me to see my thoughts. I will throw things out there all the time that my brain swears are facts, swears that they're circumstances. And I say them without a thought and I believe that they're true. I just put these ideas out there and she will expertly let me know: "that's not a circumstance. It's a thought." And when I make that connection that, "oh, I'm choosing to think this," it changes everything. I go from feeling like a victim of the circumstance to feeling empowered. And I feel empowered because I see how I'm creating the drama with my thought. I'm creating the stress with my thought. I'm creating the overwhelm with my thought. I'm creating the extra challenge with my thought. When I drop all of the thoughts out of my story, I am always amazed at how simple things can be. 

13:11 

Here's a thought: "I'm so busy. I don't have any time to do that." Let's turn it into a fact: "I have this scheduled and this scheduled and this scheduled for Thursday night." Do you feel the difference between those two statements? One is heavily charged with overwhelm and one is just stating the facts and the drama in it, the emotion in it, goes way down. Let me say those again. "I'm so busy. I don't have time to do any of that." Or "I have this scheduled and this scheduled and this scheduled." This is the thing. The facts are boring. The facts are very boring and our brain kind of doesn't like boring sometimes. Sometimes it likes all the drama. "I'm so busy. I don't have time to do that," right? It really likes this drama. But when we learn to state just the facts, then we can consciously choose the thoughts we want to attach to them. And we really get to choose whatever thoughts we want to choose. Do we want to think our mother-in-law is rude? Maybe we do. If we feel that it serves us, that it protects us somehow, then it very well may be a thought that we want to choose. It's just realizing that "my mother-in-law is rude" is a thought and not a fact. It opens up a huge door of possibility for the kind of experience that I want to create. By choosing my thoughts that I want to have about the facts, I am choosing my entire experience. 

14:44 

But if I think "my mother-in-law is rude" is a fact, I will feel powerless with regard to what happened and how I have to move forward. Learning to separate out the facts from our thoughts is one of the greatest ways that we can empower ourselves to create the lives that we want, to show up being the kind of people that we really want to be. Our thoughts, my friends, are so powerful. They are the first step in our God-given agency. When we look at our agency as people, the thoughts are the first step that we get to take. And then those thoughts create our feelings. Our feelings drive our actions and our actions create the results in our lives. Learning to determine what is a fact and what is a thought is a skill that will enable you in ways that you have never considered. And it's such a powerful, powerful piece of growing up. And this is the time to grow up into the best versions of ourselves. To see and to learn things that were not available to us before, because we did not have the experience and we did not have the wisdom. And now we have it. This is why middle age is the bomb. This is the best time of life to do some of this work. And it's so brilliant and it's so beautiful. 

16:19 

If you need some help figuring out this "facts and thoughts" thing, this is a huge part of what I can help you with in coaching. I will not be judging you. I will not be doing any of that. My job is just to show you your facts and show you your thoughts, help you to differentiate between those so that you can start to feel empowered with your agency, so you can start to intentionally create what you want to create. So if you're ready to get to work and do this, you can book a free 30 minute consult to get you started. You can go to tanyahale.com. There is a tab there of where you can schedule an appointment with me. You can see my calendar. You can get on and we can have a nice big chat about your circumstances and your thoughts about your circumstances. And we can get you set up to step into a better version of you. This is what I do. I love it. I'm good at it and I want to help you. If you're in a space and ready to move into this, let's work together. My friends, we can do this. Alright. That is going to do it for me today. I wish you all the best this week. Enjoy. And I will talk to you next week. Bye. 

17:38 

Thank you so much for joining me today. If you would love to receive some weekend motivation, be sure to sign up for my free "weekend win" Friday email: a short and quick message to help you have a better weekend and position yourself for a more productive week. Go to tanyahale.com to sign up and learn more about life coaching and how it can help you get to your best self ever. See ya!