00:00 

Oh, hey there. Welcome to Intentional Living with Tanya Hale. This is episode number 303, "Thought Model Reteach.", 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. 

00:21 

Alright. Hello there, my friends. Welcome to the podcast. Thank you for joining me. I know that your time is one of the most valuable things that you have and the fact that you spend your time to be here with me, engaging in this content, learning how to have better relationships, means a lot to me. I appreciate your trust in me and I take it very seriously. And just want to thank you for being here. 

00:51 

Before we jump in, I wanted to remind you what I talked about last week, that I'm trying a new experiment and I want to try doing some couples coaching. So that means that I would teach both the husband and the wife and we would work together. And it's going to be a huge experiment. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to be giving you for regular price of what I do, 12 sessions, but then I'm going to throw in an extra six sessions where I will work with the two of you together. And that's where this is just an experiment for me, because I haven't done this before, but it is a skill set that I want to start practicing and learning and figuring out how to help couples more in that way as well. 

01:33 

So if you and your spouse or significant other would be interested in engaging in this experiment with me, you can go on my website, just go to the "consult" button at the top and sign up for a consult. The two of you can come on together. We can talk about it. We can discuss what it would look like, how it would work, and we can go from there. I think it's going to be really kind of a cool fun thing to for me to try out. And if you're interested in doing that, I do just ask that both of you are on board and one of you is not being dragged along. That's not gonna be fun for the two of us who are the dragging and the dragger, right? Like, if I'm having to try and teach you and help you understand things. From what I have learned from other coaches who have done this kind of coaching, though, they find that sometimes one will come along a little bit like "okay..." and generally it's the man, to be honest, who's a little bit like "I'm not sure what this is gonna be," and they might be a little bit more hesitant. But generally they catch on a lot quicker to what's going on because they can see the process. And it's a very logical process of the work that I do with my clients. Anyway, if you're interested, give it a shot. I want to take on two groups, two couples, to do this with and just to practice and to see how it's gonna work, so let me know. 

03:02 

Alright, that being said, my friends, I still do the 90 minute consults as well for anybody who's interested in some one-on-one coaching, and I think it's a fabulous, amazing opportunity, so check that out as well if you're interested. 

03:15 

Alright, so we are going to be doing today a thought model reteach. I was chatting with my husband last week, and he says, "you know what, it's been a long time since you've taught the basics of the thought model," and you know what, he's right. I haven't done that for quite some time, and I know that most of you, when you start listening to a podcast, most of us don't go back to the very beginning and start listening from there to catch all of the good things, so I'm gonna do a reteach here of the thought model. I know that I refer to it a lot here on the podcast, and I talk about our thoughts and our feelings and our actions and how we're showing up and all this stuff, but I just want to lay this out. 

03:53 

Now, when I went to the Life Coach School, which is where I got one of my Life Coach certifications, Brooke Castillo, the owner of it, teaches something that she calls "the thought model." Now, the concepts within the thought model are not new. In fact, you can go back to Plato and Socrates and Bibles verses and things that teach the same concepts, but the way that Brooke Castillo laid it out, where she talks about a circumstance, a thought, a feeling, an action, and a result, that was kind of her twist on it to have it make sense, and it makes a lot of sense. To me, it really all fits together and has really helped me to slow down my processing and to start showing up more the way that I really want to. This is one thing that I love about it so much and one thing that I love about teaching, because even as I work with my clients and we start identifying,  "oh, well, that's just a thought. Is that a helpful thought? Is it a true thought?" It's always amazing to me how just that shift can help us realize what's going on and how often we are creating things in our life that we don't want to create off of thoughts that aren't even true. 

05:08 

And one thing that I love about thoughts is that they're all just made up. Every thought that I have in my brain is made up. Nobody is monitoring. Nobody is in my head saying, "oh, that's a good thought." "That's a bad thought." "That's a true thought." "That's a false thought." It's only me. I'm the only one who gets to be in my head with my thoughts and I get to choose to think whatever I want to think about anything. And when we really start stepping into the power of our thoughts and what our thoughts create and that's what the thought model helps us understand, then we start realizing how much power we actually have in our brains if we choose to capitalize on it. 

05:54 

So let's jump in and let's talk about the thought model. The thought model consists of five things. We have the circumstance, the thought, the feeling, the action, and the result. We're going to start at the top of that and we're going to work our way down and talk about each part and talk about how they work together to create things for us. 

06:16 

So the very first line is the circumstance. Now, circumstance would just be what's happening. The circumstance we want to understand is always neutral. Now, a lot of times we think that's not neutral, but the circumstance is always going to be neutral and it's going to be facts only because everyone would agree. Okay, if I could if I could videotape what was going on, I could prove that this happened. Now, we may think that it's a horrible thing that's going on or we may think that it's an amazing thing, but really that part is the thought. 

06:54 

Okay, so when we're talking about the circumstance, we want to take out all the objectives. Generally, it's going to be very boring. Let me give you some examples: "I'm so overweight." Not a circumstance. Do you know why? Because "overweight" is subjective. Okay, some people may think it's overweight. Other people may think "oh, I love the shape of their body." Right? What would be neutral, what would be this circumstance, would be "I weigh (put in the number.)" Let's say, I don't know, 275 pounds. Okay, so "I weigh 275 pounds." Factual. Okay, could I prove it in a court of law? Yes, I could go stand on a scale. Alright, "I'm so overweight" not provable in a court of law. 

07:47 

Okay, here's another one. I'm short. Okay, is that a fact? No, it's not a fact, because again, short is subjective. So what would be a fact is "I am 5'2"." Here's another one. Now if you're noticing my pattern, the first one is not a fact. Here we go: "Nobody wants to date me." That may seem like a fact, but listen to the difference between that and this statement. "The last date I went on was July 2023." Do you see the difference? One, "nobody wants to date me." How do we know that? Have you talked to every single person in the entire world? No, we cannot prove that in a court of law. But we can say "the last date I went on was July 2023." Here's another one: "My husband is a jerk." Hopefully you're starting to catch on, oh yeah, we couldn't prove that in a court of law. But we could say, last night my husband said he doesn't understand why I don't enjoy sex. Okay, if we could, if we could quote it, if I could have recorded it, could I play it back and say, Oh, my husband said quote, right? And then fill in the blank. That's how we know it's a fact. 

09:07 

Let me give you one more: "My husband never listens to me." That one might be a little bit tricky because we may think he never listens to me and that's true. He never does. But first of all, "never" and "always,' those are generally pretty good giveaways that that's not a fact. Okay. But here's here's what it would sound like if it was a circumstance: "When I told my husband I was frustrated with the kids, he told me I shouldn't feel that way." Okay, now that one, we could prove in a court of law if we could record it, right? So we when I'm doing work with clients, and we're trying to identify the circumstance, we want it to be as specific as possible, as factual as possible. Okay, again, if I had a video, I could confirm the facts. 

09:59 

Now here's the thing about the circumstance. This is the only part of the thought model that we do not have control over. It is raining outside right now. Fact. I don't have control over the rain. I don't have control over how tall I am. I don't have control over what other people say to me or what other people do to me. Okay, other people get to put things in our circumstance line. Just as we get to put things in other people's circumstance line. What we say, what we do, goes in other  people's circumstance lines. Okay, so the circumstance is neutral. It is a fact, and everyone would agree. It is just what happens. Now oftentimes we have a hard time seeing it as neutral. 

10:53 

Here's another thing that can help. When somebody says something, like if somebody came up to me and said, "oh my gosh, you're a horrible person," okay, I could think "that's not kind, that's not nice, that's horrible, and that's not neutral," but it is neutral. What if they came up and said it to me in Chinese...now, I don't speak Chinese, so to me that would just sound like noises. They're just saying words. Would it hurt my feelings if somebody came up and told me that I was a horrible person in Chinese? No, because I wouldn't know what they're saying. So we know that it's neutral. 

11:37 

Now the thing that's fascinating here, though, is that then we move on to the second line of the thought model, which is our thought. And the thought is what we make that circumstance mean, right? And this is where it starts stepping into what we get to control, okay? So this is what I think about the circumstance. So let's go back to those original examples. So, "I weigh 275 pounds." Here are some options of things that I could think. I could think "I'm overweight." I could think "I'm fat." I could think "I'm ugly." I could think "I love my curves." I could think "I feel super sexy." I could think "I am beautiful at this weight." I could think all of those. Isn't that amazing? And all of those are going to create something different. 

12:34 

Here's another one: "I am 5'2"." Here's some different thoughts available to me: "I'm short." "I love my height." "This is the perfect height." "I hate being five two. It's too short." All of those are gonna create very different feelings, very different life circumstances for us. Here's another one: "My last date was July 23rd." Here are some thought options: "Nobody wants to date me." "I'm a loser." "There aren't any good men out there." But I could also think I love being single. "It's totally okay that I haven't had a date since July 2023." Here's another one: "Last night my husband said he doesn't understand why I don't enjoy sex." I could think "he's such a jerk." "He's so clueless." "He doesn't pay attention." "He doesn't understand my point of view." "His views on sex are so different than mine." Do you see all the different ways we can go with our thoughts? And all of these are options to us. Here's another one: "When I told my husband I was frustrated with the kids, he told me I shouldn't feel that way." We could think "he never listens to me," we could think "I don't like it when he dismisses my feelings," we could think "he doesn't understand why this is frustrating to me," or "he has a hard time when I'm struggling." 

14:06 

Okay, so I just want you to realize all the different options we have when it comes to our thoughts. Our thoughts are so, so powerful because our thoughts create our feelings. We very often have a tendency to go from the circumstance to the feeling, right? Like we could say, "my husband said I shouldn't feel that way, and I was angry." And we think that the connection is, "he said that, and then I got angry." But what we want to understand is that in between that circumstance and that feeling is a thought. Okay? And the thoughts are so important because thoughts create feelings. And all of our thoughts are optional. Meaning we can think whatever we want to. Nobody else gets to control our thoughts. 

14:54 

But most of us have never been taught how to control or manage our thoughts. We've just been told to. We might have been told to think positive, but that isn't always effective. We might have been told to clean up your thoughts. We don't really know what all that means, especially when we first start encountering those kinds of comments. Learning to pay attention to our thoughts isn't so that we can always have a positive experience. Rather, it is to become aware of how our brain works and even discover why, in some cases, our brain works the way that it does. And when we understand the power of our thoughts, it can help to keep us out of victim mode. It can help us move into hero solution mode. And we can feel very empowered when we realize that we get to think whatever we want to about a circumstance. And when I choose to think a certain way, I'm going to feel a certain way because our feelings are created by our thoughts. 

16:06 

Here's an example that I always find really easy for me because when my kids were little and they would be asleep, I used to love to go open the door and just look at them over there laying on the bed and watch their little flush faces and their breath coming in and out, their chest rising and falling. And I would just get this overwhelming feeling of love. Now, they're just laying there sleeping. They're not really doing anything. But my thought was, "oh, I just love that child." And I would have this overwhelming feeling of love. And then sometimes when I would be standing there watching them, I would think, "what if they got cancer? What if they died? What if they got hit by a car? What if something happened?" And I would have  this thought. And before I knew it, I had tears streaming down my cheeks, because I would be thinking about them dying. Now, were they in any danger? No, they were laying there in the bed, but just the thought of something happening to them and taking that precious little life for me would bring me to tears. This is the power of our thoughts. Our thoughts create emotions. You talk to any actor or actress, and that is how they get themselves to have emotions on film. They think thoughts. 

17:31 

Okay, so let's look at a couple of these examples that I gave you before. Or actually, let's just look at one. Okay. "When I told my husband, I was frustrated with the kids. He told me I shouldn't feel that way." There's a circumstance. Okay. If my thought is, "he never listens to me," what feeling does that create? Probably one of anger or frustration, right? But what if I think, "I don't like it when he dismisses my feelings"? That thought, for me, doesn't create so much anger. It creates more of a feeling of being dismissed or overlooked, maybe neglected or unseen. 

18:12 

So, what if I had this thought, "he doesn't understand why this is so frustrating to me"? I might feel a little bit frustrated, but to me that also creates some curiosity. Why doesn't he understand? How does he not see this? And that would cause me to move into curiosity. Here's another one. What if when he said that, I thought "he really has a hard time when he can see that I'm struggling"? And that might create some feelings of understanding or some feelings of compassion. 

18:49 

Do you see, I just gave you four different thoughts that we could think, and all of them created a different kind of emotion, right? So we will often have several thoughts about the same circumstance. We might have all those thoughts about that kind of circumstance. And sometimes the thoughts can be opposite thoughts. But the one that we choose to focus on will determine how we feel about it. The one that we make the biggest. 

19:19 

Now, this is super amazing news because when we really understand that others don't create our feelings for us, then we can become empowered. Societally, we have all been taught to say phrases like, "you make me feel so angry," or "you make me feel happy," or "I hurt her feelings", or "she hurt my feelings," or "she was really hurt by what he said." We are really taught to blame somebody else for another person's feelings, whether it be ours or someone else's. We are taught that other people create that. Now, I am not saying that other people don't put words or actions into our circumstance line that aren't hurtful. Just that, ultimately, they are just words or actions. It is what we make those words or actions mean through our thoughts that create feelings of hurt or anger or frustration. They can also create compassion or sadness or empathy. 

20:32 

If an adult child were to tell me, "you were a horrible mom" or "you are a horrible mom," I could think, "they are so mean," and I could feel angry and hurt. Or I could think, "wow. They're really struggling. What's up with them?" In which case I would feel compassion or curiosity. And this is why many people teach that being offended is a choice. We don't have to choose offended. We can choose anything else that we want. And maybe we do want to choose offended. The empowerment comes when we realize that it's a choice rather than something that is being inflicted upon us. We do get to choose to feel and think whatever we want to from whatever happens. 

21:24 

And sometimes the more difficult emotions like anger or frustration or sadness are exactly how we want to feel. Sometimes it's the right emotion for the circumstance. For example, when I hear about children being abused, I want to feel anger and sadness. Because our goal in life isn't always to feel happiness, because then we would have to feel happy about the child being abused. I don't want to be happy when I hear children being abused. The goal is not to always be happy. Even when we understand that my thoughts control my feelings. I don't think any of us want to be happy all the time. When my parents died, I didn't want to be happy. I wanted to grieve. I wanted to feel sad. And also, sometimes people put some really challenging or really crappy circumstances into our circumstance line. If a spouse were to say, "you're a horrible person and I hate you," it would be really, really difficult to step into curiosity or compassion by thinking, "oh, he's having such a tough day." 

22:32 

But here's an interesting thought. We could think, "and I hate him, he's a horrible person." And then what would we feel from that thought? We would feel anger, hatred, resentment. And from that place, how do we show up? This is the next step of  the thought model. Feelings create actions. How we behave. So when I feel anger, hatred, or resentment, what behaviors does that create in me? It might create emotional disengagement, blaming, accusing, attacking, unkindness, maybe slamming doors, maybe the silent treatment. Now we get to decide if this is how we want to behave. And maybe it is, and maybe it isn't, but guess what? It's our choice. But we can learn to start slowing down our brains a little bit. And when we do, we make more intentional choices rather than just feeling out of control and behaving in ways that shock and surprise us later on. 

23:33 

And I think we've all had that experience where afterwards we look back and we go, "oh my gosh, I can't believe I behaved that way." And sometimes you know what? We're humans. We are going to just act rashly sometimes. That's what our brains do. And when we're not paying attention, our feelings will create actions, but they don't necessarily have to. I know for a lot of years I resisted ever being angry because I didn't want to be mean. I didn't want to say hurtful things. I didn't want to be unkind. I didn't want to hurt people. And I was working with a coach one day and about my struggle to really feel some difficult emotions. And she was like, "well, you can stop the model. Just because you feel angry doesn't mean you need to act it out. You can notice the anger and go, 'oh, I'm angry, good to know,' and then not act on it." So I realized that when I am cognizant, when I'm paying attention, when I'm really trying to show up a certain way, I can stop the model and I can redirect. 

24:47 

Okay, so then we're going to take our actions and all of our actions then create the very last line of the thought model, which is the result. And this is what ends up happening as a result of my behavior. So when I emotionally disengage, when I blame, when I accuse, when I attack, when I engage in unkindness, slamming doors to silent treatment, then I end up being a hateful, horrible person. Notice that that was my thought in the previous model. "He's a hateful, horrible person." And then I end up being the hateful, horrible person. The thought line shows up in our result line. And the results in our lives are always an indicator of what is going on in our heads, what is going on in our thoughts. So if we can start learning to slow down a little bit and pay closer attention to how we want to show up then we can we can really start managing our lives a little bit better. 

25:52 

Now, again, I want to remind you we don't control the circumstance line but we do control all the rest. We can control our thoughts, our feelings, our actions, and our results, and when we can understand this, when we can really start to get the idea that "oh, my thoughts are mine to choose," then we can become empowered. And again, the goal isn't always to create positive feelings. We are not striving to be robots and we never will be. We don't want to be. We are humans who have brains that think much faster than we can keep up with sometimes and we live around other humans who bump into us and causes pain. Sometimes other people put some crazy things into our circumstance sometimes. And, of course, we're going to get knocked out of alignment. We're going to get knocked off of our game and we're going to say things sometimes without thinking. That's just part of being a human. But being able to manage our thoughts is part of the getting back into alignment phase. Not always showing up like a perfect person phase. Because we never will be. We will never be the perfect person who never says an unkind word or who never says something thoughtless. But being able to get back into alignment and circle back around and apologize and show up loving and kind, that is what this is all about. 

27:26 

I love this because when I understand circumstance, thought, feeling, action, result, I can understand my feelings, my behaviors, my results. I understand my life. I understand why I'm showing up the way that I do. One reason that this is really powerful to start understanding this is because the more that I can identify my thoughts, the more I can see how those thoughts are creating my life. And the more I can question those thoughts. And this is really powerful because thoughts are not always true. They're just not always true. Sometimes we think, "oh my husband is a horrible person." Well, is that true? Probably not. "He's always accusing me of whatever." Is that true? Probably not. He's probably not always doing that, right? And then sometimes we get to say, "and these thoughts are not always helpful." Sometimes that's even a more important way to look at it is to ask, "is that a helpful thought?" Is that thought helping me show up in my feelings, my actions, and my results the way that I want to? 

28:41 

So let's look at some of these first thoughts that we that we talked about at the beginning of the podcast and let's ask the question "is this a helpful thought?" So "I weigh 275 pounds." What if we think "I'm overweight, I'm fat, I'm ugly"? Are those  helpful thoughts? What feeling do those thoughts create? And then from that feeling, what actions show up? But what if instead I look at the circumstance "I weigh 275," and I think "I love my curves, I feel super sexy"? What feeling does that create? More of a feeling of confidence, right, and then from that confidence, how do I show up? I show up engaging. I show up talking to people. I show up, you know, whatever, but so then I can say "okay, is this thought helpful? Is the thought, 'I love my curves, I feel super sexy.'" Is that helpful? For me, that would be really helpful. 

29:47 

Okay, let's look at this one. "My last date was July 2023." Circumstance, I could think, "nobody wants to date me." Is that a helpful thought? What do I feel when I think that thought? Feeling might be dejected. And from that dejected place, how do I behave? How does that show up in my action line? I don't put myself out there. I don't go on dating sites. I don't talk to people when I meet them. Look at all this. Is that a helpful thought, that "nobody wants to date me?" No, it's not, okay? If I think instead, "you know what, I'm okay being single. I haven't been on a date since July, 2023, and that's okay because I'm happy being single," is that a helpful thought? Well, what feeling does that create? Creates acceptance. It might even create some confidence that like, "listen, I'm okay." And then how do I show up from there? Like what actions come from that? 

30:54 

So let's take just one more. So "when I told my husband I was frustrated with the kids, he told me I shouldn't feel that way.: So if I think "he never listens to me," how do I feel? Maybe frustrated, maybe anger. And then how do I show up there in my action line? I might yell at him. I might get mad at him. I might walk out of the room. I might slam the door. And then what is the end result of that? I don't listen to him, right? Isn't that fascinating how that works? But what if my husband, you know, what if when I told him I was frustrated with the kids and he said I shouldn't feel that way, what if my thought was "he really has a hard time when he sees me struggling." What emotion would that create? One more of compassion, like it's hard for my husband to see me struggling. He doesn't know how to do it. And if I feel compassion, how am I going to show up? I might be more patient with that. I might, you know, express some feelings and have a conversation about, "listen, I get to feel however I want to feel. You know, please don't tell me that I shouldn't feel that way because I do feel that way." We might have that kind of a conversation rather than getting angry and leaving the room or, you know, telling him that he never listens to us. Right? 

32:25 

This is what is so powerful about the thought model. It shows us how we can have control of our lives. We are never gonna have complete control. We're just humans. Let's just keep that one on the table for sure. But the way that the thought model has been so powerful for me has been helping me to slow down in my head to think more intentionally about how do I want to show up here? How do I wanna offer this person grace? Regardless of what is going on, I'm getting much better at thinking "how can I offer this person grace?" And very often that will come with thoughts like, "oh, I'm sure they didn't mean to do that." Or, you know, "we all make mistakes." Something along those lines. This is why the thought model is powerful. 

33:25 

So hopefully this gives you some context. So when I'm talking on the podcast and we're talking about our thought line, thoughts create feelings, about how our feelings create our actions, something along those lines, I hope that this kind of helps you to see this a little bit more clearly in your head. I do have podcasts in the past about thought model. You can just go back and find some of those, scroll through and find ones about the thought model. And it talks about a lot of the same stuff, but if you want to dig into this just a little bit deeper, go back and find those, listen to them, and cover it from a different angle because two years or three years ago when I covered this topic, I'm sure I had different examples and understood it in a different way than I do now. So there you go. That's the thought model we teach. Good stuff. I love the thought model. It has changed how I show up in my life. It's changed how I think about my life and about how empowered I feel to be able to create what I want in my life. And I hope that it can do the same for you. That is going to do it for me. 

34:37 

So, if you have not left me a review, did you know that you can do that in like one minute or less? If you're on Apple, just open up my podcast and without pressing "see all" or whatever, just scroll down to the bottom and it will have a place where you can leave me a five star review and you can type in some of your thoughts about how this podcast is helpful. That would be really, really great and I would appreciate it. So my friends, that's going to do it for me. If you are ready for some one-on-one help to help you fast forward your growth and your progress in helping you understand and see things that you are struggling to see, please go to my website, tanyahale.com, click on the "free consultation" and sign up for that free 90 minute coaching consultation where I will do some coaching with you and give you a chance to see if coaching is a good fit  and if it's something that you would be benefited by. I think it's a great option to see. I love it and I hope to see you there and I will see you next time. Have a great week. Bye. 

35:46 

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.