00:00 

This is Intentional Living with Tanya Hale and this is episode number 57, "The Ripple Effect." 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 

Hey there! I am so happy to be with you today. So I am in my second week of being back at school. And it just gets better and better, right? Today is Wednesday. So we've been in school eight days and today was the first day that the kids really started to push boundaries a little bit. Not a lot, but they're starting to, the honeymoon is over, let's say, and we're starting to see kids wanting to see what they can get away with and push the boundaries of what is this teacher going to get on my case for and what are they not going to get on my case for. And so I've had to step up my game in my classroom to help these kids know what's appropriate and what's not appropriate. And I love them desperately, but some days, good heavens, some days these 13 year olds can be a little exhausting. But I do enjoy them a lot and they just crack me up. They are so funny. 

01:24 

So that being said, that's what's going on in my life that's enjoyable. And my daughter has been in the Missionary Training Center for a full week, which is hard for me to believe. So she's enjoying it so far. And when I got to talk with her the other day, it just made my heart feel happy. It amazes me that a mom's heart can break so much, but I'm becoming a believer that the more my heart breaks, it's like a muscle, right? When we tear that muscle when we're working out, that's the only way that it can grow back stronger and more capable. 

02:00 

And I think our hearts are kind of the same way. When our hearts break, and I literally felt like my heart was breaking last week when she left, when our hearts break a little bit, I think that that is our heart, like our muscle ripping, and so that as it heals it has a greater capacity to love and to love more deeply and more strongly. And so I'm just really grateful for the opportunity to have people in my life that I love so deeply. It's making me a better person, and I love it. 

02:36 

Alright, that being said, let's jump into today's topic. Today I have entitled this episode "The Ripple Effect." So one of the girls I exercise with was telling us about a situation she encountered a few weeks ago. So she was driving down a busy road during rush hour, and there had been an accident on the other side of the road, and the cars were backed up. It seemed like a really long time to her and as she was going through her slower moving traffic, because we all have to slow down and gawk at the other side of the road, right? So she's slowed way down and she's driving, but she started noticing faces of the people in the stopped cars on the other side. Some were obviously annoyed and some seemed a little bit indifferent and some actually seemed to be enjoying themselves. And as she started to reflect on all the differences of people and their reactions, she also started thinking about how one person's actions had affected those hundreds of cars on the road. One person who got distracted or was following too close, or whatever it was, crashed into another car and caused an accident, and this accident then caused a huge backup of traffic. Each one of these hundreds of cars that was stuck in this traffic jam was filled with at least one person. 

03:59 

So maybe there was someone who just worked a 12-hour shift and was super tired and just wanted to get home. Or maybe there was a young mom with a screaming baby in the backseat. Maybe someone who was late for a date or who had promised her husband she would be home for dinner on time tonight and now she wasn't going to be. But maybe also someone who was in the middle of a really good book on a CD or an audible in their car and was enjoying the extra time to listen while they waited. Maybe there was someone who needed some extra time to cool off before they got home so they could be the person that they really wanted to be once they got there. Maybe someone was waiting who ended up listening  to an extra podcast that just rocked their world and how they viewed their life and changed the person that they were when they got home. Hundreds of lives were changed because of the actions of one driver in one car. And it wasn't just the the other drivers. There were then people that those drivers went on to affect when they got wherever they went. And they could have all been changed for the better or for the worse, or maybe their life wasn't really affected at all, maybe it didn't have any impact really. But the ripple effect of one person's action was huge. 

05:17 

And I loved as my friend Kathy was telling me this because it caused me to reflect on the ripple effect of our lives. Each one of us makes hundreds, if not thousands, of choices every day. And many of those choices can impact the lives of those around us. And then the lives of those people around them, and then the lives of those people around them, right? Like this big ripple, it's just like a ripple in a pond. These ripples can go on forever and ever. For example, let's say the young mom with the screaming baby in the car got more and more exasperated, and when she finally got home, she was so completely done. Then what if she ended up screaming at her husband about something and that broke down some trust and respect? And then what if he was still angry the next morning when he went to work and said something ornery to a coworker and it set them into a frustrated fit for the day? And then there's the ripple effect of their behavior as they work through their frustrations at work and with the people they encountered at the store and as they went home and so on and so on, right? 

06:23 

But it can work the another way as well on a positive side. What if someone was listening to a podcast while they were waiting on the traffic and they learned a better way to work through conflict? And then when something came up that night with their spouse they employed those tools and they ended up having a very intimate conversation that was healing and helpful. And then the next day they were both extra loving to their children and they were extra patient with their coworkers and then their coworkers also benefited from the positive vibe and turned that out as well and the people they interacted were impacted by something positive. I just think it's fascinating to think about how one person can create such a ripple effect and we may think that we're just one person but think what one person can do. Think of the impact that one person's behavior can have. Think of the impact of that person that got in the car accident and the hundreds of lives that were impacted from that. 

07:33 

Okay, now this one person obviously is not responsible for each and every person affected by their one action. Each of these people is personally responsible for their own thoughts, their own feelings, their own actions for sure. But this one person is creating a circumstance that allows each person to respond with a thought and a feeling and an action. So some people will have the tools to take this circumstance and have healthy thoughts and thereby eventually create a great result in their life. But other people will not have the tools and they will allow their thoughts to run rampant and then create negative feelings and actions and results in their lives. 

08:18 

So while I have complete control over my thoughts, my feelings, my actions, and the ultimate results, someone else has control over the circumstances in my life. Now I have control over some, but really circumstances are often things that we can't control. So their action from their thought model, right, moves into my C-line, or the circumstance, of my thought model. So their action becomes my circumstance. This is a very cool concept for me. Other people's actions don't create my thoughts or my feelings or my actions. Other people's actions are just my circumstances and I get to choose what to think about their behaviors and create my own feelings about them. 

09:11 

But wouldn't it be fascinating if we could see the effect of our actions, if we could see my action move into somebody else's circumstance line and see how that played out in their lives, what they thought, what they felt, what they did, and what they resulted? If we could see them played out in the lives of the people we connect with either directly or indirectly, wouldn't that be just mind boggling? I wonder if after this life, we'll get a glimpse into that. That would be both amazing and horrifying at the same time, don't you think? I wonder if after this life, God will say, let me show you the impact that you had for good or for bad, right? And he would show us the ripple effect of our behaviors and how our actions moved into other people's circumstances lines. 

10:05 

So when we think about the fact that our actions move into other people's circumstance line, this is where we can start seeing the impact that our life is having on the lives of other people around us. Now, again, obviously we can't control what  other people think about our actions, but if we want to make more of a positive impact in the world rather than a negative impact, it helps to be more aware of what our actions are. Now, I do realize that I could say something very nice to someone, and they could have the thought that I'm just trying to suck up to them or something, right? But depending on who you hang out with on a regular basis, that's not going to be the norm. More often than not, our kind behaviors will elicit positive thoughts for other people, which can then impact their lives for the better because those thoughts then turn into feelings which then turn into actions, right? 

11:02 

So where do our kind behaviors begin? Let's think thought model here, okay? Everything we do comes from our feelings and all of our feelings come from our thoughts. So every kind behavior that adds value to the life of another person begins with our thoughts of wanting to add value to other people, alright? Now our thought may not be "I want to add value," but it's going to be a thought that will eventually create value. And again here's where so much of what I'm personally learning right now comes into play. If I approach my kind behaviors out of fear for what might happen if if I'm not kind, then the whole feeling behind it is wrong. And people are very intuitive to the motion motivations behind our our behaviors. When we are kind out of fear, we will be thinking thoughts like, "I need to be kind or they will hate me," or maybe even "God expects me to be kind if I'm going to be blessed," right? When we have these types of thoughts behind our actions, the feeling of fear we will have will have us holding back. We will find ourselves doing the bare minimum, we'll be avoiding eye contact, we won't be engaging with our tone of voice or our body language, and all of those things have a huge impact on our behaviors. 

12:37 

So the kind actions we're doing, there's a difference to them, right? We see it holding back. We could say the kindest words ever, but did you know that words alone are only 7% of our communication? Okay, so though there are some variations of this statistic, and a lot of people say that there's other factors that work in, the basic idea that most people lean to is that communication is 55% body language, 38% the tone of our voice, and 7% the actual words that we speak. So when we perform an act out of fear, 93% of what we are communicating, our body language and our tone of voice, will be speaking fear. 

13:32 

And the same is true if we're acting out of a sense of responsibility. Remember the three levels of intention we talked about? We're kind of walking through those here. This level, responsibility of intention, may soften the body language and the behaviors, rather than from doing them from fear, but there will still be 93% of us communicating that we are being kind because we feel responsible. Now, I love when people do or say nice things for me, but if it feels like they're doing it just because they have to, it always feels a bit awkward and uncomfortable. I'm grateful, but there isn't a connection made and it feels a little bit hollow and empty. It's like when the home teachers or the visiting teachers would show up unannounced on the last few days of the month, right? Remember those days? Okay, yeah, that was always a little bit forced, right? And I found myself doing that as well. And even though I meant well and I wanted to connect, it was really hard to connect in those circumstances because I was coming from a place of responsibility. They knew I was going because it was my responsibility, even if we already had a genuine friendship going on. And I knew I was going because it was my responsibility. And that always made it a little awkward and uncomfortable. 

14:54 

Okay, but when we're motivated to do kind acts because of love, the whole scenario changes. When someone does something for you out of love, there's a different look in their eyes. And you can tell because they will actually look in your eyes and not avoid that contact, right? There's a difference in their tone of voice. It will sound softer and it will sound more genuine. And if my behaviors are motivated by love, the actual words I say will ring true. They won't just be flattery-filled phrases. And when someone receives an act of genuine love, it has the power to help them think more positive thoughts intuitively, even if they don't know the thought model. And those more positive thoughts created by those those kind loving acts will create more positive feelings, which will create more positive acts and results in their lives. 

15:52 

So this is how the ripple effect can begin to change the world. But it starts with us learning to come from a place of genuine Christlike love, a place that has no ulterior motives, no desires for personal gain, no selfish aggrandizement. If we truly want to add value to the lives of the people around us and watch the pebble of our life create an amazing positive ripple effect in the world, we will start with the love in our own heart. And we will start from a place of loving God and Christ and loving ourselves. 

16:33 

Okay, if we struggle feeling this love for others, the first place to look is at our own self love, our own self worth. When we have a hard time seeing the value of others, it's because we are having a hard time seeing the value of ourselves. Real love for ourselves begins with accepting God's unconditional love for us. And when we embrace God's love for us, we can truly learn to love ourselves. And when we truly learn to love ourselves, our hearts become open enough that we can completely love others. And when we love others, we serve openly and honestly and lovingly. They feel the effects of that in their own lives and we can create a positive ripple that makes the world a better place. 

17:28 

Isn't growing up awesome? I love it. I know I tell you that every time, but I do. I just cannot get enough of this growing up thing. Somebody told me the other day that they did some research and that when they asked older people what was the one age that you could go back to in your life if you wanted to. What was your best age? Vast majority of them? 50s. I've got to say I believe it. I'm living it and I'm loving it. So I hope you are too. Alright, if you need some help from me, get on my website tanyahale.com. You can contact me and we can schedule a coaching session to get you started, because this is what I love and I love helping people learn to get their thoughts in a place where they can create the kind of life that they want. 

18:18 

Okay, and to finish up, as always, is this helping you? Are you liking this? If so, share it with somebody. If it's helping you, it's going to help somebody you know because you hang with like people, right? You hang with people who are like you. And if someone else's life can be blessed by learning some things for like that I'm sharing here, please share it with them. This is what I want to do. This is how I want to add value to the world. By creating content that helps people to see their lives better and live a better life. That would bring more contentment, more happiness, more satisfaction. That's what this is about. And if you have not left me a review, please go on iTunes and do that. I would really appreciate that. I'm trying to get up to a thousand reviews. Okay, my friends, that is going to do it for today. I hope you just are living your best life and moving forward every single day because that is when we get that that real feeling of value. That real feeling that I am doing it even though we're not perfect. If we're moving forward, it makes all the difference. Okay, enjoy. Talk to you next time. 

19:35 

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!