An Excerpt from Your Inner GPS: Follow Your Internal Guidance to Optimal Healthy, Happiness, and Satisfaction by Zen Cryar DeBrücke
One of the ways I discovered to bypass the craziness of the mind — all the doubt and worry and fear that come up in response to the guidance you get from your IGS — is to go through the door of your emotions. I use emotions as a gateway to help people clear out their obsolete yellow yield signs. As I noted earlier, when we feel an emotion, we are experiencing a biochemical reaction produced by the mind, and the emotion may or may not be true. This biochemical reaction is very often based on historical evidence that your mind has created — that you have a reason to be fearful, that you have a reason to be angry, that you’re in love, that you’re happy, or that you’re disappointed. There are all kinds of ways in which our minds induce this biochemical feedback or emotion in our bodies, and they are based on stories from our past — on what we believe we’ve seen, heard, and felt, especially concerning the behavior of the people who raised us.
Very often our emotions are actually not in alignment and so do not open us. Instead, they were first triggered when we were younger and misinterpreted those thoughts that closed us. Your mind hijacks the sensation of closing (worry, fear, anxiety, and stress) and combines it with its own fabricated evidence to make you believe that it knows what the future holds. It pro-jects as fact what it thinks is going to happen. But in reality, it’s running a habitual program that is repeated over and over in similar situations. If you have done the “Discovering Your Closing Themes” practice on page 80, then you already know that repeating thoughts are currently operating in your life.
The practice I’d like you to try now is to write out your feelings. Any time you’re having an emotional experience — whether it feels positive or negative according to your mind — write what you’re feeling. Use the list of emotions provided on page 97 to help you isolate more precisely what you are feeling. Most people are unaware of how they feel, or they have a limited emotional vocabulary. In order to boost your emotional vocabulary, use the list. I recommend that you copy it from this book, or you can go to www.yourinnergps.org/emotionslist and download the list so that you can post it in several places for reference. The office, fridge, bathroom, and nightstand are good; your car, purse, and wallet are some other great places to access it quickly. When you’re in the midst of, or just over, an emotional experience, sit down with a piece of paper, look at the list, and write out the top three things you’re feeling, such as “I’m feeling frustrated, I’m feeling disappointed, I’m feeling hurt.”
Then write out why you’re feeling those three emotions. Just let your mind tell you the story of why you feel the way you do. You don’t have to make it a long story. In fact, it is best if it’s just one or two sentences long.
“I’m feeling disappointed because this project was canceled, and it was very important to me. I’m feeling frustrated because it seems to me as if my manager is pulling out the projects that I really enjoy, and he seems to be doing it on purpose. I’m feeling hurt because I work very hard in this world and yet I don’t seem to get the recognition or the rewards that I deserve.”
The next step — and this is where your IGS comes into play — is to drop into your listening and read back to yourself each of the emotions/stories that you have written. Notice whether you are open or closed with each emotion and story.
What I have observed is that very often a negative emotional experience gets combined with a sense of closing caused by your IGS. This means what you’re thinking is not true. The thoughts that prompted the closing, if continued, will not bring you to a happy resolution. If you don’t get to the bottom of your thoughts and understand what is closing you, then your mind can actually drive you into a situation you don’t want. Keep this in mind: when you get upset, you can use your emotions as a signal that it’s time to stop and check your IGS.
One thing you’ll discover in doing this exercise is that some of those statements will open you. I’ll use the previous example to demonstrate how this may happen. You may get an opening sensation when you say you are disappointed; even though you feel disappointed, you will feel open. Then, when you tell your story about feeling frustrated, you will be closed. What closes you is the claim that the manager is specifically taking projects away from you. The closing means your manager is not undermining you on purpose, so you can drop that line of thinking and move on.
The feeling of disappointment, then, is authentic for you, and you can own it: “I have a right to be disappointed. The sensation of opening I feel when I make this statement tells me that disappointment is an authentic emotion in this case.”
Do this exercise with positive emotions as well. You may be shocked at how many times you’re really excited about something while guidance from your IGS is actually telling you that it is not going to happen or is not true.
So it’s equally important to say, “I feel hopeful, I feel excited, and I feel joyous.” Then write, “Okay, why am I feeling hopeful?” and answer this question. For example: “I’m feeling hopeful because, for the first time, I’m being recognized by the particular person I’ve been wanting to notice me for a very long time.” Ask and answer the same question about feeling excited: “Why am I excited? I’m feeling excited because this person is noticing me, so maybe they want to date me. I’m totally attracted to them and know this is going to happen.” Then look at feeling joyous: “I feel joyous because they could possibly be my soul mate.”
Now once again drop into your listening and check your emotions and stories via your IGS. You may feel an opening at the thought that this person has been noticing you, but you may close when you think this means you will begin dating. Go through each statement, one at a time. “This person is noticing me.” Open. Then look at the next part of the statement: “Maybe they want to date me.” Closed. Oh, that’s not why they’re paying attention to me. “They could possibly be my soul mate.” Closed. You feel tightening, or anxiety, in your chest.
Maybe the scenario above seems far-fetched to you, or maybe it sounds exactly like what your mind does to you. Either way, we all have situations where our minds make up instant stories and then, immediately after that, invent ramifications for our future, whether positive or negative. This type of thought process happens so quickly that we often miss it. Then we begin living the story as if it were real, and our lives can go off track for a bit. One purpose of your IGS is to clear out all the fictitious stories that your brain generates. This allows you to be very clear and effective in your life. One way to find the stories that close you is to do the following practice to address your emotions.
Zen Cryar DeBrücke is the author of Your Inner GPS. She is an internationally renowned teacher, speaker, and coach whose programs have helped people all over the world transform their personal and business lives for the better. Visit her online at www.zeninamoment.com.
Excerpted from the book Your Inner GPS: Follow Your Internal Guidance to Optimal Health, Happiness, and Satisfaction. Copyright © 2016 by Zen Cryar DeBrücke. Reprinted with permission from New World Library.