Have you ever taken a moment and thought about your thoughts? Yes, I know that we have thousands of them every day and I have a hard time remembering even a few of them, but your thoughts have an impact on your interactions with others. If you do not believe me, sit back and review what you thought about this week and some of the events that happened for you.
This happened to me this week. I was thinking about something bad about my wife, and while working in my home office, she came by, asked me a question, and then started to get mad at me. It was very strange, but as I sat back after she left, I realized that I was thinking about something she did to tick me off, and to top it off, it was something silly, like her not picking something up, and our next conversation turned ugly.
It took me a while to tune into the information that I attracted the anger from my wife in that moment, but once I did, it hit me like a ton of bricks. How could I expect my wife to treat me nice, if I am not holding nice thoughts about her in my mind.
Does that mean that I cannot get angry with my wife? No, but it means that I need to deal with those thoughts in that moment and then get through them. In my example, instead of getting mad at my wife for not picking something up, I should stop, breath, release, and send her love, and then either pick up the item or step over it.
It sounds simple, but for the past few days, it has made a world of difference in my conversations with my wife. We have sat on the back deck, enjoying the warmer weather, and had several enjoyable conversations about things that might have set us off in the past.
It is a simple change in my thoughts to improve the relationship with my wife. Take some time and examine the connections that you have with the people around you and examine how your feel about those people and if how you feel is in relationship to what you are experiencing in your connections with them. I mean, if you think they are a jerk, do they live up to that when you connect with them? What if you felt something different about them, would your interactions with them be different? It is something to try.
Leave me a comment below if you want to continue the converstation, or you would like to talk to me directly about your interactions.
Thanks for sharing Sean!
I totally agree, our internal emotional state, regardless of it’s validity, has a profound impact on our external interactions with others. Learning to become more aware of this, and controlling it to some extent, can make our relationships happier and more connected. It’s something I’m trying to practice more every day.
Greg