The Influence Of Thoughts On Our Discomfort
The influence of thoughts on how we feel is much greater than we think. Imagine that you go to work and say “Good morning” to everyone when you arrive at the office. Everyone responds, except for one colleague who doesn’t even look at you directly.
“But what happened? Did I do something that made you mad at me? But what? Maybe he was upset by what I said the other day at the meeting, but it wasn’t anything personal, I just said my opinion as a professional… No, but that can’t be why… So why? It’s rude!”
This is how, almost unintentionally, we enter into a spiral of rumination of thoughts, and we can even become sad, angry or nervous. Now, has something really happened to your colleague or to you? Maybe he didn’t respond because he was simply focused on his work and didn’t even hear his greeting. Read on to understand what’s going on and what is the influence of thoughts on our discomfort.
Did the situation really cause discomfort, or did our interpretation do it?
As a general rule, when we feel negative emotions, we say that they are caused by concrete situations or by the actions of others. That is, we believe that our discomfort is caused by events outside of us. In other words, we make external causal attributions about our feelings.
In this way, we believe we are angry because our colleague didn’t greet us, something we can’t control; rather than realizing that we can regulate the emotions that arise if we focus not on the actions of others but on how we interpret them.
What does that mean? That we actually got angry because of our interpretation of the situation. We believe he didn’t answer us because something happened or because he’s rude… Who wouldn’t be upset thinking about it? The point is: what happened in reality, and objectively, shouldn’t bother us.
If instead of these thoughts there were others like: “He certainly didn’t hear me” or “He’s focused on his stuff, it’s nothing personal”… Do you think you would feel the same way? Certainly not. In fact, it probably wouldn’t bother us at all. This example highlights a reality that we are not always aware of, or not even aware of: the influence of thoughts on our discomfort.
Are our thoughts in line with reality?
This influence of thoughts on our discomfort also occurs when they are not true. The fact is, we generally don’t consider whether what we think is real or not. We just believe, period. So, even if the colleague has nothing to do with us, we believe that it is. We “warm” our heads without really having any reason to worry and, in this way, our anger increases.
This is because, generally, human beings need to know the why of things. So, if we don’t have enough information about the facts, different kinds of distortions come into play and we draw conclusions that may not be entirely realistic. In this way, several negative emotions appear that would not be present if we could adjust more to reality.
Nobody taught you that what you believe might not be true. If we can learn to question the inner dialogue we have with ourselves, we can regulate our emotions more effectively. In fact, the influence of thoughts on malaise can also be used to our benefit. But how? Using positive suggestions to replace these negative perceptions.
It is important to understand how we can deal with what goes through our mind. The reality is that it’s not easy, but with work and perseverance we can do it. The first step is to understand and internalize the influence of our thoughts on our discomfort, to become aware of the importance of questioning and changing thoughts that do not fit reality… Work for your well-being!
Images courtesy of Roberto Nickson.
