On noticing
Discover more from Torguide for Healing by Tor Njamo
Our minds are incredible storytelling machines, and most often, it comes up with largely false stories. I often say 99% of the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves and others are untrue.
For example, my relationship with someone close to me felt off after an encounter we had recently. The experience left me feeling unsure about where we stand.
Afterwards, whenever I got a text from them for a while, my mind jumped to the worst possible conclusions.
However, instead of letting my mind spiral, I paused, noticed and asked myself, “what else can be true here?”
So, instead of staying in my head, I had a difficult conversation with them and asked if anything was up. It turns out it was not. I had made up a story.
🌳 My message here is to begin to notice and pay more attention to our bodies and minds as we move through life because they are trying to communicate something.
Sometimes what we notice is based on accurate information.
Other times, it is not.
Two more examples:
Last week, I was sending an email to someone where I anticipated I would get a response I didn’t like. Before I sent it, I could feel a tightness in my chest. Instead of spiralling, I gave myself some space to explore what the tightness was all about. This one was about disappointment and not being good enough.
Not too long ago, I received an email where I felt the person emailing me was questioning my expertise. As you can imagine, for a little while, my body and mind were reeling in emotional upheaval. Pride and ego are funny feelings. After I had calmed down, I did send an email more assertive side, but less so than if I had answered straight away. We are all human.
Again, it is all about noticing ourselves and how we react and respond to the world around us.
I observe that most people care more about how other people are behaving rather than themselves. I suspect that it is like this because if they took more notice of themselves, they would have to take more responsibility for their actions and face up to the areas they need to work on.
This is hard work; most people seemingly want the easy way out.
I get it.
A lot is going on, but being this way lowers our quality of life.
My mantra right now is:
“Who cares?”
“Do your own thing and forget about the rest.”
To end, I want to share something personal. My reaction when I feel invalidated and misunderstood is hunger, as I use food as emotional soothing. I have become much better at noticing that and then reaching out to a friend for a talk instead of stuffing myself. It does not always work, but it is a step in the right direction.
Homework
Notice how you respond to your partner, friends, colleagues, and people on the street etc.
Pay attention to what you do after you have encountered a situation which is emotionally challenging to you. Do you eat more? Rage? Distract yourself with social media? Watch crap TV?
Become aware of how you speak about yourself to yourself. And also how you talk about other people to yourself. These can be areas for growth.
Don’t care so much about how other people behave. Care about what you do.