By Freelance Writer and Novelist Denise Turney

Imagine having the power to control your experiences. What would you do with that power? Would you cutout times when you got caught in a traffic jam, lost a sports competition, earned a bad grade, had an upset stomach or felt disappointed? Life would really be good then. Heck – your dreams would come true with that power.

You Have The Power

Truth is, you do have that power. It just doesn’t seem like you do. Key to becoming aware of your inner power is awareness. Actually watch yourself. Pay attention to what you do, think and feel. Most of all, pay attention to your thoughts.

Fortunately, you don’t have to obsess over your thoughts to become aware of what you’re doing with your mind. It’s also not necessary to meditate or get quiet to become aware of your thoughts. You do have to accept that, although they might feel like they’re coming from somewhere else, your subconscious and super-subconscious thoughts are coming from within you.

Honesty is a must.

As a start, take note of how you feel when you wake. And, pay attention to how you feel while you’re with certain people, including people who influenced you when you were a kid. Also, do you struggle with unwanted emotions like fear, anger or sadness when it starts to get dark?

Focus On These Areas

Work is another area to focus on. For example, do you catastrophize board meetings, projects or initiatives, especially as the do-dates get closer? Or do you find yourself thinking about a discussion that you had with a colleague more than a week after the discussion?

Make this a habit and you might use your thoughts to try to control outcomes. Additionally, you might try to influence or control how another person responds to you. More about this later.

The more you take note of what you’re feeling, the more you might notice emotional patterns that you choose. Furthermore, you might notice when you invest in certain emotions.

Here’s the thing.

Emotions As Symptoms

Emotions are the symptoms or the products of your thoughts. Once you spot repetitive emotions, feelings that keep cropping up, look inside. See if you can find the thoughts that are attached to those emotions.

Here’s an example.

For you, the work week starts on Monday. Every Monday morning, you wake feeling groggy and angry. After you pay attention to your mental habits, you discover that seconds after waking, you start telling yourself, “I hate this job. Today is going to be so demanding. Didn’t hardly get enough sleep last night. Mom will probably spot a stain on my shirt a block before I drop the kids off to her house on my way to work. My boss does not like me; I don’t care what she says. . . .”

No surprise that you’d head to work feeling angry. If you started investing in this unfortunate mental habit an hour or more before you woke, it wouldn’t be a shocker if you woke groggy too.

Spin the clock. Now, it’s Friday morning.

Better Mental Habits

Instead of telling yourself the manager at work doesn’t like you, the day is going to be demanding, etc., you tell yourself that you’ll have the power to live your own life soon, even if only for two days. Other things that you might tell yourself include, “I’ll get to sleep later and wake rested tomorrow morning. My friends and I are going camping. I love to camp. Going to sit down and create three new songs this weekend. It’ll be great to have time to do what I want, looking forward to it.”

You could predict the emotions attached to those thoughts. It might be why you feel so good on Friday and Saturday, not to mention how much better you feel on holidays and vacations. Believe it or not, you’re investing in different mental habits.  

The sooner you start paying attention to your mental habits, the better. It could definitely help you to see that you’re responsible for your life, including how you feel.

How To Shift Upward

This was a tough one for me. I still struggle with it. When experiences are as I’d have them to be, it’s easier to accept that my mental habits cause how I feel. Let unwanted experiences keep cropping up and I fight the fact that my mental habits have been at play.

Fight or not, it doesn’t change the fact that mental habits create experiences and bring on emotions. It also doesn’t change the fact that each person is responsible for the thoughts they invest in. As much as you may way to, you cannot control other people’s thoughts or behaviors. This means that mentally prepping for conversations or replaying discussions in attempts to figure out how a listener perceived you could be futile.

The Life You Really Want

These mental habits could flat out be a waste of time and energy. Yet, as with other habits, just because the practice is a waste doesn’t mean that you won’t engage in it which is why it’s important to choose to feel better.

Start where you are. Rather than aiming to feel joyous, aim for the next better emotion. So, if you’re feeling rage, aim to feel hopeful. Reinforce your efforts by spotting thoughts you’re having. Shift those thoughts until you start to feel better.

However, the goal isn’t solely to feel better. More than that, you want to create the life that you truly want to experience.