Being aware of where your feelings are coming from will help you avoid blaming those around you, and take responsibility for your own feelings.
It’s common to blame others for how we are feeling, in the process damaging relationships and creating hostility. Your boss gave you too much work, so you feel stressed; your friend was rude, so you feel upset; or, more positively, your partner was kind, so you feel happy. But that’s not how humans work: our feelings can only come from our thoughts about a situation – not from the situation itself.
Both neuroscience and physics are now pointing to the fact that the human experience is created from the inside out. This reveals a huge misunderstanding. Our realities are not being passively recorded by the brain, but are actively constructed by it in every moment. Admittedly our thoughts can portray the illusion that our experience is coming from something outside of ourselves, but it is all coming from within. Realising that gives us more psychological freedom, resourcefulness and compassion.
– Piers Thurston is a mindset and state-of-mind trainer at organisational change consultancy, Making Change Work
