Hi guys, a very warm welcome to this week’s episode of How to Heal Your Relationship, my podcast on all things relationship.

The Power Of Change

If you haven’t tuned in before, my name is Ayesha Jane Walker and I am a relationship coach. So I thought I would talk today about the power of change.

It might interest you to know that on average we have about 70,000 thoughts a day. It’s kind of a lot, right? And all of those thoughts cause us to have emotion.

So we might have a thought about the economy at the moment. That’s got to be a big one, right? And probably for most of us, the emotion that one is bringing up is anxiety.

All the prices are going up, petrol prices are going up, utilities are growing up. And so the emotion of anxiety or fear or worry becomes present in us.

Thoughts Lead To Emotions

So you can see very quickly as we have a thought, it creates an emotion. And once we’re in an emotional state, this will powerfully affect how we relate to our partner or how they relate to us.

I’m sure you can understand that if you are already in a state of high anxiety, some thing that wouldn’t have triggered you before, something you would have certainly tolerated or responded peacefully to really sets you off because you are in a state of high anxiety. And that state might actually not have much to do with your relationship.

In the example I just gave, you might be in a state of anxiety over the economy or it could be COVID or it could be the war that is going on in the Ukraine now and what is happening in the world.

So a lot of things can cause us to have thoughts and those thoughts cause us to have certain emotions. Now I said on average, we have about 70,000 thoughts a day, but here’s another very interesting statistic for you.

Did you know that 90% of our thoughts are the same every day? We think the same thing over and over and over.

Now if you think the same thoughts every day, it’s highly probable that you are going to cause the same emotions in yourself every day. And if you are going to cause the same emotions in yourself every day, the emotional state that you are in, if it’s a low one, let’s say it’s one of fear or anxiety or worry or stress, then you are going to really struggle to not get triggered by your partner.

You will have got yourself stuck in an emotional state.

Now you may with your conscious brain want to not get triggered, however, because our emotions are such incredibly strong software when that’s already gone into your unconscious, when it’s been repeated over and over when those same thoughts have been repeated over and over, causing those same emotions, getting repeated over and over and over, you’re probably going to get the same result.

So telling yourself or your partner not to get triggered is not really going to do much more than scratch the surface.

You can tell yourself or them not to get triggered to the cows come home, but you’re still going to get triggered.

It’s Time To Think Differently

What will change that dynamic is to start thinking differently.

Start thinking differently and you will cause a different emotional response, cause a different more uplifting emotional response and then you will be in a much better position not to get triggered by your partner or to trigger your partner if you see them stuck in their own emotional state.

So very, very simply, today’s tool is think differently.

When something happens, choose to have a different thought response to it.

There are always two ways to look at something. You can look at something in a way that lowers your emotional state or you can think about something in a way that lifts your emotional state.

Be very mindful of your thoughts.

Change Thoughts

Your thoughts cause your emotions, change your thought, change your emotion.

Repeat that different behaviour, repeat that new way of thinking and then that starts to become your new software, your default response.

So that’s the second key. Think differently, rinse and repeat.

Until we speak again, have an amazing week.