Episode 2 Shownotes - The Difference Between Thoughts and CIrucumstances

Hello, and welcome back! This is episode 2 of Living Your Best Life after Cancer. Today we are going to discuss the differences between thoughts and circumstances, and I will talk about a way to think about things that can give you some comfort. But first, did you try the technique of allowing negative emotions from last week? If you missed that one, maybe go and listen to it first, as what I am about to tell you will make SO much more sense. I was thinking after the podcast about one of the places that in the past I have really resisted emotions. As I mentioned last time, I have 4 kids, but what I didn’t mention is that I have a fear of something happening to both me and my husband, leaving them without parents. I also have a huge fear of flying. That may surprise some of the people listening to this who know me, because that fear doesn’t stop us from having epic adventures. I’m sure as we go along, you will hear about one or two of them. But, I digress. When my husband and I would go away without the kids, the flight was a HUGE issue. I was terrified. Initially, I would just sweat, and grip the armrests, and stuff it down. But every trip was worse than the one before. It started being an issue even when we flew with our kids. I started taking some Xanax before we flew. A normal human dose did nothing. I was literally vibrating in my seat from the strain of forcing the terror down, denying it, resisting it. So I took a stronger dose the next time. I was still wide awake and panicked during the flight, but when we arrived in New Orleans for a long weekend, I slept for 18 hours. It took that long to get the big dose of sedative out of my system. I am sure you can imagine, this took a big chunk out of the 3 days we had away. Then I started life coaching, and decided take a flight with the kids with us with NO meds so that I could really work on allowing the anxiety. I got on the plane, and my heart was hammering, I was sweating, and really miserable. I sat down and closed my eyes. I went through my body and noted all of the sensations. Pounding heart, pit in my stomach, tight shoulders and neck, feeling my muscles in my limbs trembling, a little dizzy and lightheaded. I said, yes, this is anxiety. This is anxiety, and it can’t hurt me. I calmed down a little. We took off, the plane dipped a bit, and made a noise (like planes do when they take off!) and the anxiety came roaring back. Same process, note the sensations, remind myself, this is anxiety and it can’t hurt me. At that point, I also reminded myself that it does not help the pilot fly the plane. It does not lessen the chances of crashing. It changes nothing and just makes the experience so much worse for me. I was able to ease into the anxiety and it was so much better. I decided at that point to forgo meds on ALL flights, including the ones just with my husband and me. We went away alone for the first time Valentine’s weekend, just before all of the craziness from Corona came. I told him I was flying med free. I meditated when we sat down, and then used the rest of the flight to work on writing my first podcast. Both of us were amazed. I didn’t let myself grip the armrests – that is a form of resisting. I didn’t obsess that the plane might crash. Every time I thought that, I told myself, NO – I have faith in the pilot, just like my patients have faith in me. I had some mild anxiety at takeoff and landing, but it was manageable and not even a big deal. I stopped writing and just leaned into the anxiety. It was amazing. I hope that by sharing that, maybe some of you can see how allowing the negative emotions related to your cancer can make a huge difference in your experience of this. I don’t think I will ever love to fly, but we flew through a storm with lightning bolts jumping from cloud to cloud in March, while the kids were on spring break. This normally would have had me in a full blown panic, but I weathered it with no more anxiety than the other people on the plane. And you, you never have to love that you had cancer, but you can live with it without having to avoid, resist or react to it. Ok – enough of the refresher from last time! Let’s get into what I have planned for us today!

Today, we are going to discuss the differences between thoughts and circumstances, and I will talk about a way to think about things that can give you some comfort. SO – this may come as a shock to some people, while others may think “duh, of COURSE!”, but our thoughts are what create our feelings, not circumstances in the world. Circumstances are things that happen in the world that our out of our direct control. These include medical diagnoses, the state of the government, war, famine, death, anything in the past, what other people think or say and much more. A circumstance is something that everyone could agree on. It is something provable in a court that everyone on the jury would agree is true. My first coach, and the coach who did my coach training both love to quote Byron Katie. She says that “Circumstances are reality, and when you argue with reality, you lose, but only 100% of the time.” Ekhart Tolle is another person who has guided many of us in how we look at the world. He tells us that the only power we have is in the moment. We can not change what is in the past. We also can not change what might happen in the future. When we spend the present moment arguing with reality, fighting a fight we can not win, we are losing our present moment. For many of you listening to this podcast, the circumstance that is being argued against and is leading to painful thoughts and feelings is that a doctor said “you have cancer”. That is a circumstance – they said the words – we can write down exactly what they said, and we could play back a tape of it, and everyone would agree. Most of us think that fact is what causes our feelings. But it is not. It is the thought about what the doctor said and our argument against that reality that causes us our feelings. It is what we are making that statement mean. One of the ways we can show this is by seeing the thoughts that multiple people have about a doctor telling them they have breast cancer. One person will think, oh my god. I am going to die, and it will be horrible and painful! Another person with the SAME diagnosis will think, wow, so glad we found this when we did. I am sure there are many good treatments, and I will be fine. What, you say? This is only true with a good risk breast cancer? Ok, let’s look at how patients with a new diagnosis of metastatic disease can think. I have seen both. One patient – oh, my god! I am going to die! It will be horrible and painful! Another – well this really stinks. Thank god I have a good team who can help me live as long as I can, manage my pain and symptoms the best we can. I am going to take advantage of the time I have, really enjoy my family, my kids. The advances in medications targeting different cancers is moving forward so quickly, maybe soon they will even have one that can put this into remission. I am not saying to be all rainbows and daisies. I am just telling you that these thoughts are both true, both available to you, and will create a VERY two very different realities with these same scenario. But, you have to be able to see that your THOUGHTS are causing your experience. And finding the thoughts can be difficult for sure.

The way to start to develop the skill to be able to see what are facts and what are your thoughts is to write down what you are thinking and feeling daily. This is called a thought download. It can be part of your 15-30 minutes of allowing your feelings that we talked about last week. You get a piece of paper, sit down, and write for 10-15 minutes on what you think and feel. Most people are surprised when they get it all out of their heads that 98% of what is there is thoughts and feelings, with very little facts. It is a pain to do this every day, but if you do it daily, I promise, it will be life changing! It is NOT the same to just think it and not write it. It does not bring the same awareness. Even now, after 18 months of being coached, and becoming a coach, I STILL have to write it down and see what’s there. If I skip a few days, my brain starts to think all the thoughts in my head are facts, and my experience of life takes a turn for the worse. I was taught that it is like housecleaning. No one thinks they only have to clean one time and are then they are done forever. We know if we don’t keep cleaning, at least the dishes in the sink and some of the laundry, that we will end up under a mountain of mess. Same is true with your brain. You do a good thought download, see all of what you are creating with your thoughts and feelings, and maybe are even able to choose new, more useful thoughts. But if you don’t keep an eye on what your brain is doing, it will find new places to tell you stories about what is going on in the world. Another thing that my brain tells me is true about doing a thought download. My OCD tells me I need a beautiful journal, and the perfect pen to do it. I have been known to procrastinate because the journal was at home, and I was at work, and thought I’d wait until I got where the journal was to do a TD that it was clear I should do. Let me tell you. This thought is not true. It can be written on a napkin in a restaurant. You don’t have to keep it forever. It doesn’t have to be perfectly written. We aren’t going to bind them into some book that will go on your shelf. Often, with the ones I do at work now – I do them, look at what’s there, see what it is that is creating misery for me in the moment, then throw out the paper.

Doing a thought download is a place where I think an example or two really helps you to understand what we are looking for. I will go through a bit of one of my recent thought downloads with you. Right now, all of my downloads are corona-based, so bear with me. I am going to give you one paragraph of one of my recent downloads –the whole download is a lot longer than that, but one paragraph will give you the gyst. Here goes. There is a virus in the world that is killing people. Some of them are doctors. I am afraid that this virus will kill either me or my husband, or if we are really unlucky, both of us. Doctors are dying more than normal people, why is that? It is so scary! Ususally our immunity is better than the average person, but I know of doctors that are in the ICU on vents! I am at higher risk due to my asthma. They are saying the virus is worse for people with A+ blood type – figures that both my husband and I are! Also, men are at more risk. What if something happens to Phil? How would we manage without him? I don’t think I can do this on my own. What would happen to the kids if I died and it was just Phil? Nothing would ever get done at home! He can’t do his job as a surgeon AND manage the kids schedules, homework, meals.

Oh, my, the drama. I know, I am almost embarrassed to share that with you. But, let’s look at the facts. There is a virus in the world. It is the cause of death in some people, maybe more men, maybe more people with A+ blood type. Some of them are doctors. All the rest are thoughts. Let’s take one of those thoughts and see what it is creating for me. What about the thought “Doctors are dying more than normal people”. That creates a lot of fear and resistance. When I think that, I spin in my head in what if’s. I worry, I obsess. I worry when I have to go to work, or if he gets called to see a patient in the ICU. I avoid getting us groceries. This creates a situation where I am living in the future of having lost one or both of us, when currently both of us are here, healthy and fine and virus free! As I mentioned before, thoughts cause stress, and maybe that affects my immune system and increases the odds of me getting a bad case of the virus. It makes it so that I am not present NOW for my kids, because I am in my head worrying that I might not be present for my kids THEN. We can see that this thought is in no way beneficial, or keeping me safer. I have Corona in my brain, even if I don’t have it in my body. A better thought might be “We are taking all the precautions we can to stay strong and healthy. I am going to embrace this changed time and have fun with my family while we are all home and together”. This is the thought I have chosen to have. When I have the thought of we might die, I tell my brain, no – I am thinking this other thought. Just to clarify, choosing a different thought is not the same as resisting an emotion. Resisting would look like pushing down the fear. Changing a thought does not resist the emotion. It allows us to create a different one. This thought download also allows me to see that I am focused on the small percentage of people who die, not all the people who live. Several facts that are NOT in there are that the chances of dying are very small, especially for people under 50. Many people, including medical professionals, get the virus and are fine, many even asymptomatic! When I look at what facts I have chosen to focus on in my thought download, I see that they also are not helping me. I have chosen the worst facts to focus on, instead of the best facts.

I also want to give you a bit of a thought download I did with a recent patient. Nothing that can identify anyone, and something I hear over and over. A patient, done treatment, tells me that she is doing OK, but is really upset about weight gain. I ask, why are you gaining weight? She is unsure, thinks she isn’t doing much differently, but maybe eating more, and maybe eating more comfort foods than before. We look for why, what she might be trying to avoid with more food or more comforting food. It turns out she is having some joint pain, and that over and over again, their brain goes to the thought that it is metastatic disease, even though she had a negative bone scan. She tells me that she thinks this would kill her mom and dad. Her kids – she won’t get to see them graduate and get married, and have kids of their own. She is just getting back on her feet after the treatment. If the cancer is back, she is CERTAIN she will lose her job and then she won’t have insurance, and then how will she get treated? She is a single mom, too. It all falls to her. Who will take care of the kids if she is gone? This cascade of thoughts make her feel AWFUL. So she eats to dull the awful feelings. I get curious – do you do things at work that aren’t ideal? Eat junk there, too? We find that yes, she eats junk at her desk, and ALSO, she buffers with Facebook. So a recap. The FACTS in what she tells me: She had cancer. Her treatment is complete. She has a sensation in her joints. She had a bone scan that was negative. The thoughts – EVERYTHING ELSE. Let’s look at one of the thoughts and the outcome of it. She has a thought “I might have metastatic disease”. This makes her feel awful, and leads to buffering, resisting, avoiding her bad feelings. The results? She isn’t living in the moment, she is living in the future, at a time where she is either debilitated or dead and buried. What this creates for her is exactly what it created for me – it creates that she isn’t here for her family TODAY. It creates that she has cancer in her brain TODAY, even if it is not in her body. Additionally, it has led to weight gain, because she is buffering to feel better. This also increases her risk, both of cancer and other medical problems. She is buffering at work, on facebook, to feel less stressed, so she is increasing the odds that she will lose her job now, from that action, and NOT from the cancer. She didn’t even realize that all of this was there. She just thought she was upset about gaining weight. Turns out, the weight was the side effect of trying to feel better.

To do a thought download is simple. You sit down. You write down your You may do a thought download and have no thoughts – it might just be a page long thing on the weather. Don’t worry. This is a skill that takes time. A few questions to ask yourself? What am I thinking? What am I feeling? What am I worried about? Then just write. Don’t censor it. Just write. For most people, this getting in touch with your thoughts and emotions will be challenging. When I started life coaching, it all seemed really stupid and superficial. I was working on weight loss and I would do a TD and think, I just want the stinking brownie. There is no other thought. Well, my coach told me if I didn’ eat the brownie, I would find the underlying thought. Sure enough, I skipped the brownie, and found the thought, “I deserve some joy after taking care of patients with so many sad things happening today”. Wow. Yep, that thought will make you stuff the brownie in your face post haste. This is like the discussion between the Donkey and Shrek in the first Shrek movie. Shrek has layers, just like onions have layers. We have superficial, on the surface thoughts and feelings. The deeper ones might be suppressed from eating or hidden from your resisting them, or deep and quiet right now if you just had a blow out for no reason with a colleague. As you resist, react and avoid less, you will start to be able to see the feelings that you are avoiding, resisting, reacting to. Once you see what the feelings are, you can start to ask yourself, what is the thought that is creating this feeling? You see a not so nice thought. A good question is “Why am I choosing to think this?” or “How do I want to feel?” Don’t expect to be able to change right off the bat to better thoughts. We really want to just focus right now on being aware of the thoughts. Don’t be surprised if your brain keeps going back to the painful thoughts. It is the path of least resistance, and it takes time and work to create a new path. The way to do this is see what’s there, realize what it is creating for you, really get to understand that the thought is what is creating the feeling. When you really accept and believe that your thought is creating the feeling, then you can think if you want to try to find a better thought. I want to let you know - sometimes, you want to just be horrified and angry and sad and scared, and that is TOTALLY ok. We often don’t want to feel good about circumstances like the death of a loved one, cancer, child abuse, murder, and that is OK. We still need to accept that it is our THOUGHT that is making us feel bad, and then allow the negative emotions. If you aren’t sure how to allow negative emotions, I went through that in the last podcast. SO to recap. There are circumstances in the world. We have thoughts about these circumstances. Our thoughts create our feelings. Our feelings drive our actions. This week your job is 2 fold. You still have to allow the feelings, like we learned last week, and now you have to do TD’s to work on finding the thoughts that are creating the feelings, and learning to separate out what are thoughts and what are circumstances. Just start with getting some awareness that you have thoughts, and they are creating feelings for you.
I would like to offer you one thought about your cancer journey that you may be able to take to heart as an intentional thought. Many coaches teach that circumstances are neutral facts and were “always going to happen” or “meant to be”. I think that feels pretty shitty when you have a cancer diagnosis. Who wants to think you were always destined to get cancer? It just doesn’t sit right with me. But, I have found a way to put this into a form that is a lot more palatable for many of my patients. You had cancer. You did EVERYTHING in your power to have the best outcome. This may mean that you got surgery, chemotherapy, hormonal therapy, radiation. OR, it may mean that you researched your options, and made the best informed decision you could that some aspect of treatment was NOT right for you. Either way, YOU did everything you could to give yourself the best outcome. Don’t second guess yourself. Accept that after you have done everything you can, that you have made every best choice you could for yourself, that it is out of your hands. It is out of your doctor’s hands. If you are religious, it is now in God’s hands. If you are not, it is now in the Universe’s hands. As we discussed before, worrying does not increase good outcomes. Your worry does not help either God or the Universe fly the plane better. I have offered this to many people, and I believe it with all my heart for all of my awesome patients. So, try it on, see what you think.
You’ve got this. You are strong, and fierce, and these feelings have nothing on you, my friend. Have a great week. You can go to bestlifeaftercancer.com/episode2 to get a transcription of this podcast and leave me a comment. Also, it would be really amazing if you could write a review on Itunes if you are enjoying this podcast. It will help other people to find me and get the help they need as well. Thanks in advance!