It's not just your thoughts

There’s a teaching in self-help that says thoughts arise in response to your circumstances, which then in turn inform your emotions, actions, and outcomes. 

The idea is that if you simply change your thoughts, your outcomes will change.  

If only. 

Don’t get me wrong, learning that everything you think is not necessarily true is life-altering and has its place. But there’s more to it — more to us — than our minds. 

If humans were purely thinking machines that could take on new thoughts without considering enculturation, trauma, the impact of negative circumstances, and our own emotions and nervous systems, then this mental approach would work great. But just look at us! We are walking, talking miracles. We are complex, so getting whole requires a holistic approach. 

Take me. I’ve had big money fears my entire adult life. Whether I’ve had a lot of money or not much, the fear was always present. I tried for years to shift my painful thoughts, but those money fears would always slither back out from the darkness of my psyche. 

I felt ashamed and so I kept my money fears under wraps because I wanted you to see me as someone who has it all together. Meanwhile, money fears swirled as intrusive thoughts in my mind, spinning sinister stories of not enough. I felt a constant, underlying state of anxiety. 

It wasn’t until I committed to doing the deep work that things started shifting for me...