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Ep. 11 – The Model

Today is all about getting back to the foundation using “The Model.” Whether you’re new to this process or just need a refresher, it’s a powerful skill for when you notice your thoughts are not serving you.

You have the absolute ability to change your results by changing your thoughts – and I’m going to help you do just that.

Disclaimer: Views expressed by the participants of this program are their own and do not represent the views of nor are they endorsed by Yaffa Family Law Group or Your Divorce Law Center, their respective officers, directors, employees, agents, or representatives.

The content of Your Amazing Divorce is for entertainment and educational purposes. None of the content on Your Amazing Divorce should be considered legal advice, nor does anything herein create an attorney, client relationship.

As always, consult a lawyer for your legal questions.

Transcript

Hey, there are my amazing most beautiful friends. Thank you so much for being here today. Today, we are going to go back to some foundation. I’m going to talk with you about the model that I learned from my coach, Brooke Castillo. I promise it’s going to be an amazing episode and one you should note and refer to when you need a refresher.

And when do you need a refresher? You need a refresher when you forget the model, but also when your thoughts are not serving you, what if I told you that your divorce could end up being one of the best things that could happen to you? I’m Doreen, Yaa, marital, and family, lawyer, and certified life coach.

I’ve been coaching and consulting women for over 26 years. I’ve seen it all. Now. I’m sharing my expertise and my own personal experiences to help you turn a difficult time into your amazing divorce. So this is just great stuff, because we’re going to learn about thought manage. Did you know that you have the absolute ability to change your results by changing your thoughts, your feelings drive your action or your inaction, and they create results in your life.

If you have negative thoughts, bad thoughts that aren’t serving you. How do you know that? Well, the answer’s pretty simple. You know, it because you are not getting the results you want in your life. If you have good thoughts, thoughts that serve you, you know that by the results you’re getting in your life, that are amazing.

You see the issue is probably nobody’s ever taught you. And what you don’t know is that your thoughts create feelings that create an action or an inaction, and then you have results, but it’s not your fault because. If you haven’t done this work, then you won’t realize that your thoughts are not serving you spoiler alert, because what’s really happening.

Is that your thinking about your life is what is creating your experiences.

The great news is you can fix it. You can focus and you need to focus more on what you are thinking and why you are thinking it. Instead of thinking without purpose. Ask yourself. Are you even aware of what you are thinking or are you just going through your day acting, responding, buffering, because a thought is popping into your brain that you don’t even understand or realize because you are on what they call autopilot, negative thoughts that do nothing more than just waste your time.

And. It’s so important to understand that there are things that happen that we have no control over. You know, I get that. Whether it’s other people, it’s your ex it’s your past things that have happened to you. But we do have control over how we think about these things and what we make them mean things in the world that we have no control over.

Maybe it was your divorce. But it’s how you think about these things and what you make it mean that make all the difference. And that’s where the work comes in. You probably are thinking like, come on Doreen. I don’t feel like I have any control over my thinking, but my friend, the reason you don’t feel like you have control over your thinking is because you’re not aware of what you’re.

You see, you have to stop and take notice of your brain of your thoughts about the things that have happened to you in your life and what will continue to happen to you throughout your life. That’s the very first step becoming aware of your thinking when you’re thinking it. And this isn’t about just being mindful of things.

This isn’t about being mindful of your mind and of your thoughts and really taking the time to understand it. And if you want to continue to have these thoughts or not,

And I know that this stuff sounds really deep, but once you start really watching your brain and your thoughts, it’s almost like you become the observer of yourself, the person that’s watching, your thoughts, that’s watching your brain. You see, we’re all basically programmed from our birth to where we are today, programed to have these inadvertent thoughts that just come up without any real semblance of understanding.

And so our work is first of all, to become aware of our thinking and to understand your patterns, when you start recognizing that, the reason that you act a certain way and feel a certain way is all stemming from that. It’s like magical, but it’s a process and it takes. It’s really cool though. Once you start doing this kind of work and you realize that a thought is popping up in your brain, I just dealt with one today.

I was sitting at my desk going through what I call a thought, download on all the millions of things that I think I have to do and getting overwhelmed. And my thought basically was like, oh my gosh, how am I ever gonna get this all into my calendar? Because literally I take all the things I have to do. I write ’em down on a piece of paper, and then I outline things on a calendar and I actually give it a date and time to get it done.

And I was thinking, I’ll never get this stuff on my calendar, but I stopped for a moment. And I said, what are you talking about? Do. So it’s me talking to my brain and I said, look, you don’t have to do this all this week. You can put some of this stuff on your calendar for next week, next month, and you can assign and delegate other things.

So stop thinking this way. It’s not productive.

The first thing is to start to become aware of your thinking. But just like one of my clients mentioned to me the other day, she was thinking things like, she’s never gonna meet somebody again. She’s so broken from her divorce. Her ex is a, you know, what. All these thoughts going around and around in her brain.

So she says to me, listen, I’m getting this down. I hear these thoughts in my brain. I understand what I’m thinking now, what do I do with it? How do I change this? So it’s really powerful to start to become aware of you thinking, but you can’t stop there. What is the next thing to do? You want to take a deep breath?

You don’t want to just react to your. You have to catch yourself thinking negatively and not just lashing out and reacting or buffering. So let me give you an example, your ex calls you or text shoot and says something nasty. And your immediate reaction might be to lash back to shoot back a nice little text message in return, or to pick up that phone and yell him.

I don’t know what your reaction might be, but what I’m saying is stop for a moment and just think about not doing anything you see, when you realize that your thought doesn’t need to be reacted to, then you can start changing behavior patterns. You don’t have to take an action on any thought. After that the next step is to really start deciding what you want to think on purpose.

You have to tell your thoughts, tell your brain what to focus on or what to think about, to get rid of old patterns. You see your brain is really good at trying to save energy, to just get to a point of using past behavior. And past thoughts because it’s simple for your brain. It’s hard to rethink things.

It’s easy for your brain just to recycle, repeat, and keep going on and on with those same negative patterns that aren’t serving you, your brain likes to do what it’s really good at and what your brain is really good at is doing stuff that it’s done a million times. And unfortunately for many, that just means negative thoughts, negative actions, repeat, recycle, and move forward with the same old, same old, getting you nowhere type of results that you don’t want, that you know, better, that you don’t want.

I’ve had a lot of you come to me and say, well, Doreen, why don’t I just stop my negative feeling? And the issue is that you can’t stop your thoughts. What you have to do is recognize your thought and not react to it. Then you can work on changing the thought to something that will serve you, because if you have a negative thought and you try to resist it, or you try to buffer it away, for example, by eating or drinking or social networking to get rid of that thought, it doesn’t mean that you really stop thinking it.

It doesn’t mean that it goes. It’s why so many feel out of control, not understanding why they react certain ways, why they’ve done things in their life and regret them. You know, it’s simple to take a situation like eating as an example, you’re trying to lose weight. You’re trying to eat healthy and your thought says, well, I’ll just start tomorrow.

So let me just go ahead and eat those cookies tonight or that whole gallon of ice cream or whatever it might. That’s where you have to say no thought I’m not gonna do that. That’s what you have me doing on rinse and repeat. And I’m not gonna continue to have those thoughts that I can start tomorrow.

That’s not serving me. I’m gonna start today. Again, it’s why so many of us feel out of control. Like we can sit on the internet, surfing it for hours and then hours go by and we go, Ugh, how did I spend my day today? Not what I really wanted to do. Right? But when you start to become aware of your thoughts, then you can start to control the reaction.

So when your thought is saying, Hey, I’ll start my diet again for the hundredth time tomorrow, you can tell your brain no. I’m not gonna do that tonight. Tonight. I’m gonna skip the cookies. Listen, thought you’re not controlling me and my actions. I’m gonna start directing you and telling you what I want to think.

You have to understand that you can’t just get rid of negative thinking. It just doesn’t work that way. Okay. You have to first hear your thought. Listen to it. It’s negative. Let it run through you and then not react to. Then you can start to rebuild on positive thoughts. Now your brain will start to pick up new habits.

And when you think again, or you see that cookie, you’re not going to take it because now you’re gonna retrain your brain to know, know that’s not gonna get you to your goal weight. Again, this is just an example because I know so many of us struggle at some point in our life with weight issues or healthy eating issue.

But I want you to remember. And I always talk about this, that there are times where there are circumstances that will happen in your life. That call upon an appropriate negative thought. When someone is sick, when your husband asks you for a divorce, When someone is injured that you love when you lose your job, these are circumstances outside of your control that require you to work through a negative thought process.

You are supposed to feel bad when something negative happens. You’re not gonna learn this work and run around all day, being happy because circumstances that are outside your control will cause you to have thoughts that can and should be negative and you want to feel negative. So you have to understand the difference.

It’s one thing is somebody dies and you want to grieve that person because you loved that person. They were important in. It is appropriate. It is correct to have a negative thought of sadness, maybe even anger, and to let that work in your body and to be appropriate. It’s the other circumstances in your life?

Like when your ex calls you or texts you a negative communication and that you can control that from a negative thought. Like he is a, you know what, and now I’m gonna respond back and give him a negative message and be in the circle of texting that’s ongoing and never ending. That’s not appropriate.

That’s not serving you. Your time could be served so much better for you. You could be healing from your divorce. You could be reading a new book. You could be listening to my podcast. You could be taking a walk. Why spend your time on negative reactions that don’t serve you? That’s where the beauty is.

That’s where the difference comes in. That’s where you change your life to make it amazing. Again, these are just tools for you to help you to get you to the next chapter of your amazing life, because you know what, you’ve got this, you can take these tools and you can rebuild your life to whatever you want it to look like.

Why are you choosing to have these negative thoughts about yourself and really acknowledge that that’s something that you’re choosing to. When you have compassion for yourself and you start to let yourself, give yourself a break, you can start to become the person you want. You can start to move into a better life, a happier life, a healthier life.

Think of the negative thoughts about yourself as something that you can visually hold and that you can just throw it away. You can. But know that if you have negative thoughts about yourself or others that you still want in your life, for example, it’s not work that happens overnight. You don’t go from I’m feeling ugly or I’m unlovable to rainbows and unicorns.

And I’m the most amazing person in the. You have to take baby steps to regain yourself, to heal yourself. Maybe it’s a thought from I’m ugly to when I take the time and do my hair and put my makeup on, I look pretty good. We want your changes to be real for you to make sense for you so that you can start to work on the results you want.

When you react to your negative thoughts, that’s when you get into compulsive behaviors and that’s when you get into trouble. The problem is for many of us, we believe our negative thoughts, especially about ourselves. But the truth is that they’re just thoughts. That’s not who you really are. Those are just thoughts that you’ve decided to think really unconsciously.

And we have to decide something D. You wanna learn to manage your mind and decide what you wanna think on purpose so that you can move into an amazing happier life and always ask yourself how that thought is serving you, what your reaction is to the thought. And if you want to keep thinking it or change that thought.

So, what you wanna do is take a step back and think about the thought that you’re having like me today. When I was thinking I’ll never get this all on my calendar, I actually took a deep breath, did a little meditating for a few minutes and then said to myself, why am I choosing to think this thought it’s not helping me?

It’s not serving me. And I thought that’s an interesting. But that’s not a good thought. That’s not a helpful thought. So Doreen, get your, you know what, together, refocus this, take a time out and rethink it. And I went from, this is overwhelming. I can’t get it on my calendar to, I can do this. I just need to put the time aside and it doesn’t have to happen all.

You know, that always amazes me on a side note. I always wonder why so many people feel like they have to react to something right then and there, why they have to get it done, right. That moment to really be productive in life and to get results, you have to manage your timeframe. You have to take the time, react to something with thought process and do it with intention.

Because when you do things with intention and you just don’t get it off your to-do list to get it off, you’re going to see other great things happen in your life. And you’re gonna eventually save time. Anyhow, cuz you’re gonna do it right. The first time

setting goals and setting intentions is a great way to change your think. You can use your thoughts and your imagination to create anxiety and frustration. And the woe is me mentality, or you can use your thoughts and your imagination and your goal setting to create great things in your life. You just wanna manage your thoughts for goodness, for greatness, for all the things that now, since you’re going through your divorce or your post divorce, you get to recreate yourself.

I mean, really how freaking cool is. You get a second chance here, or maybe a third chance. I don’t know how many divorces you’ve been through or relationships that have gone wrong, but for most of us it’s many. So this is your opportunity to grow, to learn, to create yourself, to have the things in life that you maybe didn’t have a chance to do when you were married.

Now you’re free. Now you get to do all these amazing things in your life. I mean, really how freaking lucky are you? Your brain is the most amazing tool that you have my wish for you is that you use it in productive ways that when you imagine your future, that you do it with purpose for you. That’s what I want you to focus on.

You have to set your goals and get your brain to work for you. It’s like the most beautiful computer that could ever be created. And you have it right there on the top of your shoulders to. Ask yourself, amazing questions every day. How can you create the life you want? How can you help others? How can you do the things that you’ve always dreamed of doing?

What can you think on purpose today to reach those goals? To have positive energy, positive thoughts, positive emotion, ask your brain questions. It can help you always find the answer. That’s what the brain is there to. It loves to seek out goal setting and how to reach those goals. It’s built for that, but be aware that it’s like having an angel and a devil on each shoulder, your brain is gonna work both ways.

It’s gonna be productive for you. It’s gonna help you set goals. It’s gonna help you figure out how to get there. It’s gonna have really positive thoughts about. But then it’s gonna go into its negative mode. It’s a little devil mode and it’s gonna be like, I’m too tired to do this today. I don’t wanna be thinking I’d rather be eating the cookies and watching Netflix.

And that’s when you tell your brain, no, I’m gonna go back to the angel side and I’m gonna direct my brain to do what it needs to do, not eat the cookie, sit down and figure out my plan to reach my great.

Once you start training your brain. It’s like that rinse and repeat, it’ll start to pick up those good thoughts, those good behaviors to reach your goals, but you need to ask positive questions of your. If you’re coming up with questions for your brain that are negative, like why did he leave me? Why did my marriage end?

Why is he not picking up the children on time? Those are negative questions and they’ll be filled. I promise you with negative answers from your brain, because that’s the way he is because I have to do it all right now, because I should have never gotten into this marriage in the first place. All those negative questions now lead to negative.

Ask questions of your brain. Like what can I do to accomplish my goal? What do I want my goals to be? What have I always thought I should do with my life that I never did that I want to do these questions are gonna get your brain focused in the right direction in that angel brain, not the devil brain.

And I want you to do this exercise once you get some great questions and start to get some great thoughts from your brain on how to accomplish that. Leave yourself little. Put them wherever you need to see them. My coach herself had recommended. So that if you start to think negative thoughts, you can have a little reminder.

You can buy little post-its and different colors and you put them up on your mirror, in your bathroom and maybe buy the refrigerator and at your phone, wherever you need to put them to gently remind you to start thinking about your thoughts again. There’s nothing wrong with using whatever tools you have to use to help you to get into these better thoughts and just stop the rinse.

Repeat of the negative thinking. Let’s do a recap here. Okay. Step one is two be aware of your thought. Step two is to let the feeling stemming from your thought exist. Don’t react to it. Don’t buffer it. Just let it run through your body. Step three, decide how and what you’re going to do with that thought and feeling.

I know that this is a lot of work. It just takes practice. It just takes retraining your brain.

I love you have an amazing day. I know that. Yes, you can see you next time. Thanks so much for listening for tips, updates, and expert advice. Be sure to visit your amazing divorce.com. And remember my. Yes, you can have an amazing life after divorce. See you. Views expressed by the participants of this program are their own and do not represent the views of nor are they endorsed by YFA family law group or your divorce law center, their respective officers, directors, employees, agents, or representatives.

The content of your amazing divorce is for entertainment and educational purposes. Only none of the content on your amazing divorce should be considered legal advice, nor does anything here in create an attorney, client relationship as always consult a lawyer for your legal questions.

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