We're going to talk today about how understanding the difference
between thoughts and feelings could save your life.
I'm Dr. Paul Jenkins a professional psychologist with almost three decades of clinical experience
and what you're about to learn in this video could save your life. I say that because I know
lives that have been saved by understanding exactly what I'm going to share with you. Did
you know that the number one predictive factor of suicidal thoughts or feelings is hopelessness
and hopelessness is generated by our thoughts. Before we get into the details about that I
invite you to notice something. Now, part of my job is to illuminate the obvious. This is cool
I get paid to tell people things they already know or to show them things that they already see.
But there's a lot of obvious processes going on psychologically obvious that are
completely unnoticed until I call them to your attention. Let's go there for a moment obvious
but unnoticed. Do you notice that we're speaking English? No, maybe you did maybe you didn't but
probably, it's obvious to you right now. Even though you may not have noticed it before I called it to
your attention. That's what we're talking about here. Many of the processes in our mind are in
that realm like this one metacognition. Now, this is a fancy word. If you break it down cognition simply
means thinking. We're gonna put that right here at this level. Metacognition is a higher level it's
thinking about thinking. Now, be careful with this you can hurt yourself. I just want you to notice
that you can do that. That's really important as we get into the difference between thoughts
and feelings. So, turn on your metacognition. Think about your thinking as I make this bold statement.
Circumstances are neutral. Now, I get fired for that sometimes because people don't feel
like their circumstances are neutral. They feel like their circumstances are extraordinary but
we'll get to the feelings in just a minute. The circumstances themselves are neutral. Now, when I
say that, I don't mean that circumstances are easy or painless. In fact, sometimes,
those circumstances are extremely painful and difficult. All I mean by that is it is what it is.
Now, that's a little Annoying too depending on who's saying it and why. But think about this
for a minute, what it is your circumstances, the way things are right now. It's who you are.
It's what you have. It's who you're with. It's the way things are without changing anything could always
be better or worse. That's what I mean when I say circumstances are neutral. I've mapped this all out
in a visual model around positivity. I'll send you a copy of this model go to the URL on your screen
right now drpauljenkins.com/themodel and I'll put this in your inbox. You can
get a PDF copy of the visual that I'm referring to here which just helps us to understand the
processes that are going on in our own mind. For now the most important thing about that
to understand is that circumstances are neutral. Meaning, it is what it is, it could always be
better, it could always be worse. Now, don't take my word for that. I want you to run it through
your own filters and see if it's true. Because if that's true then no matter how bad things seem
it could always be worse. Is that true? Yeah, I think if you'll turn on your metacognition you'll see
that it is. Now, is it true the other direction no matter how good things seem it could always be
better. Yeah, that's true too and if you
and if you're not sure about that go check your bank account, it could always be better. Alright,
so establishing the circumstances are neutral are thoughts about our circumstances are not
neutral. In fact, our thoughts are very emotionally charged. You are always right about how you feel.
This is a professional psychologist saying this, pay attention, you are always right about how you feel.
How you feel is 100% consistent with the way your own mind. Your brain is doing the thinking and
it's the thoughts that cause the feelings. It's not just as simple as saying it's your thoughts that
cause your feelings. There are two primary types of thoughts that I want to call to your attention
right now and this goes right back to the model that I promised to send you drpauljenkins.com/themodel.
I'll give you a little copy of this. In this model, we break it into
evaluation, thoughts, and creation thoughts. What does that mean? Evaluation is judgment. I just want
you to notice as you turn on your metacognition that you're always judging your circumstances,
yourself, your family, your spouse, your co-workers, the environment, the economy, the government, you're
constantly judging. Do you see it? Now, the word evaluation implies comparison with some standard.
So, am I a tall man well that depends on who or what you compare me to and that's how you make
your decision or your judgment about that question. The same thing happens when you judge your life.
Do I have a good life or a bad life? I don't know. What are you comparing it to? A couple of years
ago I had a guest on my podcast live on purpose radio by the name of Gabriel Adams. Now, Gabriel is
a young man who has no arms and no legs. In fact, the title of that episode was no arms, no legs,
no problem. I remember about the time I was doing this interview with Gabe I had sprained my ankle
and it hurt. So, if I were to say, "Oh, my foot hurts", Gabe might say, "You have a foot?".
Do you see the comparison? How we judge our circumstances depends on what we compare it to.
I just want you to notice that and you're never wrong about how you feel. You're always right about
how you feel which is consistent with what you're thinking. Are you tracking this? This is really
important because it's not just judgment that we're doing. The other thought category that I want
to call to your attention right now is creation and I'm not talking about what is I'm talking
about what is to be and that doesn't exist yet. We haven't created it yet. So, the only place it exists
right now is in our imagination. What happens when we imagine because we don't know. In fact, connect
with that for a minute. How you doing next week? You don't know. you've got something to do with
it please don't forget that but you don't know. So, all you can do is imagine it. Now, when we imagine
or predict or expect that what's coming is even worse than what we've already got, how do we feel?
That is anxiety. There's 30 years of clinical experience for you in a nutshell. Alternately,
when we expect or predict or anticipate that what's coming is even better than what we've
already got, how do we feel? That is hope. Do you remember when I said earlier that hopelessness
is the number one predictor of suicide. Because of that hope is the number one preventative
factor and when we understand how to operate the equipment of our own brain we can generate
hope on demand. We can actually choose it. You've probably heard before that happiness is a choice.
Until you see what's going on in your own mind you don't have a choice. Once you see it as a
choice it becomes a choice. Learn about your brain. Let me help you with that. I mentioned the model
go get it right now drpauljenkins.com/themodel. I'll put it in your inbox and then subscribe to
this channel so that I can be on your team to help you refine your own thinking.