Episode 34: It's Just a Thought

Did you know that most of what we feel isn’t caused by what’s happening—but by what we think about what’s happening?

In this episode, we’re talking about the powerful shift that happens when you realize: It’s just a thought. You'll hear real-life coaching examples, learn how to separate facts from your story, and discover how this simple skill can change everything from your emotions to your relationships. If your thoughts have been weighing you down lately, this episode is your reminder that you can think something new.

Schedule a free 1:1 mini session with me and I'll show you how to do this!

Full Transcript:

You're listening to the Think New Thoughts podcast with Emily Ricks, episode number 34. It's just a thought.

I'm Emily Ricks and this is Think New Thoughts, a life coaching podcast to help you find more joy in your relationships. In each episode, I'll share a simple idea that will help you see things in a new way so you can love God, your neighbor, and yourself more deeply than you ever have before. If you're ready to literally change your mind, I think you'll like it here.

I saw a fun little activity for elementary schoolers in a Scholastic magazine one time that said, can you sort the facts and opinions below? For each statement, circle either fact or opinion.

And then I had statements like, there are seven days in a week, and then you circle fact. Or school is fun, where you circle opinion. Bananas are delicious, opinion.

Dogs are cuter than cats, opinion. Fish use gills to breathe, fact. Right? And this is a simple concept.

Most of us learn in elementary school, how to tell the difference between a fact and an opinion. And yet we walk around as adults, often confusing the two in our actual lives without even realizing it. Facts are things that could be proven in a court of law.

We could see or hear something that would prove it, like water boils at a hundred degrees Celsius at sea level. We could scientifically prove that. The Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776.

You could go into a museum and view the original document and see the date on it. I live in Colorado. I have blue eyes.

These are facts. We can prove them. And there can also be facts about things that happen in your life.

She got a speeding ticket from the policeman. He came home 20 minutes after his curfew. He texted me 12 times in one hour.

These are facts that we could prove. And sometimes we talk about facts in our lives, but most of what we say out loud is actually our thoughts. He's irresponsible.

Skiing is so expensive. That's a waste of time. It's so gross.

These are all thoughts. You can think any thought you want to, you can have any opinion you want to have. You can interpret the situation in any way you choose, but your thoughts, my thoughts, anyone's thoughts are not facts.

Any thought you think is just a sentence in your brain. It's not right. It's not wrong.

It's just a thought. And someone else might have a different thought than you have about the same thing. I know people who love musicals.

I know some people who think they're cheesy or dumb. I hear teenage girls saying that Timothy Chalamet is super good looking. Personally, I don't see it.

It's not a fact that he's attractive or that he isn't. It's just a thought, just a sentence in someone's mind, just a sentence in my mind that expresses how I experience something, what my opinion is about it. Some people think documentaries are super interesting.

Some people find them boring. Some people love shopping and they think it's really fun. Some people dislike it and find it draining.

So why does this matter? Who even cares? It matters because the opinions you have about everything in your life are just thoughts. They're not facts. And this sounds simple, but it's easy to forget.

And as a coach, I help people see the difference between facts and their thoughts about those facts. And this is a life-changing thing to be able to do. So I'm going to give you some examples.

I had a session the other day with a woman who has some things going on with her physical health. And at one point during the session, she said, I'm not making any headway. And actually, that's just a thought.

It felt like a fact to her. I'm not making any headway on this goal. I'm not making any progress.

But when we really looked at it, she started to realize that it is a thought and that it's creating discouragement for her, which makes it even harder to make progress. I helped a client a little while ago who was irritated about a situation with her sister-in-law and her thought was, she doesn't trust us. But that's actually just a thought.

It felt true. It felt like a fact to her. But through the course of the session, she realized that it was just a thought and that believing that thought actually wasn't helping her to cultivate the relationship she wanted to create with her sister-in-law.

I had a session with a client who was feeling unseen by a mentor in his life. And the thought fueling his resentment was, he doesn't even care about me. And that thought felt true to him.

And he had some evidence to back it up. But during the session, he realized it was just a thought and that that thought wasn't creating an emotion that was useful to him. It wasn't helping him show up in the energy that he wanted in his life.

I coach women who sometimes have frustrations with their husbands and they think thoughts like, he's doing it wrong. He shouldn't say that to them. I'm not important to him.

It's really helpful to know that these are just thoughts, just sentences in your mind. You can believe them if you want to, but they're not facts. There are a million thoughts we can choose to think about ourselves.

And some of them create painful emotions of inadequacy or even shame. I'm not as graceful as she is. I'm not a good mom.

I should have gotten those curtains put up a long time ago. I should be better than I am. These are just thoughts.

None of these sentences is a fact. I had a client who was tired of her daughter ruining family time. And her thought was, she's so negative.

And it felt like a fact. But after some examination, she realized it was just a thought. And she realized that when she was thinking it, she ended up bringing a lot of negativity to the situation.

The idea of whether something is fair or not is just a thought. It's not fair is a thought that usually creates feelings of resentment or frustration or self pity. I need to make sure she approves of me.

This is just a thought. I have too many things to do. It's just a thought.

This shouldn't be happening is also just a thought. If you are feeling really discouraged or insecure or worried or angry, I want to invite you to pause and separate the facts from your story. Find out what you're thinking, and then see if you can remind yourself it's just a thought.

It's just a sentence in my brain that is creating a feeling for me. And this thought is one option of how I can interpret this. This is also really helpful if other people say negative things about you.

They might criticize your personality or your outfit, your hair, how you spend your time, or something you enjoy. And when someone criticizes you, I want to empower you to remind yourself, okay, that's just a thought. It doesn't hurt me.

It's just a sentence in their brain. You might imagine someone thinking really negative things about you. Maybe they think you're foolish or dumb or bossy or annoying.

And here's the good news. They aren't right, and they aren't wrong. Their opinion of you is just a thought.

Your opinion of their opinion is also just a thought. We are just human beings walking around thinking thoughts, and whatever thoughts we think create emotions. Thoughts that create positive emotions are also just sentences in your brain.

I'm making progress. God wants to help me. I'm exactly where I'm meant to be.

I don't need her to agree with me. Nothing has gone wrong. These are all just thoughts too.

If you find that you're feeling a lot of negative emotion, here's something you can try. What are the facts? What are the things that I can see and hear externally that I could prove in a court of law if I had a camera or some other way of viewing it? Write down the facts, and then ask yourself, okay, now what's my story? What are my opinions about the facts? What am I making this mean? Write those down too, and just notice, okay, that's what I'm thinking. It's just a thought.

It's not right. It's not wrong. It's not good.

It's not bad. It's just a thought, and it's optional. If you want to take it a step further, then you ask, what do I feel and what do I do when I'm believing that thought? How do I show up? What do I create? And then you can take a look and evaluate.

Is this what I want to create? And if it isn't, what are my other options of how I could choose to interpret the situation that might create a different result for me? This is what I help my clients do in pretty much every coaching session that we have, and you can try this out using the CTFAR model. Just write CTFAR on a piece of paper and see if you can loosen your grip on your thoughts a little bit. Hold on to them a little less tightly and realize that even if you have lots of evidence to back them up, your thoughts are just sentences in your brain.

You can decide if you want to keep thinking them or not. Some thoughts can be really painful. Thoughts like I'm worthless.

I'm a failure. I'm alone. No one loves me.

I promise you that these are just thoughts. They might feel true, but the most painful thoughts usually aren't. Being able to pause and separate the facts in your life from your story, differentiating your circumstances from your thoughts about your circumstances is literally life changing.

Also, it's a skill, and the more you practice, the better you'll get at it. That said, most of us, including myself, need to be reminded that our thoughts aren't facts. Some of my clients are coaches themselves, and they know philosophically that thoughts are not facts, but their thoughts feel like facts to them.

And it's really helpful when I, as a coach, can gently help them discover how they feel when they think certain thoughts and then evaluate if that's really what they want to keep thinking. In a recent session I had with a client who is a coach, she had a huge aha breakthrough moment, and she said, I never would have been able to see that on my own. And I was like, yes! Ladies and gentlemen, the power of coaching.

We need other humans. We need connection. We benefit from the objective viewpoint of another person.

I get coached by other coaches as well, because we all need help sometimes sorting out the difference between the facts in our lives and the thoughts we think that feel like facts, but actually aren't. Thoughts that in many cases are holding us back from joy and connection and progress and achieving our highest potential. If you would like some help separating your thoughts about the stuff in your life from the actual facts of what you're facing, I want to invite you to schedule a free mini session with me, and I'll show you how to do this.

Head to emilyrickscoaching.com/minisession and sign up. I can't wait to talk with you. Remember, any thought you have is just a thought, just a sentence in your mind.

You can keep thinking it, and you also have hundreds of other options available to you in any situation. Thanks for joining me today. I'll talk to you next week.