Show notes
It's easy to feel helpless when you are focusing on things that are out of your control. And right now in the world there are lots of things we have no control over.
In this episode we talk about how feeling helpless effects your health, and use the model to show how in the same circumstance you could feel hopeful instead.
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Transcript:
This is Betsy Jensen, and you are listening to Unstoppable Body and Mind—Episode 13–Helpless vs Hopeful.
In this podcast we learn to upgrade our brain and understand the power of our thoughts, to heal and to create the results we want in our life. Become the person in control of your healing and make peace with your life. Become unstoppable, body and mind.
Hello, today we're going to talk about feeling helpless vs feeling hopeful. There are times in our life we might feel helpless. And right now there are a lot of circumstances that are creating situations where people might feel helpless: the Coronavirus and social distancing mandates, the lack of food on the shelves, kids home from school who maybe parents didn't plan on, maybe different job requirements if you're working from home or working remotely, or if you're going to work with fewer people there, or maybe you're completely out of work. There's also a lot of information that's available. So if you're curious, you can always find statistics and research and sensational headlines featuring what's going on in the world today. There are also a lot of people acting in ways we can't control. People are hoarding toilet paper, or people are going out when they shouldn't, or people are taking it too seriously, causing themselves physical consequences and pain.
There are a lot of things outside of our control. We cannot control nature or what other people do. And when we're thinking thoughts that make us feel out of control, or we think that the future is unpredictable or unknown, we can feel helpless. It's kind of a form of victimization. We don't think it's possible for us to help ourselves or for anyone to help us. Helplessness can also lead to the stress response in our body. Our brain does not like unpredictability, and it can cause worry and fear and anxiety. Our bodies are made for handling stress in short periods of time. But when stress becomes chronic, it can lead to a lot of detrimental effects on our body.
It can trigger headaches, or intensify tension headaches. It can lead to heartburn, high blood sugar, because the liver releases extra sugar, or glucose, into the bloodstream. It can lead to stomach ache or tense muscles in your body. You can have rapid breathing, pounding heart, high blood pressure, and all these effects on your heart could be very serious. Over 630,000 Americans die of heart disease each year. Heart disease is actually the leading cause of death in America. So any of these negative emotions like helplessness or worry or fear, anything that sets off the fight or flight response can really have negative effects in our body, especially when we're feeling those emotions over and over for a long period of time. So the first step, when we are feeling a negative emotion, or some stress in our body, some tension in our muscles, some tightness in our stomach is to try and identify what thought you're thinking at the time.
Now, you're probably having multiple thoughts. Remember, our brain just produces thoughts like a machine. It produces 60,000 to 70,000 thoughts a day. But we also tend to have some repeating thoughts that we think over and over again. So try to identify one of your main thoughts, the one that seems to really be causing you that emotional and physical pain. So remember, helplessness is a feeling, and you can work backwards in the model to find the thought. Your thought may be I don't think I'll have enough money to make it. What is the circumstance that's causing that thought? And I want you to be really careful here.
A lot of times we'll have thoughts and we'll think they're true. We'll think that they’re circumstances. We’ll think that everyone else thinks the same thing or it is just a fact of life. But if you've had the thought I won't get paid until May 1, that might actually not be a circumstance. Maybe your circumstance is that your work is closing until May 1 and your regular job won't be paying you until May 1. But to say that you won't get paid until May 1 at all, in any form, isn't exactly true. You might be able to sell something and get paid or someone might owe you some money and pay you back. And those distinctions might seem kind of smaller, insignificant, but separating what is really actually objectively true, from what our thoughts about it are can really make all the difference and take a lot of the drama away from the story we're telling.
So to summarize the model so far, circumstance: your work is closing until May 1, thought: I don’t think I’ll have enough money to make it, feeling: helpless. And then how do you act when you're feeling helpless? Most likely you're worrying, your mind is not clear because you keep thinking about the money. Maybe you're buffering in some form: eating or drinking or watching TV or spending money. Maybe you're avoiding getting things done, putting things off, again, kind of not able to focus. Maybe you're kind of ornery with the people around you. You might be feeling out of control or frustrated or blaming other people. So the result from all of your actions is actually that you're creating this space where you might not have enough money because you're not really doing anything proactively. In fact, maybe you're doing the opposite. You could even be spending more money.
Basically, when you have the thought, I don't think I'll have enough money to make it, your brain goes to work proving that true through your actions and through finding examples to prove it. So you're not looking for other ways to earn money. You're not thinking of any positive solutions. Maybe you're not thinking of asking for help as something that could be an option for you. Maybe you do not see asking for help as a sign of strength. Do you see it as a sign of weakness? And if you're helpless, it kind of blocks you from your creativity, you're giving up. It's like you don't think there are any other options. And most importantly, you're not taking control of the things you actually do have control over.
Did you know there are always things that you have control over? I always think of Viktor Frankl, the man who wrote Man's Search for Meaning. He was a prisoner in Nazi concentration camps. So when I think of an extreme situation of people controlling many, many aspects of your life, including what you eat and where you are and what you wear and what you own, and he was still able to realize through
all of this that no matter what is controlled about a person's environment, they still have the ability to choose how they think.
I think this model really shows that when you're feeling helpless, there really aren't any good results that are going to come out of your life. So if you're spending a lot of time focusing on, thinking about, worrying about things that are outside of your control, it's going to be very frustrating for you, and it's going to cause you emotional pain. Again, remember things that other people do are out of your control. So if people are not following the behaviors that you would want them to, out of your control. If you're not able to find toilet paper at the store, that's out of your control. If you're not sure how long your kids are going to be home from school, or you don't know what the future holds, or you don't know how long things will last, you don't know if things will ever go back to normal. All of these types of thoughts are really just thinking about things that you physically yourself cannot control. And so it may give you a feeling of helplessness.
But if you are focusing on what you can control, that's an area where you have some influence. Your attitude is something you can control. Whether you're following social distancing procedures or not is within your control. Whether you're getting outside and moving your body and taking care of your health is within your control. Whether you're turning off the news, instead of seeking it out, whether you're spending a lot of time on social media, or limiting it, all of those things are in your control. The choice of activities that you're doing at home is within your control. When we focus on what we do have control over, that's where we can take our power back.
I encourage you to journal. Write down the things that are worrying you, the things that are stressing you out, or if you are feeling helpless—why? From what you wrote, try to find a circumstance something that's actually factually true. (Hey, that rhymes!) Your circumstance might be COVID-19, or social distancing mandates, or that your kids are out of school until May 1, or, like the model we did, your work is closing until May 1. You get to choose how you think about the circumstances in your life. If someone is feeling abundant with money, they may not mind at all that their work is closed until May 1. They might love that. The circumstance isn't what causes you pain, it's your thoughts about it. It's the thought I don't think I'll have enough money to make it that causes the helpless feeling and the actions and the results that you don't want.
So what if you wanted to feel hopeful instead of helpless? Now you can really put any emotion that you want to feel here. I chose hopeful because I thought it sounded good for the title, but you could equally pick other emotions like courageous, trusting, optimistic, or even just neutral. Neutral would be better than helpless by quite a bit. Because if you're neutral about the situation, you're not positive or negative, so at least if you're not in a negative emotion, then you're not going to have negative actions and results.
We're going to create a model where the circumstance is the same: your work is closing until May 1. But the feeling you want to feel about that is hopeful. So we know that our feelings come from our thoughts. And so what you need to do here is try to find a thought that works for you, that your brain can believe, that gives you that feeling of feeling hopeful, and it might take some trial and error. Sometimes I will come up with a thought, say it in my head, really try to feel it in my body. And sometimes the feeling that thought creates is not the one I'm looking for, or that I anticipate, so maybe your thought could be, Now I have time to work on the side business that I've wanted to get going. And if your brain can truly believe that, then that might create that feeling of feeling hopeful for you.
But maybe that is something your brain does not quite believe. Or it feels scary, because you don't know if your business is going to work out or not. So it doesn't feel hopeful to you. You could try the thought Things are happening exactly as they're supposed to. Or maybe I know I'll be able to come up with the money I need. Or maybe Right now in this moment, I have all the things I need. Maybe you could think I can be creative in getting my needs met. Especially if you're open to accepting help from other people. This can be a beautiful time to allow other people to give and receive that joy from being able to give to someone else. Practicing receiving is actually quite a skill that I would encourage developing. It's often much harder to receive than it is to give. And it's something that, again, we're kind of taught as a weakness to ask for help or to receive help, rather than a sign of strength.
You could have kind of a curious attitude, and think, I wonder where I'm going to get the money I need. And if you can believe that in a kind of positive way, again, it's not from a scarcity mentality. But you know that money is going to come from somewhere. And you're just not sure where yet. That's actually a thought I practiced believing quite a bit when I was in a situation where I was borrowing a lot of money from my parents and not making enough in my work to make ends meet. And because I approached it with more curiosity, I was actually seeking out ways that I could make extra money by selling things online, or by looking into other ideas that I hadn't previously thought of. So if you're feeling hopeful, the actions you would take would look a lot different than if you're feeling helpless. You'd probably be thinking outside of the box quite a bit more, maybe looking for ways you can contribute and provide value to people. You might be able to trade some supplies for some other supplies that you need. You might be able to talk to your landlord or the bank. You might be able to cut some things out that are not as necessary right now, and save on some of your expenses in a way. And then the result would also be more positive.
You really might surprise yourself with the creative options you're able to come up with. And remember, humans are very capable of surviving hard times. I think a lot of ingenuity and creativity and seeing that true human spirit does come from the difficulties of life and when things aren't going the way we think they're supposed to. This is a time we can get stronger. This could be like the free weights of our life. This is just some resistance that we have, that's going to transform us and show us the strength we never knew we had.
So I encourage you to do some journaling and some models. This is a great way to clean up your thinking, to think thoughts on purpose, to think thoughts that serve you, and ultimately to get the results you want in your life. If you'd like help with your models, or with getting some coaching, please reach out to me. You can reach me at info@bodyandmindlifecoach.com. My email will also be in the show notes. And right now I'm doing a free consultation if it's your first time coaching with me.
Thank you so much for listening. I hope you learned a little bit about your brain today that helps you in your life like it helped me. Please be sure and subscribe and leave a review. And, of course, be sure and share this podcast with someone you know who wants an unstoppable body and mind.
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