Thought Tools For Stressful Times

In times of stress, the process of inquiring into our beliefs can provide both immediate and long term relief. This talk features Chana Mason, who highlights several of the processes featured in her best selling book, 'Hold that Thought,' and explains how to use 'thought tools' to upgrade your wellbeing. The talk begins with host Azriela's insights on the current situation and a spiritual perspective, and it concludes with a step-by-step process of questioning a belief in order to feel better.

Transcript

Welcome to Within Us.

My name is Azrielle Jankovic and I'm your host.

The intention of Within Us is to further your well-being and to build a kinder world.

I believe that everyone can have access to the transformational tools such as universal spirituality,

Mindfulness,

And emotional awareness no matter what your background is and where you live.

Within Us is dedicated to sharing these transformational tools widely and if you'd like to learn more or you feel inspired to support the show,

Please visit my website at www.

Drazi.

Co.

Today my guest is Hannah Mason.

Hannah is the author of several books including one of my personal favorites,

Hold That Thought.

Hold That Thought is a practical guide with multiple tools to transform your mental well-being in any moment.

Hannah resides in Jerusalem.

She is a vitality coach,

A speaker,

And an educator.

She presents her work both locally and around the globe in both English and in Spanish.

Today is March 17th.

Normally we publish episodes every Wednesday,

But in light of the current situation and the fact that there are so many people staying inside,

I decided to publish this episode a day early in order to publish a second episode later in the week.

Because my guests provide such helpful resources to those who are struggling,

I thought it would be an opportune time to highlight my guests,

Their work,

And teach some of the transformational tools that they give over so that you can utilize them right now during this difficult time.

One of the main topics that we discuss on the show is the topic of beliefs,

The topic of mindset.

So much of our current understanding of well-being has concluded that much of the suffering that goes on in our lives actually takes place inside the mind.

The suffering that takes place inside the mind is an optional reality.

It is not a reality that we are enslaved to.

This episode is all about breaking free from the beliefs that confine us,

The beliefs that at times can feel as though they are enslaving us,

And choosing to live with more emotional freedom.

The question is,

How do we do that?

My guest,

Hannah,

Walks us through the process of looking at our beliefs and inquiring about our beliefs.

This is an opportune time to get in touch with the thoughts that are running through our minds,

To write them down,

To notice them,

Because for many people they are speaking a lot louder than they normally do.

I want to share a spiritual perspective about the beliefs that so many of us carry around.

There is an idea in the Torah,

In Judaism,

That every single person has two inclinations.

We are subject to two inclinations.

The first is good and the other one is evil.

Now,

Many people think that the evil inclination is something that encourages us to perhaps overindulge or do something thoughtless,

Do something that is ethically incorrect,

And really pursue selfishness and pursue our own pleasure.

It can very well be that.

But what it also is,

And where it also manifests,

Is in self-doubt.

This morning I sat with Rabbi Dr.

Abraham Torski,

Who is the author of over 80 books,

And he founded one of the foremost recovery centers in the United States for addicts.

He was explaining this very idea.

What he said was that everyone carries self-doubt around inside of them.

Once we come to recognize that self-doubt is holding us back from our God-given potential,

We can identify the self-doubt and we can call it out for what it is.

We can call out self-doubt for being the evil inclination.

It is not who we are.

We are more than our worries,

We're more than our anxieties,

We're more than our self-deprecating thoughts,

And we are more than self-doubt.

When we pursue rising,

Rising above,

We are pursuing our God-given talents,

God-given light,

Our God-given ability to shine in this world.

So,

My friends,

That episode is coming soon,

But today we're delving into beliefs,

And Hannah is someone I greatly admire.

I'm so inspired by her,

And I feel so fortunate to have her in my life and to have her on the show today.

So,

With nothing further,

I would like to introduce you to our guest today,

The wonderful Hannah Mason.

I want to welcome my guest,

Hannah Mason,

To the show today.

She is very special and dear to me.

I have known her for many years,

And I have been following her work,

Reading her books,

And benefitting greatly from the knowledge therein.

Hannah Mason,

Welcome to the show.

It is so great to have you here today.

It's a pleasure to be here.

Thanks for having me.

My pleasure.

So,

I want to go ahead and start out with this book.

It's called Hold That Thought.

It's all about beliefs.

And I'm curious to hear a little bit from you about the process that led you to writing this book.

Writing this book,

What kind of work were you doing,

And what kind of problems were you noticing in your clients or anywhere else?

So,

This book is really a jumping off point from a few different modalities of a process called inquiry that I learned mostly from the work of Byron Cady,

But also from the option process of Barry Neal Kaufman.

And then just like other things I've learned and read over the years.

And over time,

Because I used it so much when I first learned the work of Byron Cady,

I was with a group of friends,

And there were about 10 of us in the neighborhood and the book spread like wildfire amongst us and we met for one to two hours every week for a few years.

And we really got to work this material and create extra tools to go with it and find ways to really support each other as we were exploring our thoughts.

And the most amazing thing that came out of it is that I've just come to believe that thoughts are so not a big deal.

Like there's just not a thought that bothers me.

There's a rare thought that I actually believe when someone says it,

Like it's so fun.

But as I started using it in mentoring people,

I noticed that maybe somebody would get stuck in something and I needed to create a tool or maybe people came to me because they wanted to work on goal setting.

And they didn't necessarily want to work on their thoughts,

They just wanted to work on goal setting.

But I'm very aware of the fact that if someone has goals,

But they have limiting beliefs that get in the way of them achieving their goals,

They're not going to,

You know,

Make those goals happen.

So one of the things I do with clients all the time is I have them picture something that they want,

And then close their eyes and create a space where they can hear the voice of whatever it is that says that it's not possible.

And I write down all of those thoughts and do work on that.

And once they're able to get over all of those limiting beliefs,

Then they're really able to go after their goals,

Which is why they came to me as a coach in the first place.

So that is a perfect example of a tool that I created to help my clients.

And then I got a phone call from a coach who'd first heard about inquiry for me.

And she said to me,

I really want to figure out how to use this better with a client and she gave me a client situation and then another client situation.

And I realized,

Wow,

It's one thing to read a book and learn a tool,

It's a whole other thing to effectively use it in facilitation.

You really have to have a lot of practice or extra tools in your tool belt.

So I wrote this book originally for other coaches and therapists so that they could use inquiry in their clinical practice.

And I asked my nephew,

Who's just really great with literature and writing,

And I asked him if he would take a look at it.

And he helped me edit the book and along the way said,

This book is great for laypeople.

Why are you labeling it as a book for coaches and therapists?

Oh,

100%.

I really agree with that.

Oh,

Great.

Great to hear.

So I got rid of all of that language and just made it as just a book that anybody could use.

And I've heard from people that it is the most clear step by step book that just is so just simple and crystal clear,

Which is what I love to do.

I love taking complicated things and making them simple that anyone's ever read on how to take themselves or someone else through a process of questioning their thinking.

I appreciate so much how you take what is complicated and also what is fluffy and flowery and make it simple.

I have a huge collection of personal development books,

Anything from like Tony Robbins to Byron Katie to Dale Carnegie to books by pastors and books by Buddhists and rabbis,

You name it.

And there are so many common threads within these books.

And one of the common thread really is is belief,

The power of our belief,

And you nailed it in this book.

You synthesized so many different methods in practical and easy to use ways.

So I'm curious if you could share with us.

What are these methods and perhaps if we could even do an activity and and and try one out work through something with one of the common problems that people are bringing to you.

Okay,

So there's there's something called just desserts.

I really like this tool.

I made it up literally for a specific client client on the spot.

This is something I do all the time is a product of I guess my theater training.

I was always trying to figure out how I can help actors understand the characters experience.

And if they didn't have something in their own life experience that related so I literally would create an activity to help actors connect.

So I do the same thing with clients.

So I had this client who came to me because she was struggling with she kept dating the same kind of guy.

She just felt like it was just like a repeat of the same dating situation and and that's really not what she wanted in her life.

So that's why she came to me.

So,

But at the same time,

I could see there were all these underlying beliefs that she didn't say outright,

But you could see them under the surface that we're getting in her way of really connecting to the kind of guy she really wanted.

So we I created something that I now call just desserts.

I had her picture what she wants and write all right a list that's two columns.

It's a just desserts chart.

It's actually one of the bonuses that comes in my bonus materials on my website.

And on one side of the on the chart.

She writes all of the reasons she believes she doesn't deserve this image that she's picturing of what she wants.

So she had this really crystal clear image of this great guy and then living in a house with kids like it was a really detailed image and she had to write all the reasons why she felt she didn't deserve it.

And on the other side of the chart.

She had to write all of the reasons why she felt like she did deserve what she kept getting.

And that gave her.

What did it look like?

So I don't remember all of the things that she wrote,

But that was her homework basically between sessions and then she came back with like this laundry list of beliefs and that became our thought bank.

That's what I call a call sort of a collection of thoughts.

It became our thought bank for the next few sessions and there's one belief in particular that really popped out.

And that was that her fear of why she didn't deserve a great guy is because she would take advantage of him.

Which was a really shocking thing to hear because you can tell that she's a very thoughtful person who's very kind and attentive to other people.

This is interesting and I don't think it's so uncommon.

I mean,

What is this narrative of women choosing like the bad guy,

Right?

And this is a belief that really could feed into that.

It makes a lot of sense to me.

So what we did is we really dug deep into that belief and went ahead and explored it of why she believed that she was going to take advantage of a guy.

So I asked her,

Can you give me an example of when you've taken advantage of someone?

When was the first time you came to believe that thought?

And she pictured herself at seven years old,

Sitting at the dinner table,

Working on her homework and her dad was cooking dinner.

And she felt that she was taking advantage of him because he was cooking dinner and she wasn't cooking dinner and she was doing her homework.

Right.

And what was so neat was for her adult self to come into that situation and be able to rework everything.

Because it was so obvious to her adult self that her dad was actually really happy to be making dinner and really happy that she was doing her homework.

Like that's actually as perfect a situation as her dad could have framed.

That's so sweet.

Yeah.

So where do you go from there?

So she sees from this adult vantage point that the narrative that she created and this idea that she had been really believing for so long actually wasn't true.

Where does she go from there with you?

So from there,

The biggest thing is,

First of all,

Opening her mind up to other ways of thinking.

Because when we have a belief that we're really strongly holding,

Particularly if it's a belief that's not true,

We go into an adrenal state,

We go into fight or flight.

Our vision becomes really myopic and we can't see any other way of thinking or believing.

We just see that.

And so already questioning the validity of that thought starts to create an opening.

When we talk about being in higher consciousness or lower consciousness,

I think that's really what it's about.

Are we being myopic or are we being open?

So are we trudging through the same tracks over and over again and making them deeper?

Right.

Or are we widening our perspective and trying new things?

It makes a lot of sense.

It really does.

So then what happened is I asked her to explore what Byron Katie calls turnarounds.

It's like the opposite of the original thought.

And she said,

I won't take advantage of people.

That was an opposite.

And we could list out all of the reasons why that's true.

Which for her,

First of all,

She could recognize that she wasn't taking advantage of her dad.

Her dad was doing something he was really happy to do,

Which is take care of his daughter.

And on top of it,

So her parents were divorced and her dad went out of his way to have extra time with his daughter.

And so he actually really wanted to take care of her.

Having extra nights with his daughter meant that that's extra times he has to cook.

And that that was part of the deal for him.

And he was really happy to do it so he could have time with her.

So that was real strong evidence for her to see that she wasn't taking advantage of him.

She was just enjoying him.

Accepting the dynamic of this relationship in a positive way.

That's beautiful.

And then the other thing is for her to just notice that in her relationships with the people around her,

That she's much more likely to take care of other people than she is to try to use them to take care of herself or something like that.

And she couldn't think of any examples of her taking advantage of other people.

It's like she believed it,

But she couldn't when she tried to actually look for real life evidence,

The whole thing fell apart.

So that was really cool.

Breakthrough.

Yeah.

That is so incredible.

So this method,

The Just Desserts,

And the processes that you utilize,

It sounds like they can really be applied to a number of different arenas of our lives.

To everything.

To everything.

Any situation where we feel free.

What are these types of situations where in our lives we could apply turnarounds and use your methodologies to empower ourselves?

So I feel like it comes up a lot in my parenting,

Which is an area that I spent a huge amount of time in my own personal life doing this kind of work with myself.

And I think I still have traces of this one,

But for a long time I was holding on to the belief that my son doesn't help enough around the house.

And any sort of iteration of that.

And one of the beliefs I had was that he should clean his room.

So it's like you could ask just about any mom anywhere in the world,

Like,

Do you struggle with this one?

And they'll all be like,

Yes,

Me!

And that's just like such a simple example of like an interpersonal relationship thing.

So one of the things that happened when I did a lot of work on this was I realized that he didn't care all that much about his room being clean,

But I did.

And so after spending all this time journaling about it and doing inquiry and questioning my thinking and questioning my beliefs,

I got up and I cleaned his room.

And it turned out that the 10 minutes it took me to clean his room took so much less energy than the hours I'd been mulling over and upsetting myself over this thing.

I love that so much.

One of the things that we tend to do is put our bodies into so much stress believing things that aren't true.

And we hold on to these beliefs because we think that they're going to get us to something that's better in the long run.

So I believe that if I keep believing that my son has to clean his room,

Then his room will be clean and my house will be in order and then I'll be happy.

But I could just like skip all that and be happy now.

Just let go of the belief you can clean his room or you could shut his door or you could do any number of things and just enjoy your life.

Yes.

Simple.

Incredible.

Really simple.

And then how does life look when we're walking around without this stress?

So one of the things that I've noticed that happens is like a thoughts just come in and my mind usually questions them right away.

Or I'm more in touch with what happens to my physiology when I believe a thought.

And if my physiology is getting really stressed out,

Then I can already start questioning it.

Right away I could be like,

Oh,

Do I need to make this stressful for me?

Do I need to put this should on myself?

It's incredible.

I think what I appreciate so much about these processes that you've synthesized and that you've summarized and made so accessible for people is that you are tapping into our neurochemistry.

And what you're doing by empowering people to go through this process is that you're helping them to activate their prefrontal cortex to name it.

Once we name something,

Once we become an observer,

We are taking power away from that belief,

From that thing.

And by facing what it is that we could spend our whole lives running away from,

We're actually enabling ourselves to move through it.

I think I've told you I read this book several times and I use it on my own and I use it with the people that I help.

And it's just incredible.

So so you can use it in your relationships and you've used it with parenting.

It sounds like you used it in conversations with your husband and your clients have used it in terms of their relationships.

How does this work in terms of,

Say,

A nutrition goal or a wellness goal or a business goal?

So one of the things that people do with their goals is that they have a whole bunch of should or need statements around their goals.

So a common thing that comes my way because I help people with their health and nutrition is people wanting to lose weight.

And they have a belief,

I should lose weight or I'm too fat or I'm not fit enough or whatever it is.

And one of the interesting things about should statements is that we hold on to them because we believe they're going to help us get to where we want to go.

And we think it's going to be this stick,

Right?

So it's the stick that's hitting us and it kind of hurts.

But that's okay because that pain is going to get us where we want to go.

Okay,

Walk me through this.

There's a belief someone has,

This man says to himself,

I should lose weight.

And so his belief,

I should lose weight,

Is like a stick.

Yeah,

It makes him feel bad.

And he thinks it's okay that he feels bad.

Okay,

He's pushing himself in order to push himself forward.

Exactly.

And the reason we do this is because as babies,

The only way we could get our needs met is by feeling bad.

So if you're thirsty or you need your diaper changed,

You have to cry.

And it's a really great strategy for babies.

It works really well.

If the baby doesn't cry,

He's very likely not going to get his needs met.

We experience a feedback loop of discomfort and getting our needs met.

And so we learn to create that.

Okay?

Yes,

Right?

I hear it.

So,

And just because a loop works or a strategy works at a certain point in our lives doesn't mean it's always going to be effective.

And so part of maturing is recognizing that that's like a really ineffective tool for the future.

It sounds like.

We need other tools,

Right?

So you can do it right now.

And all of the listeners can do this also.

So I want you to imagine if it helps you to close your eyes,

I recommend you close your eyes.

Imagine that right in front of you,

A few feet in front of you is this long table covered in your favorite junkiest desserts and treats.

You there?

Can you see the table?

You know that I don't eat any of these things.

Right?

So,

But you can imagine.

Wait a second.

What do I do?

Because I stopped eating sugar,

Processed foods.

Just picture the table,

Even though,

Even so,

Just picture the table anyway.

Right?

So picture like the junkiest food that you know isn't good for you,

But that you love.

Just picture it on that table.

I don't love junk food anymore.

I gotta be,

I gotta be real with you.

Okay,

Perfect.

Okay.

So,

So this would probably wouldn't be like a good example for you,

But I'm trying to think of like,

Is there another thing that you're somewhat addicted to that you know,

Isn't good for you?

Would it be like Facebook or sitting on the couch,

Watching a stupid movie?

Scrolling through my Facebook.

Listen,

We can do the food example for our listeners.

I know food is a huge one for so many people.

It's a huge one for people.

So let's do the food and then we'll.

It doesn't,

It doesn't make a difference.

I'm going to do both.

Okay.

Okay.

So either imagine a buffet of like Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and emails and text messages and blah,

Blah,

Blah.

The table is a big scrolling.

Yes.

Right?

That's,

That's option one.

Or if you are dealing with weight stuff or food stuff,

So you can picture this like big table covered in your like favorite junkiest stuff.

Okay.

And so close your eyes and picture that in front of you.

And I want you to notice what happens when you're believing the thought you should lose weight or you should stop scrolling.

You should stop scrolling.

Okay.

I just want to hug the table.

Exactly.

That's what everyone says,

Right?

Some version of that people want to approach the table and not pull themselves away from it.

So that's like a huge aha moment that we're using this strategy that we think is going to help us get to where we want to go.

And it turns out it's insanely ineffective.

It's not just that it makes us feel bad.

Like we're like,

Oh,

Well,

It makes me feel bad,

But it's worth it.

But it makes us feel bad and it's not worth it.

So somehow turning that around to,

I should keep scrolling and just to give permission to what actually is happening in the moment.

That for me was a big deal when I believe the thought that I should pray every day.

And I hadn't prayed in like two years and I felt really guilty about it.

And I brought it to my girlfriend's group and I was so embarrassed to share this thing that I should pray,

But I don't.

And half of them were like,

Oh yeah,

I have that thought too.

Like,

And we all just laughed.

And then the group facilitated me through that thought.

And a few days later,

Naturally without any effort on my part,

My body just got up and went over to my bookshelf and pulled out a prayer book.

And I began to pray.

It was like so natural.

It didn't even take any effort.

I didn't even think about it.

It just happened because I was no longer holding on to a should and arguing with myself.

Like here I was a person who didn't pray,

But I was arguing and saying,

No,

The way you are isn't okay.

I'm going to put a should on you that you should be something else.

Right.

So if right now I like junky food and I'm not on a diet or I'm not losing weight and I say I should lose weight.

So I'm going to go into fight or flight.

And when I go into fight or flight,

One of the things I want to do is flee towards my addiction of choice.

It makes so much sense because the mental energy that and stress that is going into this like fight in the mind is literally taking the energy away from our ability to make a rational self empowering decision.

It makes so much sense.

You know,

It's so interesting.

You bring up the topic of food,

Food comes up a lot on the podcast because there is this mind body relationship because then it's,

It's,

It's like,

It's so cool.

It's like shifting out of fight or flight.

There's no fight anymore.

There's no struggle.

You can just be present.

You can be present.

You can actually tune into how,

How the food makes you feel.

I mean,

How many people are gorging on dessert and they never feel full?

I would imagine a lot.

Very often they don't even taste the food.

They don't even taste the food.

Let's talk about that for a minute.

I would love to hear your take on how that works.

You,

You help so many people get well,

And I know that physical wellness is a focus for you as well as this cognitive component.

So can you share with us a little bit about why are people not tasting their food?

So I,

I think that there's that same thing from when we're very,

You know,

Young food is one of the ways that we feel loved and nurtured.

And that makes a lot of sense.

It is very loving and nurturing,

And I can't help but want to nurture my family through food also.

Like it's just part of what humans do.

But there's like a point at which that has to end and we can recognize that there are other ways to nurture ourselves that aren't food.

Like what you just said,

There are other ways to nurture ourselves.

There are other ways to nurture ourselves.

When you go to your drug of choice,

Like you go to take your phone or you go to eat something,

You can ask yourself,

What need do I have right now that I'm trying to fill with this phone?

And it brings you back,

Right?

So one of the things that you're talking about is that your focus is on being with yourself and,

Oh,

What's right for me right now?

As opposed to being outside of yourself in some should or some argument or some presuppositions from society or whatever it is.

So to go back into yourself and say,

Oh,

What need do I have?

And it could be that my need is actually for quiet.

But I'm reaching for my phone and that could be like,

Oh.

Or it could be that I have a need for connection.

And then I can ask myself,

Is this the most effective avenue I have right now to meet my need for connection?

And I could recognize actually my husband is in the other room.

I could go there and say,

Honey,

I'd really like a hug.

That that might fill that need so much more than going to my phone.

I see with food it makes a lot of sense.

And essentially what you're saying is by letting go of the should,

By letting go of the pressure that people are putting on themselves about this man telling himself I should lose weight.

He's setting aside the cognitive struggle so that he can tune in with his body and ask himself,

What is the need that this food could be filling for me?

And then making this logical,

Rational decision whether or not to eat it.

And maybe just being in a state of flow with food rather than using it as like a way to run away from whatever it is that's inside of me that I'm uncomfortable with.

That sounds so,

So good.

So,

Hana,

This has been enlightening.

So helpful.

It's always a pleasure to hear from you.

I could just spend days with you.

I think we need to do a retreat or something.

Sounds good.

Tell our listeners where they can find you and all about your other books.

And you do so many things.

So,

Phyllis.

What are you guys in?

So,

People can find me on my website,

Hana mason.

Com.

That's c-h-a-n-a-m-a-s-o-n dot com.

And I actually have two other books I'm going to show you really quickly.

So,

One just got released a month ago.

Super excited about it.

It's called The Cash Machine.

And this book teaches people the principles of financial independence but through a love story.

And actually,

One financial guru recently posted a review how this for him has replaced Rich Dad,

Poor Dad as the book that he would recommend to people if they want to get an education about money.

And this book is called The Size of Your Dreams.

And it was really cool because two days ago,

There it is,

Yay!

Two days ago,

We had a message from this 13-year-old kid who's an avid reader and said this is the best book he's ever read in his life.

And he wants more books that do what this book does.

So,

We're really passionate.

My husband and I write this book and The Cash Machine together.

We're really passionate about teaching through story.

So,

Here we teach tons of personal growth tools all about goal setting and building a mastermind group and developing a strong sense of identity.

But it's through a novel.

So,

It's just like a page turner.

It's super fun to read,

Really engaging and love it.

We have just so many people who are telling us that it's absolutely changing their lives.

That is so exciting.

It's really cool.

There's just so much creativity here.

And I know that you just came back from Mexico.

So,

You're not only doing retreats in English,

You're doing them in Spanish as well?

Spanish,

Yes.

I'm originally from Colombia.

So,

Spanish is kind of one of the tools in my basket.

It's great.

Wow.

So,

What's your story?

You were born in Colombia.

And how'd you get to Israel?

So,

I grew up with a very strong Jewish identity and we moved to the States when I was five and people had asked me like,

Are you Colombian?

I never really felt Colombian.

I never really felt American.

I felt Jewish.

Like that was like that that was when I could sort of the identity that I could easily connect to.

And I grew up in Miami.

And when I was in college,

I came to Israel for the first time and overheard someone having a conversation about this thing called Yeshiva,

This like school where you could go to get a Jewish education.

And I had been wanting a Jewish education forever.

I was so excited.

I didn't know such a thing existed.

So,

I decided,

I know,

Can you believe it?

So,

I decided I was going to come back to Israel and go to one of these learning places and get a Jewish education.

And then I'd see from there like what I wanted my Jewish life to look like.

So,

I finished university and I moved to Sydney,

Australia.

I worked for a management consulting firm there.

Wow.

And yeah,

That was my business education.

That was great.

And after that year,

I came to Israel for the summer to get my Jewish education.

I figured all it takes is a summer.

And after all it takes is one summer.

Yeah,

That's it,

Right?

We're still working on it,

Right?

20 years later.

After a few weeks.

After a few weeks,

It became very clear that I wanted to stay for the year.

And soon after,

Just realized that this is home.

And it's such a great thing to be able to be in a country that feels like my country.

It's an absolute pleasure.

And this place is so alive and so vibrant and so craving to make the world a better place.

It's an absolute pleasure to have that be the environment that I'm in all the time.

Incredible.

What a story.

Hannah Mason,

Thank you so much.

Thank you so much.

Alright,

Wasn't that amazing?

Hannah is so awesome.

Definitely reach out to her on her website.

I'm going to link in the show notes so that you can contact Hannah and find out about her book.

She has a brand new book that she just co-wrote with her husband called The Cash Machine.

And it sounds exciting,

Right?

I'm really looking forward to checking that one out.

And of course,

Hold That Thought is phenomenal.

It is available for free on Amazon.

How cool is Hannah?

You can get the e-book for free.

So be in touch with Hannah.

Check out her book.

Link to both in the show notes.

And I want to do a quick review for you so that you can benefit from these tools.

And so that you can use them on your own in any moment.

Okay?

So the first thing that you're going to want to start out with anytime you question beliefs is a breathing exercise or something to regulate your system so that you can calmly approach this process.

We can perceive new ideas and opposing beliefs as opposition.

And we can perceive those as stressful.

By calming down the nervous system,

We are actually able to integrate new ideas and new beliefs into who we are and into our brains with much more ease.

So we're going to go ahead and do a breathing exercise now.

And we're going to do some coherent breathing,

Which means that you breathe in and you breathe out for the same number of counts.

We're going to breathe in for seven,

Starting now.

Five,

Six,

Seven,

And out.

Five,

Six,

Seven,

And go ahead and repeat.

Five,

Seven,

And out.

Staying connected to your breath,

You can think about one thought,

One idea that's coming up for you that is stressful right now.

A lot of people are thinking ahead into the far future and scanning for threats and so forth.

You can think of a thought that is a fearful thought,

A stressful thought.

And the first question we're going to ask about that thought is,

Is it true?

Is it true?

Ask yourself and write down what you think.

The next question is,

Can you absolutely know that this is true?

And this is really your opportunity to go deeper into the unknown and find the answers beneath what you think you might know.

You can take a moment there to write that down.

And the third question is,

How do you react?

What happens when you believe that thought?

So in believing that thought,

You are likely going to notice the effects of believing.

You can see that when you believe it,

There is an effect or a disturbance that's going on inside your body.

It could be a sensation,

Something uncomfortable,

Could be fear,

Could be panic.

What is it that you feel?

How do you act?

How do you treat yourself and how do you treat others when you believe this thought?

Make a list and be specific.

You can pause this recording if you need to and come back to it,

Because the last question we're going to ask ourselves is the golden question,

Which is,

Who would you be without that thought?

Imagine yourself operating,

Walking through your day today,

Tomorrow,

Without believing that thought.

How does your day look different?

If you didn't think that stressful thought,

If you didn't feed it,

If you didn't continue that thought on repeat,

How would your life look different?

Which feels kinder to you?

Which feels more peaceful?

Which scenario empowers you to live your best life?

I think it's pretty clear to all of us when we sit down and we do this activity that we can take care of those things which are within our control.

And the second we start focusing on things that are out of our control,

We begin to feel out of control.

So I want to encourage you to continue returning to those things which are within your control.

If you get off track,

If you get worried,

If you notice yourself feeling discomfort,

You can just remind yourself,

This is normal.

This is part of the process.

And return to focusing on something that you can control.

If it's a project that you're working on,

If it's a game you're playing,

If it's a nature walk.

I know yesterday I went foraging and I was looking for specific plants and it gave me a goal.

It gave me something to look for.

It's so important in stressful times that we can shift our seeking rather than seeking and scanning for threats and negativity.

Which is intelligent to a degree because it keeps us safe.

When it becomes distressful,

It can remind us to shift toward focusing on finding things that are going to empower us to live our best now.

Continuing to return moment by moment to right here,

Right now.

Looking at the objects that we see,

Focusing on the beauty,

Gorgeous photographs,

Beautiful art,

The smile on someone's face.

Make a phone call.

Call someone you haven't spoken to for a while.

Organize a virtual gathering.

Step out of your comfort zone.

Do something new.

And look for ways where you're helping and where you're making an effort.

I don't care if it's getting out of bed in the morning when you didn't want to.

Start giving yourself credit and really acknowledge yourself for all the places where you're trying.

Because we're all trying right now.

It's especially difficult for so many.

And it's that much more important to empower ourselves with compassion and with love.

And you know,

Sometimes people worry like if they're too nice to themselves and too kind to themselves,

Like maybe they'll never accomplish anything.

But what we are learning in self-compassion science and what we've actually known for a long time in the science of education,

Is that people who learn from their failures and learn from mistakes and make attributions that are external to themselves,

They look at the circumstances and they say,

Oh that's the reason why I was feeling stressed.

Oh these things were happening around me.

And okay,

That is the understandable,

Normal,

Physiological response.

They give themselves understanding.

Oh I didn't do so well on my math test.

Oh well,

I went out too late the night before to my friend's birthday party and okay,

Next time I have a test coming up,

I'm going to get a good night's sleep beforehand.

And by making these external attributions,

Understanding our circumstances,

We can collect valuable data to bring back to ourselves in order to make changes in our life,

In our habits.

And it's really powerful because blaming ourselves,

It doesn't empower us.

It actually takes our power away.

We are empowered when we look clearly at our circumstances and when we look clearly at all of the variables that are creating the moment.

So as clear as we can be,

It's going to be to our success and it's really going to help us all so much right now.

It's been a joy sharing this episode with you and connecting.

And I'm going to be doing some more Facebook Lives and checking in with you.

I'm also going to be doing an episode this week,

A special interactive with Ines live with one of my favorite doctors.

So stay tuned for that.

I have Mindful Skater Girl,

Shelly Tagelski and David G coming up next week.

Shelly is in Florida and she and David G did a meditation tour here in Israel that was incredible.

And she came home and right away started this love pandemic where she's matching people in need with people who can give.

And I think she's already matched like fifteen hundred people.

She's incredible.

I've posted some information about her on my Facebook.

Connect with me on Facebook if you haven't already.

It's my full name,

Adriela Jankovic.

Or you can join my community Circle of Insight.

That's on Facebook also.

And stay in touch with me.

I'm also giving away my book.

I have a lot going on right now.

I'm just I'm trying to be there for you all however I can.

So let me know what that is for you.

If it's the book,

Hop over to my website and let me know that you want one and I'll send it right over to you.

And if it's something else,

You know,

I'm here for you.

I'm thinking of doing masterminding.

So masterminding the pandemic right now.

Really masterminding for the soul.

I think that's what we need right now.

Coming together.

And I'm happy to facilitate some groups.

So stay connected,

My friends.

Keep breathing.

Keep acknowledging yourself.

And keep rising.

You got this and you are so much stronger than you think.

Every blessing today and always.

You.