3 Ways You Can Respond to Your Thoughts and Feelings

I don’t know how old I was when it happened … I’m guessing around 8-years old.

My oldest brother and I were standing on a wharf. “How deep do you think it is?” I’d barely uttered these words before he pushed me in.

I panicked, sunk and would have drowned had it not been for my uncle. He ran across the sand, jumped into the ocean, swam towards me, and returned me to dry land. I burped in his face when he asked, “are you okay?” I’d swallowed lots of salt water.

Struggling vs Surrendering

Struggling is the worst thing you can do when you’re in deep water.

You don’t have to do anything to float but surrender your full weight on the water, trusting you will be supported. Struggling usually leads to sinking. The same principle applies to difficult thoughts and feelings: they get worse the more you struggle against them.

But surrendering to our thoughts and feelings is defeatist … who wants to do that?

Allowing

Instead, think of them like the weather.

You can’t control the weather, but you can dress for different weather conditions. Likewise, you can’t control your thoughts and feelings, but you can allow them to come and go … just as they please, without struggling against them or surrendering to them.