Mindset: Circumstance vs Perception | ep85
Today’s Mindset Monday reads:
Your experience of your life is directly connected to your perception of your life. Shifting your mindset isn’t about thinking positively, love. It’s about choosing what you focus your attention on over and over again.
So often we think it’s our circumstances that are dictating how we feel. But mindset work teaches us that it’s not what’s happening in our lives that’s affecting our emotions but how we perceive it instead.
In this episode, I’m sharing my most powerful tools to help you shift your mindset in a healthy and genuine way.
To take these tools further, listen to episode 20 | Faith over Fear to learn how to create thoughts that allow you to feel the good feelings now.
A quote to take with you:
“Our experience of our life is connected to the perception of our life.”
Want to dive deeper through journal prompts?
If you want to be in the know and get each Mindset Monday straight to your inbox complete with journal prompts to take you even further, get on my email list.
About your host, Shirin Eskandani
Hi, love! I’m Shirin.
Coach, speaker, writer, and life alchemist.
I teach you how to trust your intuition again, tune out all the BS, and let your heart lead the way.
Because once you strengthen your inner GPS, decisions become easier, boundaries become clearer, and belly laughs become a daily thing.
A LITTLE BIT ABOUT ME:
I’m a certified life coach (accredited through the International Coach Federation)
My husband and I met on Instagram and we live in Brooklyn, NY with our plant babies
I have a masters degree in Music and was a professional opera singer for twelve years. I worked all over the world singing on stage at Carnegie Hall and the Metropolitan Opera (more on that later…).
I believe in the woo just as much as I do the work (internal and external). No amount of crystals and affirmations will make up for a lack of a healthy mindset and aligned action.
I love all the Real Housewives franchises. Don’t make me choose one… seriously, don’t.
+ Read the episode transcript here
[00:00:00] Welcome to Wholehearted Coaching: The Podcast. If you're looking for more purpose, more passion, more joy in your life. Then you have come to the right place, let's create your dream life while living your dream life. Okay. Love.
[00:00:21] Hi love. Welcome to Wholehearted Coaching: The Podcast. This is where we take a deeper dive into my mindset Monday post, which you can read on Instagram at @wholeheartedcoaching, or you can get the full post. Plus my weekly journal prompts. When you sign up for my email list, you can do that in the show notes, or you can head to my website, wholehearted-coaching.com.
[00:00:45] So today we're going to talk about mindset, how to shift your mindset. And I really love to talk about this topic because there are so many misconceptions about what shifting your mindset is. I think a lot of us think that shifting your mindset is just thinking positive all the time and that's not what it is.
[00:01:05] And I think that's one of the big reasons why a lot of us feel turned off by it because it doesn't seem realistic. A lot of us feel like we're failing at shifting our mindset. So today's episode is a really great one. If you are really curious about what mindset work truly is, and we're doing this the whole hearted.
[00:01:28] So, this is the way of doing mindset work that is practical and compassionate, and that there is ease because mindset work can truly be one of the most powerful tools in your self care wellness, healing, toolbox. Actually, I'm going to change that. It is the most powerful tool. But it's only powerful if you fully know how to use it.
[00:01:55] So that's what we're going to dig into today. And I'm going to be sharing a very, very vulnerable. Story about myself in this episode. And I really want to share it with you because I think we all need to be more open and vulnerable with each other about our struggles. I think often we put people on a pedestal.
[00:02:20] Not that I'm saying you put me on a pedestal, but we all know that we have people in our lives and in certain points in our lives where we just think like everyone is doing better than us and that no one could possibly. Be thinking this or doing this or going through this. And I want y'all to know that love I too, am going through it as well.
[00:02:41] So today's episode is about mindset work. We're getting vulnerable, we're going deep. So today's mindset Monday reads your experience of your life is directly connected to your perception of your life. Shifting your mindset. Isn't about just thinking positive. It's about choosing what you believe to be true over and over and over again.
[00:03:08] So story time, this story is actually very fresh, very new. It happened earlier this week. So every Monday I send out an email I talk about at the top of this podcast, right? There is a weekly email where we go deeper into the mindset. Monday posts. There are journal prompts and I get to connect with you in your inbox.
[00:03:28] And every week when I send this email out, what do you think? The first thing I do is the first thing I do when I know that it is in your inbox. I go and check how many people have unsubscribed from my email list. That is the very first thing I do. I totally ignore the hundreds of people who are opening the email and reading through the email.
[00:04:00] And clicking on the links and doing all the amazing things. Yes. I can get that information when, you know, you opened my emails, but I don't look at that. I completely ignore all of that. And I go straight to the unsubscribes. That's where my energy goes. That's where my mind goes. That is where I focus my attention on.
[00:04:24] So this last Monday, I had a lot of people unsubscribe from my email and it's not because it was a trash email. It's because I'm using a new email provider. And so my email list has now become one large email list, meaning a lot more people get my emails. So if in the past five or six people unsubscribed every week, now it's around maybe 20 or 30 and y'all.
[00:04:49] Just seeing that number. It just made me so sad. And I started to think, oh my gosh, I don't know what I'm doing. I I'm, I'm not doing this email thing. Right. I'm not a good coach. I'm just taking a people's space in their inbox. I'm a failure. And I just got so down on myself. So that happened. And I kind of just brushed it off.
[00:05:15] I was like, whatever, it's fine, whatever. This is just what you always do. Just brush it off. And so then I went and opened up Instagram and I had a DM from someone and I open up the DM and it is the most kind and loving, DM message from someone in this community telling me just out of the blue that they wanted to let me know how much I have changed their life.
[00:05:38] This person hasn't worked with me, this person just listens to the podcast and subscribes to the emails and is on my Instagram. And they were just sharing with. How thankful they were, how grateful they were. And so I see this DM and it doesn't shift anything. I'm still thinking about those 30 unsubscribes.
[00:06:00] So that happens. So then I go and just check to see whether the podcast went up. Sometimes I'd like to double check. And so I go into iTunes and all of a sudden, I see, oh my gosh, there's a new review for the podcast. And this review y'all. I mean, it was such a beautiful review. So if you're listening love, thank you for that beautiful review.
[00:06:24] Actually, you know what? I am going to pull up the name of that person, Sarah bear, six to eight, bless your heart for that wonderful review that you left. And so I see this amazing review and of course it should fill my heart with glean. It should just erase all that other stuff from earlier today. Right?
[00:06:47] All the unsubscribes that I'm fixating on, it should just erase that. And it doesn't, it does not because all I can think about are those unsubscribes. And as I was going through this, I said to myself, you have to make a podcast episode about this because I know that this is something we all go through.
[00:07:10] And I know that this is what really creates our experience of our life. Right? Our experience of our life is connected to the perception of our life. And so in that moment, my experience of my life was really not great. I was sad. I felt like a failure. I was overwhelmed. I felt incapable. And it was all because of how I was seeing things.
[00:07:42] I was seeing the negative, the unsubscribes, and that was what was the most quote unquote important thing to me, not all those beautiful reviews, not all the people who opened up the emails, but what I was fixating on, which was why did they leave? Now, listen, this podcast episode, isn't about, you know, me forcing you to stay on my email list.
[00:08:07] No, you do what you need to do. I know I have some coaches I love and I got to unsubscribe from their stuff. So please do not feel guilted into that, but this podcast episode, Is me letting you know that I am there with you too, because of course, then the judgment comes in of, oh my gosh. Why are you focusing on this stuff?
[00:08:28] Why are you focusing on the negative? Just shift to the positive. And I think that's what we all think mindset work is. Right. Well, it's dumb to focus on the unsubscribes, Sharon. Okay. Be smart and focus on the good stuff. But I, in that moment could. I just could not. And I have a feeling that you, my love have been there too in that place.
[00:08:51] We were actually super aware that you can't receive the good and that all you are seeing in your life is the. Right. Is that negative comment that someone made is that client who didn't sign up to do that program you created is that email you got from your employer who had that weird sentence in it that made you feel a certain way.
[00:09:16] And we fixate on those things. So I want in this episode to talk to you about how I, quote unquote shifted my mindset, how I changed my mind. And hopefully from what I did, you can learn as well and try the same for yourself. Now, a huge disclaimer here, when it comes to mindset work, it is a practice on Sundays.
[00:09:41] You will be able to do what I am saying with such ease. And on some days you're going to be like, you know what? Remember that podcast episode? Nope. Can't even do it. And that is all right. This is a practice. Here I am on this day, feeling all sorts of overwhelm and sadness and frustration thinking. I am not a great coach.
[00:10:05] I'm a failure, all of these things. So what did I do? Well, the first thing we have to understand about our mindset is that we are biological. Wired to look at the negative. This is called the negativity bias. There's tons of research on it, but what it really is is that our ancestors, right, they had to have a really keen sense of danger.
[00:10:30] They had to be constantly be looking out for things that could harm them. And so they kind of biologically wired within the us, this system that makes us also look for the negative, right. To keep us quote unquote safe. So we have the negativity bias. And then on top of that, you know, we have that societal conditioning, whether it is from your family society at large, the community you grew up in, if you experienced a lot of trauma, these things also reinforce in us that you have to look for the negative, right?
[00:11:04] That is how we stay safe and protected. And that is how we motivate ourselves to change things in our life. So that's the very first thing I want you to know about mindset work and shifting your mindset is that there is conditioning here. And so we are also dismantling and undoing our conditioning, which doesn't mean that it cannot be done.
[00:11:27] But I think understanding that conditioning piece is really important because it offers us some grace and some patience and some understanding, we have been trained conditioned socialized to be this way. And so it takes a little bit of time and it wasn't our idea to be like this. Right. So we are undoing all of that.
[00:11:51] So that's the first thing I want you to know when it comes to shifting your mind. So a lot of people would think, okay, mindset works. So the next step, the next thing you did, Sharon was just pick another thought, pick a great thought that I'm a great coach. I'm not a failure. I'm a total success. No, that's not what we do for me.
[00:12:12] The first step of all of this is the self-awareness, which is, I actually really want to know what I'm thinking. I want to know all of those negative thoughts and beliefs. I want to know what I am holding on to. So there's a great question that we ask ourselves. And this comes from Byron Katie, and she says that when you go through a difficult circumstance or when you have a belief, when something happens, that kind of makes you feel down that you deem as quote, unquote negative, you put the.
[00:12:47] Which means that after it. So in this case it would be 20 people unsubscribed from my email list, which means that, and then I set a timer for two to five minutes. Two minutes is actually like pretty short. Trust me on this one. You could go for a while on this, especially at the beginning, I set a timer for two minutes and I write down all the thoughts that come to my mind.
[00:13:13] So 20 people unsubscribed from my podcast or for my email list, which means that I have nothing worthy to say the things that I believe aren't a value. I'm not good at this coaching thing. I'm bothering people. I'm pestering people. People don't want to be in my community. People don't want to be around me.
[00:13:33] So I just start furiously writing all these things and what I was doing, what we're doing in that moment is allowing our subconscious to just dump it all out. And let me tell you, the first few times you do this exercise and it is such a powerful exercise. Y'all I really recommend it. It is scary. It is emotional.
[00:13:52] You will be overwhelmed by what you write down. You may not be surprised by what you write down, but seeing it written down right there will be emotions around. But we cannot heal what we don't acknowledge. Right. We have to shed a light on this stuff. A lot of people are like, I don't want to know this. I don't want to see this, but you're actually holding onto it or you're holding onto it each and every day it is in you, you are thinking it.
[00:14:18] So put it down on that piece of paper love. So this is the first thing we got to do is get clear on what you're thinking. And when you look at those things, when you finish the timer, look at them, see what stands out. See what resonates with you. Don't skip to the steps of shifting the thoughts. Just feel the feels first, love the sadness, the frustration, the overwhelm, whatever it may be, and then sending compassion to yourself, sending so much love to yourself.
[00:14:55] I often use the example of think of what you would say to a shy. If a child came to you and said these things and not by dismissing the child, but really being with the child. I'm so sorry that you think that I'm so sorry, but that's not true. That is so not true. So tending to yourself and then asking yourself, is this the truth?
[00:15:18] Is this the absolute truth about who I am? And these questions come from Byron Katie's war. For me, they're so powerful because they take me out of the trance. Right? It's a transfer in, in those moments. I'm in a trance because I can't describe it in any other way. When I go and see a positive comment on my podcast page, when I go and see a positive comment in my Instagram and I can't fully embrace it, I'm in a trance.
[00:15:45] Y'all, I'm in a trance. So this is how we break the trance. And so now the second. Is really disassociating what's happening and how I'm feeling. So this is my second biggest mindset tool. So the first one is asking yourself, which means that, and the second one is understanding the difference between a circumstance and your perception of a circumstance.
[00:16:17] So, so often we think that it's the circumstances in our life that make us feel a certain way. Right. That when it's rainy, I'm sad because it's rainy. Or when someone texts me, I am happy because they have texted me back. And in this instance, right, that it's those 20 people leaving my email list. That is making me feel so down on myself, but that's not the truth.
[00:16:47] A circumstance is simply a circumstance. Brooke Castillo says, and she's a life coach as well. Brooke Castillo says that a circumstance is a neutral. It's something that is happening has happened or is going to happen. And that we don't have control over. Now. At first, when I heard this, I was like, what are you talking about?
[00:17:09] But it's the truth. When the weather is cold and rain. I don't have control over that thinking of my past and maybe thinking of a incident that happened. That's not so awesome. I have no control over that. Now these are circumstances, right? Another example, which I think hits home for many women, unfortunately, is how much we weigh.
[00:17:35] Right? When you step on a scale, those are just three numbers. That's a circumstance. It's a neutral, it cannot change in that moment. Instead. It is our perception of that circumstance that changes everything that creates how we feel. It is what we believe about that circumstance that makes us feel a certain way.
[00:18:00] And so for instance, with the scale, someone may jump on that scale and see three numbers and say, yes, that's amazing and feel awesome about themselves. And someone may see the exact same three numbers and think, wow, I have no self-control same three numbers, different perceptions. For me in that moment with the email list, 20 people left that's data, that's neutral.
[00:18:26] It was my perception, what I was thinking, all of those things that I wrote down on that piece of paper, when I did the, which means that exercise that are making me feel the way that I am feeling. So knowing that difference, that it's not the number of people that have unsubscribed, that's making me feel this way.
[00:18:46] It's what I'm making this to me. Right. It's what I'm thinking about this specific circumstance. So getting that clarity is so incredibly helpful. And so from there, I think, all right, well, how would I like to feel about this circumstance right now? I feel sad and incapable and you know what, right now I would like to feel really empowered and grateful.
[00:19:16] I want to feel rooted. I want to be present. And so then it's about creating another thought that you can replace the other thought with that allows you to feel those feelings now. And so this can be really tricky. And I really recommend listening to my faith over fear episode. If you want to figure out how to create that type of thought for yourself, but I've been doing this for so long.
[00:19:44] That if I think to myself, okay. I want to feel empowered and grateful. I know my worth, I know my value. I know that I'm not for everyone. And that is not why I do the work that I do. I do the work that I do because I truly believe in it. And I know that I am good at what I do. And I know that those that are here for my work are here for my work.
[00:20:14] Do you sense the shift in that now that is a very long thought, right? It can just be one sentence. Mine was a whole soliloquy. The being able to think, okay, well, how would I like to feel and being very realistic love, right? Sometimes we're like, well, I just want to be super confident and happy, and it's just not possible in that moment.
[00:20:32] So having that sense of real realism, because when it comes to mindset, It's about finding a thought that you can believe in this moment for yourself. Right? So if I came up with a thought and really didn't feel like I could believe it, and that's really such a personal thing, but we know when a thought just feels like a reach for us.
[00:20:53] Right. It has to be a thought that when you say it, you feel a little shift in your belly, you feel your posture a little bit higher. Right. And we know what that feels like. So this is a real practice of trying out some new thoughts, seeing what works, seeing what doesn't work, changing the thoughts, however you want.
[00:21:15] But that's how I was able to shift my mindset in a healthy way, in a compassionate way, in a patient way, in a graceful way. So love yes. Mindset work is about choosing another thought, a thought that's, you know, quote, unquote, more positive. It's also about, you know, looking for the positive in your life.
[00:21:38] But that doesn't mean we ignore all the other stuff. No. We have to shine a light love in order to heal. Rumi says that the wound is where the light is. And if I can get clear on what those thoughts are that I'm having. When I look at that list at the very beginning, then I can't transform all of that.
[00:22:01] Right? No mud, no Lotus. So for me, This is what mindset work is. This is how we transform how we think. And this is how we shift our lives. Love not through positive affirmations. No, it's through these beliefs that we slowly shift and change it's through looking at what we think right now, really looking at it with compassion and kindness and curiosity.
[00:22:31] It's about feeling the feelings, all of them, the full range of them, because that is what healing is. So love, I hope that this episode allowed for you to get a greater insight into what mindset work truly is. I hope that it shifted something in you, and I really hope that you are able to use some of these tools.
[00:22:53] I'm telling you these are my like gold A-plus number one tools that I give to my clients that I use on myself each and every day. And so next week, love, I will talk to you then. Thank you so much for joining me this week. If you liked this week's episode, please share it with a friend comment and rate this podcast until next week.
[00:23:20] See you later. Love.