I have learned that we develop ways of being in our childhood based on our personalities and environments. We have subconscious programming because of our upbringing, our nervous system, past trauma, our social conditioning, genetics, so many factors. Every single experience we have informs our brains how to think in order to keep us safe. As children, we observe what works and doesn’t work and make assumptions based on our limited knowledge. We do what we think we need to do to feel safe, to belong, to keep the peace, to survive. We do our best to adjust and adapt accordingly to our parents’ moods, addictions, ways of being, good or bad. We do the best we can with what we know.

What I have come to realize is that sometimes those patterns and ways of being don’t serve us well in adulthood.

We did what we could in childhood immaturity to survive because we were dependent on others for our survival. As we become adults, we should mature. It seems more often than not; we just stay in our old ways of being. We think this is just who I am and how I am. We may want to do better but feel incapable and/or uncertain how to do better. Thinking like “this is just the way I am” is limited thinking.

One of the first step to developing new ways of being is believing change is possible. Believing God in us can helps us change and transform. He is making us new. Then I think we must begin practicing awareness around our current thinking. We must take ownership for our lives and the results we are getting. We practice maturity by being responsible for ourselves and what we are creating with our thinking and choosing.

One of the first things I started paying attention to were my “triggers.” Things that happened that caused me to respond in a way that seemed automatic, like I didn’t have control over my reaction in these areas, even though I did not like my reaction and wanted to respond better.

We all have “triggers.” Things that seem to set us off in a downward spiral. These triggers can be any number of things or situations or topics or people based on our subconscious programming. For example, one thing I tend to get triggered by, or used to get triggered by, is not knowing how to do something. I used to think I had to know how to do whatever was asked of me even if I had never done it before. If I didn’t know how I felt unqualified, and not smart. (Today I wonder how much of that pressure did others put on me or how much did I put on myself because of thinking I had developed as I grew up.)

Another trigger for me is not knowing where something is. I used to feel like I was supposed to know where every document/paper, tool, item, etc., someone needed in my family was in our house and if I did not, I felt disorganized, like I couldn’t keep up with life, and a failure.

The last small trigger of mine I’ll mention is not having what people need or want readily available in our house, especially food. For some reason, I felt I needed to always be thinking two steps ahead and be prepared with whatever anyone, usually my family members, might need or want. If my husband asked for a food item that we did not have I would feel like I was not good at my job as a wife, a failure. Sometimes not having something would cause me to feel overwhelmed by all I am supposed to keep up with, or maybe even a bit resentful about how little I thought he had to do compared to me.

(These triggers feel kind of silly as I type this, but it is true. And that goes back to my thinking about all of this. Truth is we all make up stories in our heads. Sometimes we make up stories that don’t serve us and cause us to not show up well in our lives. It doesn’t have to be this way! There is a better Way! Change is possible.)

So here is an up close and personal look at how my thinking goes and how I practice mind management. This example used to have the potential to ruin an evening maybe even my mood for a couple of days.

Sunday before last, after being gone for a night to visit out-of-town family and running on less sleep and new schedules with an 11-week-old puppy, I was easily triggered by a comment Dean made about food. He texted me Sunday afternoon and said that he was taking a “free-day.” I thought it was nice of him to share, and I did appreciate it, but I had forgotten about Sundays being a possible free-day for him because he’s been dieting for six months and hadn’t been taking free-days.

I am a planner and I like to cook. Before I left to go out of town, I had made a pasta dish that I planned on baking Sunday evening. On my way home from Kentucky, I had stopped at the store and gotten a bakery loaf of rosemary olive oil bread. I had thought maybe Eli and his girlfriend would eat dinner with us because they do that sometimes on Sundays. I thought they would eat the rosemary bread with me. For those of you who don’t know, my husband is a very simple eater and would not eat bread with the word rosemary in the title. I debated getting just a loaf of sourdough in the store but didn’t. From now on I will stick with the plain bread because after I had said I was making the pasta dish because I had asked Dean what he wanted on his free-day and volunteered to go get it he didn’t decide or specify. So, I baked the pasta. He said, “I’ll make French toast with the bread you purchased if there is plenty,” and I said, “it’s rosemary bread” and was extremely apologetic for purchasing rosemary bread instead of plain bread. He hasn’t eaten bread in months! I wasn’t thinking about a free day. He texted about the free day after I had already been to the store.

Surely you are beginning to see, or maybe understand because you have been here before too, how a conversation can spiral quickly, and how our thinking can take us to places we don’t want to go if we are not paying attention!

It is out of love for Dean and wanting him to have what he wants that I react, but instead of being mad at myself for not having what he wants or not knowing what he was going to decide, I decided to just be like, okay I’ll try to remember that you are taking Sundays as a free day moving forward. I decided to tell myself I did the best I could with what I knew. It was an unusual weekend where we were off our normal schedules. I nicely reminded myself that there was no way I could know what he was thinking. I nicely reminded myself that I normally get him whatever he asks for, so it is okay if this one time I don’t have it. I reminded myself that Dean is a very capable human being and can get for himself whatever he would like too, I don’t have to feel responsible to get it for him. And I reminded myself that sometimes we don’t get what we want. I choose to pay attention to the story I was making up in my head and the feelings I was generating with my thinking about this situation.

You may think this is a small silly example, but I have found that if we let the little things get to us, and we are telling ourselves a bad story about ourselves or the other person, then we can build up bitterness and resentment over time that no longer feels small and silly.

Our thinking is so powerful!!! Our thoughts create our feelings. From our feelings we take actions. Our actions give us the results of our lives.

If you feel stuck in a cycle of repeating the same actions over and over and they are not the actions you want to be repeating, I encourage you to begin to pay attention to your thinking. I encourage you to practice awareness around your thoughts. I encourage you to talk to God, ask Him for help. He is in you and available to help you all the time. Also, believe change is possible! Believe God working in you can do the work as you do your work. And practice self-compassion! We have been doing things a certain way for years so it will take time, and a lot of practicing, to develop new ways of being. It is possible! Keep practicing!