Barriers and Roadblocks to Soul Progress #13 Turbulent Thinking | EP 053

Dr. Judith Holder: 00:00:06

Welcome to Mastering life's adventures, an educational podcast about tapping into your true self, the soul, your soul, the substance of your life, to discover what life's ups and downs are really about, and how to have a greater sense of purpose, peace, joy, and fulfillment. I'm Dr. Judith holder and your host, Coach psychologist Delos seeker, he enjoys diving into the connections between spirituality, psychology, wellness, and your everyday life's adventures. All comparing and polishing you like the fast is a magnificent diamond to be your best self. If you're craving more from your life, you are in the right place. Come let's journey together and transforming what you know, and to who you really are Mastering life's adventures begins now.

Dr. Judith Holder: 00:01:00

Hi, I'm back. I'm here to talk about the next bearer and roadblock to soul progress. And this one is turbulent thinking. Have you ever thought about when you fly in a plane, and there is you're belted in in that plane and you're off, you're taken off the runway. And then there's announcement by the captain that says please make sure your seatbelt is fastened tightly. Because we are a we're going to be entering immediately into turbulence. And so we experienced the turbulence of the plane shaking and different degrees of turbulence from mild to moderate to severe. And regarding the type that can be really quite bumpy, or just light bumps that take place. It can be really rough as the shaking of the plane to the point of storminess and, and violence of these ups and downs, and it's really feeling like, oh my God am I going to throw up because there's so much turbulence taking place. So you find yourself holding on to your arms of your seat, trying to just weather the storm that you find yourself in, in this turbulence and to the point that you're holding so tight, that your knuckles are turning white, because it is it really moves you into feeling as if and I'm going to make it through because there's rain in some of the turbulence and you realizing that he can also, you know, impasse terminalis. Maybe you've been involved with involved hail. And along with the rain that was taking place, and it was just unpredictable, the type of turbulence that he may experience or have experience, or even will experience in the future. So with that, it brings up a lot of types of emotions, when we're in this turbulence on this plane with other individuals, we're finding that we're wearing, and we're going to make it through and should I have, should I have told my family you know, that, you know, call them even though they tell you not to call, but you know, take it off the airplane mode and let them know what's going on for you because you're not sure if you're gonna make it through. And it can create fear, and anxiety and uncertainty about the future. Some turbulence can be very severe, and it can be to the point of feeling is life threatening to us. But most turbulence is in the moderate to mild level. I am we're very thankful to the Lord that we landed and we kissed the ground and tell the story about our experience that we and others went through on that flight. And how we were praying to make sure we were make it through. But we do we make it through and we move on. We continue to live our lives. Well, just as we can have turbulence that occurs in the air with the air plane that I was talking about. We can also have turbulence and relationships, we can have turbulent careers that take place and the common word is turbulence which is unsettling, disturbing, experiencing ups and downs. And have you ever considered that the state of your thinking can create agitation, disruption, uneasiness, and how it might create a roadblock to your own soul progress? How turbulent thinking can Create a roadblock to how your soul needs to evolve and advance. So I think AAA is on a continuum, even on thinking, from mild to moderate to severe. And that severe is the degree of frequency in which we find ourselves involved in turbulent thinking. And, and we're wanting to be aware of the fact that turbulence equals agitation. That turbulence, as I said, early equals some form of uneasiness, disruption, that's taken place. And it can occur in our thinking, I'm going to share a four ways in which turbulence from the mild to severe can happen for us, and you can choose which one of these is for you. Is it on the mild? Not at all level? Is it kind of moderate? That the turbulence in the thinking that I'm going to be talking about? Or is it more in the severe that it's happening frequently, and it happens on a regular basis for me, all that continuum, I sweat you're making a determination about as you're reflecting on some of the things I'm going to share next. So the first thing is there can be as it relates to turbulent thinking, scattered thinking, that we're jumping around, on able to connect thoughts and to a logical, sequential manner. And that results in us experiencing or other people experiencing around us some degree of negativity and unpleasantness, because of our fragmented, disorganized thinking, and feeling unfocused, people will say, tanta sometimes get to the point, what are you trying to say? Well, what is it? What is it you're trying to let me know about, I feel like you're beating around the bush. And so it makes kind of create some level of turbulence in ourselves, and in terms of feeling agitated, but also for other individuals. So one of the forms of turbulence on the mildest side, potentially, for some individuals, and it may move up to moderate to severe for other individuals, again, based on frequency that this is happening, is scattered thinking. The second form is rumination thinking, ruminating, thinking, that means we end up because of a situation or circumstance or person that happened to us and our interactions that we kind of get more fixated or obsessed about what took place, how it took place, what the person said to us, and how they said it to us. We're finding ourselves revolving like a revolving door, thinking about this thing that happened to us, which is usually when we're getting into ruminating thinking is bad, is not positive, that's happened to us. And it is, if his so much revolving around, and it may even keep us up at night, keep us from sleeping. And it's this ruminating thinking that we have to be aware of it may be related to for example, that we ended up having someone fired, because we reported that person has been tardy, so they ended up being fired. And that wasn't our intent for them to be fired. But we really feel bad about it and remove anything about because there have been something else we could have done at work, or there could have been another approach that we need to take. Because we know that this particular supervisor or boss is always going to be overly critical and reactive to things. And so could we have done that differently? Or could be gone to the person and let the person know, you know, you've been tardy a lot. And can we figure out a way and help you to be more on time, you know, if you want to be as a colleague, or as a frontline supervisor, to that person. So, you know, we started to ruminate, could it have been some other thing that we could have been done in this situation, or with a friend.

Dr. Judith Holder: 00:09:13

And we're telling another friend about this person about they're doing something type of behavior, action, or whatever it may be, that proved to be wrong, that we were inaccurate, that we were actually flat out wrong about the person. And so now, we create this turbulent thinking, and the form of ruminating about oh my god. Why didn't I say that? I don't even think that, why not ask more questions. We start revolving around our thinking with this, and that's a form of turbulence. And then the third one is reactive thinking, and that reactive thinking, sometimes it's not the same as reactive pro thinking Because react to pro thinking is where we are spending our time with anticipating delays or obstacles, and thinking about navigating through those situations, be it at work or at home. But we're kind of being on the proactive thinking side of that reactive aspect. But what I'm talking about here in this reactive thinking, it's more of based upon, we're re acting to a situation that has happened to us. And it is resulting in us, John jumping to conclusions, that he catches us off guard. So we start to have negative triggers about the situation about the person, or the circumstance that we find ourselves in, that results in us really having poor judgment about the situation of poor concentration, we can think very well about what we need to do. And therefore we don't problem solve very well either. And it may increase actually increase in anxiety, that's really more anxious, unsettled. With that, and so that form of reactive thinking, we may engage in it mildly, moderately, or a lot, which moves into that severe aspect. To start thinking about, what am I notice about my thinking? How would I look at my day? Look at my week, what I notice about my thinking, in certain situations, it may be certain individuals, or circumstances that we find ourselves that we're engaged in one of these levels of thinking, that becomes turbulent thinking. The other a fourth one that I want to mention, and there's probably others out there that, you know, that relates to this kind of turbulent thinking that I've been talking about, is interesting enough. Something I call as self improvement thinking, that has gone too far. With taking it too far. And think about it. When we take self improvement, thinking too far, how might it disrupt the souls progress? Yes, there are good things that happen with self improvement. Yes, we want to be better, we want to do things better, we want to be able to make progress in life. And that's fine. But I'm talking about the self improvement thinking that we're taking too far, that we're taking too far to the point that we are overly concerned about, you know, having to be perfect. Having to do, right 24/7 Having to speak, right act, right, be right all the time, because we think it's improving us in some particular way, when it's overly done. And that means we can then become more focused on or we're not doing it right, and the way we think it needs to be done, then we get into the criticism, condemnation and judgment of yourself. You're critical. So go back to that episode when I talk about creeping criticism, which I talked more heavily about this whole notion of criticism, condemnation and judgment that we can do to ourselves. But we also this develops within us, this inner critic, where you can do nothing, right? It is as if it impacts your self esteem, because the inner critic is always there telling you why you didn't do that, right? Or you could have done that better. Or what about this, what that person was able to do this, but what happened to you. So it's always this chatter, this chatter energy that is entirely within us, creating a barrier to our own soul evolution and growth, we have to be aware of the fact that this self improvement thinking component of the turbulent thinking that I'm talking about, can be an issue of where you are on a perpetual wheel. Or maybe it's like a roller coaster of ups and downs, and how you're thinking about yourself. And somehow, thinking that perfection or being critical of yourself, will result in greater satisfaction and your life. But usually, it's only temporary or it doesn't at all. Create any level of satisfaction or contentment, because you're on to the next thing What I need to improve, so you're overly doing it to the point that is creating a distance between you and your connection to your soul, and what your soul is needing for its growth and advancement. Whether it is scattered, thinking, ruminating, thinking, reactive thinking, or self improvement, thinking taken too far. The roadblocks that are created are like fences, keeping you out of the green pasture that you may want to go to the green pasture that is more sunny and nice and beautiful. And it's like you're on the side of the fence and you're looking over by then on your side of the fence, you don't have any much greenery at all, in fact, the sun is burnt this the grass to brown, but on the other side is looking pretty green. And we really want that you want that greenery, you don't want the turbulence in our thinking, to take place to create more barriers to what the soul is needing, and this point of evolution and growth. The other things join to our thinking usually, like, like, like joined at the hip, as they say, to our thinking, it's usually emotional states. And it's the emotional states that are in the hip, you know, like the hip, like I said, you know, on to our thinking, or it can be similar to in the background, taking place and our thinking, and is kind of propelling us to maybe states of emotional states such as fear, feeling anxious, angry, or, you know, feeling annoyed, irritable, and other types of negativity that sometimes can be created for us. And it's these emotional states, tied to our thinking, that's happening, that also creates this turbulence in our way of expressing or being, or in our sense of self that we have to and I give this analogy, and my book, Mastering life's adventures on the beam is that you have one hand, it's like you're on a potter's wheel. And on one hand, you have your thinking. And on the other hand, you have your emotions, and you're trying to now do your thinking and emotions form a vase on this potter's wheel, sometimes that vase comes up pretty crooked, or it may come out in kind of odd shape or odd way. Because our thoughts and our feelings that we are using to mold that clay are not the qualities of what the soul needs, in order to weave it into a beautiful vase himself. But if we're not aware of our thinking, and the types of thinking that has taken place within us, then we can't catch ourselves. We can't create the vase that we really want. And instead, we stay stuck in a particular form of thinking and thinking that thinking is fine. And in actuality, it is not fine. It is creating some of the challenges to what we really want, which is probably a greater measure of composure, a greater measure of peace and harmony, and our thoughts and in our feelings as well.

Dr. Judith Holder: 00:18:51

But usually in these four types of thinking that I just went through with you, B usually you will find ourselves that under neath the thinking in the background. As I said it's the emotional component taking place. And that usually rolls what we do, instead of the balanced awareness, and then tapping into the Christic qualities of the Christ Mind which the soul is on the journey of learning how to do the soul is on the journey or learning through life experiences. Three find one's thinking and feelings, which I'm going to talk about the feeling aspect, you know, in a future of barrier and Robach but with the thinking aspect before our thinking is not to the glory of cultivating those thoughts that are disciplined, that are harmonious that are an alignment and a two men with soul development. Then what are we doing? Where are we going? For those who are walking a spiritual path? We have to be aware that our thoughts do matter, our thoughts to have impact on our inner self, as well as those people that are around us. And that the only person that can be able to steer that particular car, you know, down the road is ourself. And we have to kind of start to observe our thoughts. Okay, did you know what I call sometimes, and I may have called in one of the episodes thinking, thinking, we can have sticky thinking that go on, that's creating the turbulence and our how we're thinking about things that is not to the glory of our soul, or our I Am Presence, what are we, you know, atman, or your or your mighty I Am Presence. And what we're really trying to do is have our thinking, be more Christ like to have our thinking, to be in alignment with harmony, peace, and know that the soul is on a journey, or learning through all the experiences that come our way, the good, the bad, the indifferent. Yes, there's some experiences we wish we wouldn't have to go through. But we do. But even in those experiences, we're learning how to refine our thinking, and our feelings, to have greater mastery over them. And for us to be able to be aware that every day is a new opportunity to learn, to grow, to advance to try it again. And not get belaboured by the fact that I did it wrong. And then see if you will have never have a chance to try to correct that. Each and every day, give us an opportunity to try to again, be more intentional, be more aware about how we're thinking internally, and how we're expressing our thoughts that are taking place. And when they get into this kind of quality of what I've been mentioned scattered thinking or ruminating thinking, or reactive thinking, or self improvement, thinking to the point that it goes too far, then we've got to say, Stop, wait, wait, wait, wait, those pathways are lead to dead ends, that don't lead to the pasture that I want to get to which is the green pasture. That is the harmony, the peace, the tranquility, the being able to do all to the glory of God's goodness, you know, as God gives us, goodness, we give that to others as well. So what I want to do is to talk about and future episode about, how do we refine our souls need for Christic thinking? How do we, and our outer self, because the inner self is the soul in this world of the soul? And so if we can be able to understand what are the components that need to thinking more Christ like that thinking more harmoniously, that thinking more in alignment with what our higher self wants in our life. And our soul is leading on that path to that. And when we can begin to kind of experiment, I guess, around some other ways of thinking and being then our soul is feeling a greater sense of fulfillment, and a greater sense that you're in alignment with your soul evolution to greater peace, harmony, joy in your life, and finding other ways to manage some of the things that may come up in your life from a different vantage point than from the old way of those four ways I've just finished mentioning to you. So stay tuned. And one of the next episodes which I am talking about barriers and roadblocks. I will be talking about how do we move from Turbulent thinking to soul refining, Christic thinking and the benefits, that it allows our soul in his development and progress on life's way. Bye for now.