Latest / Pathological Positivity / The Emotional Freedom Challenge – Episode #695
Transcript
- This is Live On Purpose Radio episode 695, the emotional freedom challenge. Now is the only time to create and live the life you love. I'm doctor Paul Jenkins, the positivity psychologist. My job is to connect you to powerful positive psychology principles that immediately upgrade your relationships, business, and mental health. Are you ready? Let's jump in. Hey, friends. Before we get started, you want to come to the emotional freedom challenge. I know you do. Are you ready to be free from the way we get hijacked sometimes by our emotions? I'm sponsoring a free five day challenge. Go to liveonpurposeradio.com/efc for emotional freedom challenge, and join me in this free five day challenge. Hope to see you there. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Live On Purpose Radio. This is doctor Paul, the shrink who expands your life with another episode of Live On Purpose Radio, a special episode today as we are on the brink of the emotional freedom challenge. And to share a little more about what that is, I think way too many people feel like their emotions are controlled by their circumstances, and then those emotions also drive their behavior, and they end up getting hijacked by their emotions. And how often does this happen where we promise ourselves that we'll show up a little differently? And then we get hijacked by those emotions, and it just sweeps us away into a place of regret or wishing that we could show up a little differently or that we might be able to actually do something differently than what usually happens. That's the context. The positivity model that I've developed through now thirty years of clinical experience has a powerful impact and helps us to see something that changes the game, that our emotions come from our evaluation and creation thoughts, not from our circumstances. And this is life changing. When people understand and apply this model, it unlocks emotional freedom. And that freedom leads to three powerful outcomes that I'm going to share with you here today on this episode. So as we get into the meat of this, jot this down somewhere. Just remember the name of the podcast, liveonpurposeradio.com, and then do a little forward slash e f c, the letters e f c for emotional freedom challenge. And that's where you can get involved. This is a free experience. You're welcome. I am sharing this as a service to the planet and to our fellow humans. So please share that as well. That's liveonpurposeradio.com/efcfor emotional freedom challenge. I'll mention that again, and we'll also put it in the show notes for you. Why would you ever do that? Oh, and by the way, the free challenge, I'll be there every day for one hour at noon eastern time. We'll do it every day that week, five days. And I'll give you a challenge task each day, but we'll do a deep dive into the positivity model. That is the operating instructions for the equipment of your brain. So knowing that will change everything. And here's what the deliverables are. I told you I'd get to those three powerful outcomes. So let's jump right into that. Number one, peace in your mind and heart. Most people are searching for peace. They're trying to find it somewhere, and they think that it depends on their circumstances changing. The positivity model reveals that peace is not something that you go find. It's something that you can create on demand, and it depends on how we evaluate our circumstances. Let me give you an example of what I'm talking about. And this is usually where I start in a keynote, during the emotional freedom challenge, which I've invited you to attend. We will start here as well. And that is, it is what it is. Now that can be a little annoying depending on who's saying it and why. But all it means is the way things are. So your circumstances, right now without changing anything, it is what it is. You are with who you're with. It's how... It's what you have. It's where you are. It's the way things are without changing anything. It is what it is. Now my job as a psychologist is to illuminate the obvious. This is so cool because I get paid to tell people things they already know. But there's obvious things that you never even notice until it's called to your attention. So go there with me for just a minute and notice that you are constantly judging, aren't you? And that's okay. It's not a a judgment to say that you're judging. It's an observation. You are constantly judging. You have to because your brain's job is to keep you safe. And to do that, it has to constantly evaluate or judge everything around you. So your brain is constantly asking, is this good? Is this bad? Is this lucky? Is this unlucky? Is this dangerous? Is this safe? See, these are judgment questions. And judgment or evaluation implies comparison with some standard. So you have to compare it to something. And notice this, what it is, whatever your what it is is, is always, and I chuckle sometimes because my editor tells me to always avoid the word always and never use the word never, but I just used it. Okay? What it is, your circumstances, it's always between better and worse by your own evaluation, by your own judgment. We know this is true because no bat... No matter how bad things seem, it could always be worse. Is this true? And don't take my word for it. Run it through your own filters and see if it's true. It could always be worse. Well, is that true the other direction? So no matter how good things seem, it could always be better. Notice that. Now because that's true, whatever it is is always between better and worse by definition and by your own judgment. So if we compare what we've got to something better, we always feel worse about what we've got. This is not rocket science, folks. It it is in fact psychological science. No. That's a different discipline. But notice it. And I'm not here to tell you how to think. I don't have that kind of authority. I just want you to see that you are thinking, and your thinking makes a difference. So when we judge or evaluate our circumstances to be bad, and they are compared to something better, we feel worse when we compare it to something better. We feel better when we compare it to something worse, and it could always be worse. Alright. Interesting. Right? When we stop arguing with reality, when we stop demanding that our circumstances change and simply pause long enough to see that how we evaluate determines how we feel, that's when we can access peace in our mind and heart. And we don't have to wait for anything to change to make peace. We'll go into a couple of different levels of this in the emotional freedom challenge, but I wanted to give you just a little taste of that. And I've got some challenge tasks for you as we get into that experience next week too. Alright. So this doesn't mean we are pretending things are perfect. It means we stop letting external conditions control our internal state, and we can claim peace in our mind and heart on demand. So cool. Okay. Take home number two, confidence in your roles and relationships. Notice this. When people feel emotionally triggered, they often react in ways that they later regret. So think of the last time you yelled at your kids, for example. Even though you've promised yourself you're not gonna be that parent. Or when did you react emotionally to a coworker or to a member of your team? And then thought later, I could've done that a little bit better. Right? So the positivity model creates a little space between stimulus and response where we can actually choose intentionally. As we learn to do this, we build confidence. Now I have a little disclaimer about confidence. Because confidence in your roles and relationships is one of the deliverables for the five day challenge, the emotional freedom challenge. And here's the disclaimer. Sometimes we demand confidence upfront. Like, we want to be confident before we launch into whatever it is that we're promising that we'll do. That's backwards because confidence is a side effect. Sometimes I call this a a strategic side effect of taking deliberate action. What's required upfront is commitment and courage. Now think about it. Commitment and courage. This is something I learned from Dan Sullivan, who is the founder of the strategic coach and a coauthor with Ben Hardy on some of the best business books to ever hit the market. Dan teaches that there's a difference between confidence and courage. And what's the difference? I love his answer to this. His answer is, well, confidence feels good. Courage doesn't feel good. And commitment always costs you something in time, in money. For you to join the emotional freedom challenge and commit to show up, that's gonna cost you some time. It's not a lot of time. Just come over at lunch every day and learn something and then apply it courageously. Courage implies fear, and you might not be sure if it could even make a difference. Well, confidence comes later. If you'll commit and have courage, we can deliver the confidence. So take home number two is confidence in your roles and relationships. Okay. Let's go to number three. The third take home from the emotional freedom challenge is hope for even better things to come. When people feel stuck emotionally, they often lose hope. The positivity model allows us to restore that hope, reclaim it, actually create it on demand because it reminds us that we are agents, not victims. And for this part, we will dive in to the creation part of the positivity model. Remember, all of this challenge is based on a proven model of positive psychology. The positivity model accounts for our emotional energy. And I'm going to show you, as we get into that part of the challenge, how we can choose hope on demand. And this is good news. Hope is the number one preventative factor for suicide. And we know this because hopelessness is the number one risk factor, and we're losing far too many people unnecessarily to hopelessness. Hope is available, and it's available on demand. Think about this for a minute. How would you feel? Focus on the emotional energy here. How would you feel if you were pretty darn sure that what's coming is even worse than what we already have? How would you feel? K. Do you feel that? That is anxiety. And there you go. Thirty years of clinical experience in a nutshell. I... Anxiety is when we predict or anticipate or expect that what's coming is even worse than what we already have. And we don't know. How are you doing next week? You don't know. And I know some of you are thinking, well, I'm gonna join the emotional freedom challenge, so I'm doing better next week. That's all a guess. That's all a prediction. And if... But it it speaks to the same point. How do you feel, focus on the emotional energy, when you imagine or predict or expect that what's coming is even better than what you've already got. How do you feel? This, my friends, is hope, and it is available on demand. I'll show you exactly how that is true. So in summary, we've got three deliverables for the emotional freedom challenge, which I invite you and encourage you to participate in the emotional freedom challenge. Those three take homes are peace in your mind and heart, confidence in your roles and relationships, and peace or even... Excuse me, I said peace twice. Hope for even better things to come. Peace in your mind and heart, confidence in your roles and relationships, and hope for even better things to come. Is this juicy? I love this because I see it saving and enriching lives and relationships on a daily basis. I have the coolest job in the world, you guys. And I will be joining you for the emotional freedom challenge. Once again, if you are not already registered, please live on purposeradio.com, the name of the podcast, .com/efcforemotionalfreedomchallenge. There's those three letters. Liveonpurposeradio.com/efc. I hope to see you there, And I also hope that you will invite someone that you know could benefit from this. We've got some lives to enrich, folks. Are you with me? Will you join me in this? Alright. We've talked about it. It's time to apply it. Now let's go live on purpose. Did you get what you came for? Give yourself the gift of taking real action on what you realized today. Please share this episode with someone you know would value it, and leave us a rating too. It's time now to live on purpose.