Spending More Time in Positive Emotions

In this episode, I’m talking about something we all want—feeling better more often in our everyday lives.

I share a simple experience that reminded me how much of what we feel isn’t coming from our circumstances, but from the way we’re thinking about them. We spend so much time dreading things or focusing on what’s not working, and very little time actually noticing when things go well.

I introduce the idea of negativity bias, how our brains are wired to focus on the negative, and why, if we don’t manage that on purpose, we’ll naturally spend more time in stress, frustration, or dissatisfaction.

What I want to offer is that feeling better isn’t about changing your life, it’s about being more intentional with your thinking.

I walk you through how to start noticing your baseline emotions and how to begin shifting them by choosing thoughts that create more supportive or positive feelings.

This episode is really about taking your power back and realizing that you can create more contentment, gratitude, and ease in your life....without waiting for everything to be perfect.

I currently work with women privately to achieve their health, mindset, and body goals.  I would love to offer you a consultation HERE to discuss the changes you want to make to create more joy, health, and peace in your body and life.

Transcript

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Bob, welcome to modern body, modern life. The podcast for women who want to feel powerful, healthy, strong and confident, inside and out at every age. On this podcast, we talk about becoming a woman who is fully in control of her eating and movement, so weight loss, strength and energy become permanent. We also talk about something bigger, becoming the woman who takes her deepest desire seriously and goes after more in every area of her life. I'm body and life coach Courtney Gray, and I believe you can get in the best shape of your life at any age, and when you do, it becomes a catalyst for everything else, your relationships, your confidence, your joy, because when you feel like you and your body, all of life gets better. Let's get started. Welcome to the podcast episode 125 spending more time in positive emotions. Isn't that what we all want? Don't we want to be less stressed, less frustrated, happier, more joyful, more confident. Yes, so that's what we are talking about today. Because the beautiful thing is, what you're going to get out of this podcast really is the deeper realization that you have so much more control over that than you probably even realize. So before we dive in, today and tomorrow are the last days to join my modern change group the Summer Edition. So enrollment closes on the first at 8am Pacific Time. You've been hearing me talk so much about it. So Just a friendly reminder, if you want in, if there is space left for you, I, as I'm recording this podcast, there is space left, but you can head to modern body, modern life. COMM, forward slash work with me and to find out if I have space left for you to join my three month group coaching program. And let's dive in. Okay, I am inspired to deliver this podcast because I went to the DMV this week. Now my license expired because I just had a big birthday? Well, wasn't a big birthday. I turned 49 felt big to me, and I had to go to the DMV. And if you're like me, and like most humans, DMV is not something any of us want to do. Have you ever heard anyone go? Yeah, I'm really excited to go to the DMV tomorrow. Not only is it not exciting or fun or peaceful, we actually kind of dread it, don't we? We just, we think of the DMV as just like a miserable experience when, even for me, when, when I look historically, over the last 16 years or so I've lived in my town, my DMV experiences have been pretty damn pleasurable, like I whenever anyone in town brings up going to the DMV, I take a moment to go our DMV is pretty efficient. The people are pretty nice. In fact, my son, one of my boys, when he was getting his driver's license, he took a lot of tests to get his driver's license. It was, it was a frustrating experience for him, but the DMV people were so lovely to him that I just have all of the positive things to say about our local DMV. But even with those positive thoughts about our local DMV, I have been, not been looking forward to doing that this week. In fact, I put it off all week until Friday morning, and even Friday morning I woke up and I started, you know, doing that thing where I'm like, You know what? Maybe I can fit this in on Tuesday. And I started coming up with all the reasons why today wasn't a good time to do this. And then I just was radically honest with myself, and I said, Courtney, this is ridiculous. Friday is a light work day for me. I usually work about a half day. And I'm like, okay, Courtney, you and I both know this is the conversation I have in my head. You and I both know that today is the best day to do this. Like, if we wait till next week, we're just going to end up waiting till next Friday, and we really need to get our license renewed. So I went to the DMV expecting that it was not going to be fun. I even brought a book with me, and lo and behold, I swear to God, I was out of there in 10 minutes. And the man that helped me was not only nice and efficient, he was delightful. De light full. So it was like, I walked out of there. Like, what just happened? It was even when I walked in, I'm like, Are they even open? Is it a holiday? Like, what is going on? I was the first one walked right up to the window. It was delightful. But here's why I'm inspired to record this podcast when we were thinking about doing something, especially something like going to the DMV, or going to get our teeth cleaned, or I'm trying to think of what, you know, going to the gynecologist, anything where it's not like we're looking forward to it, we tend to dread it. And as I've taught you on this podcast before, is dread. The emotion of dread comes from a thought, and it comes from thoughts like, I really don't want to be doing this. This is the last thing I want to do. This is going to be a nightmare. This always doesn't go well. This is possibly going to be painful, physically or mentally. You know, we have these thoughts, and it produces dread, sometimes fear, sometimes annoyance, all of the. Things. All of our negative and positive emotions are really created from our thinking. So oftentimes we have this thought, and all week I've had it, oh my god. It's the last thing I want to do, right? And then I have this dread. I go there, and then sometimes it actually turns out to be quite a either neutral experience. So it's either not a bad experience, or it's quite delightful. I'm going to give you another little quick example. I don't love going to the dentist. I love my dentist. He's actually a personal friend of mine. My hygienist is a dream. Shout out, Julie, you're an angel. But for a long time now, my teeth are so sensitive that it is physically not fun, but I have noticed the last two times, ever since I started taping my mouth shut at night, my gums are less sensitive because she says they're less inflamed, and it has actually been a neutral experience. I wouldn't say lovely, lovely, because Julie's lovely, and my friend Mike is lovely, but it's been just an easy, no big deal experience. But what happens to us human beings, even though I was dreading this DMV in the dentist a few weeks ago, even though I was dreading it once I go and it was either neutral when I went to the dentist or today, it was actually delightful. The guy that helped me was literally a delight. What happens is we walk out and we're grateful for a few minutes, we're like, huh, that was amazing. Feel like I was just gifted an hour and a half. And we're delighted for about a minute, and then all of a sudden, we go about the rest of our day. And so we've spent, here's what I want you to recognize, and what I recognize this morning, I spent probably an hour all week every time I started thinking and talking about going to the D and all DMV and the dread and why I couldn't, you know, couldn't fit it in and didn't want to go on Friday. And then why me and all these things. Can't I just do it online? And then I went online to do it, and they said, Great, now you have to go in. And I'm like, God, I thought I could do this online, all of that negative energy, frustration, Dread, annoyance that I spent this week I go, and I spend about 10 minutes delighted while I was there, and one minute as I walked out to my car and got in my car and started driving, delighted for the experience. And then that delight washes away, and it normalizes, and we go about our day. But isn't this interesting? Normally, what we would do is we wouldn't go around and tell our husband and tell our best friend and tell people we go out to dinner or play tennis with tonight. We don't say, I went to the DMV today, and it was absolutely delightful. We don't say, Oh, what did you do last week? Oh, you know what? I actually had such a great time at the DMV. It was so great. Our DMV office is amazing. We don't often do that. What we often do is we spend time reporting that we're tired and that we're cold or We're hot, or we had a bad experience here, or we have to do this, or this didn't go as well, we end up spending so much more time in conversations around the negative emotion and in our head around the negative emotion. We don't spend time like out throughout the day. Today, if I was just living my life and not being intentional, I would not I would be overthinking about the DMV altogether, and I would just go about the rest of my life, and when I talk to people or reflect it, it would usually be in the negative. Why is that? I'm going to answer this for you. There is a thing called negativity bias. I googled it, and here is the definition of negativity bias. It is the cognitive tendency for humans to give more weight, to pay more attention to and to be more affected by experiences, information or emotions than positive or neutral ones. So basically, we experience and talk and feel more of the negative emotions, as opposed to the neutral or positive ones. It's an evolutionary survival mechanism. It causes our brain to focus on Threats and Dangers that can negatively impact memory relationships and decision making. So what I want I'm going to say it now in my words, is, when I hear this, I think negativity bias is our brain's way of keeping us safe. It's our brains way of scanning the horizon for any predators, any possible things that could go wrong. It's one of the reasons why we moms worry about our children. It's we are constantly thinking, if we can predict what might go wrong, we can keep everybody safe. So good to know there's nothing wrong with you. There's nothing wrong with me, but good to know that in order for us to spend more time in positive emotions, we have to actively spend time in the positive emotions. We cannot autopilot our life, because it is going to slide into negativity by it. Yes, if I didn't have the tools that I have to be able to think intentionally and coach myself, I would at the very end of the day think, How did my day go? Oh, it was fine. I got a podcast done, and I worked out, but it was a little hot, so then this, and we didn't really have any food in the house, so then I just ate some tuna, and then I would just kind of ho hum my whole day. At the end of a day like today, an average day, I wouldn't say, you know, it was amazing. I had a great experience at the DMV. I wouldn't do that. I would spend more time in the more neutral or the more negative aspects of my life. But if I and if you want to feel more positive emotions, we have to actively guide our brain to the positive. And here's what happens when you get good at over and over again, actively guiding your mind to the positive thoughts, seeking out the positive thoughts and feelings and experiences that becomes more habitual for you, it becomes part of your self concept. It becomes just what you do. This is a beautiful thing. One of my coaches and mentors, Brooke Castillo, always says that life is 5050 meaning that life is full of 50% positive, 50% negative, situations, thoughts, feelings, all of these things we are meant as human beings, to experience the full range of emotions. And I remember hearing her say this for the first time, and I kind of railed against it. I was like, I'm going for 8020 I'm going for 80 positive 20 negative. And I still have to say that really is my goal. But it is important to acknowledge that negative feelings and emotions are part of life, but so much of more of it is in control than we think. The way we look at our life, our perspective, is going to dictate so much of our feelings, and when all of a sudden we lose someone close to us and we have a negative feeling that's part of life, when all the sudden we get fired from our job and we all of a sudden don't know what we're doing, and we're feeling negative experiences, that's part of life, when someone we love betrays us. That's something that's negative, and it's part of life, hopefully not, but that's part of life, right? But so much during our day is so much more neutral than we think it is, and we can actually think differently about so many of our experiences and be happier more often. And there are things like getting a flat tire, going to the DMV, forgetting an appointment, having someone say no to us when we wanted someone to say yes, getting an unexpected bill, having our kid have something go wrong with one of our kids, like they have a bad day, or they need to talk to us, or whatever, getting woken up in The middle of the night by snoring, having someone eating your leftover so many of these things that we experience negative emotions from that we can actually think differently and think in a way that will help us feel either neutral or positive emotions. It is more in our power than we think. So your primitive brain wants you to scan for danger, look for all the possible threat and possible problems. But what your true self more I like to think prefrontal cortex self wants you to be able to manage your mind think intentionally so you can be in a happier state more of the time. It is a choice to spend more time in the positive. And I'll tell you, most people are waiting for circumstances outside of themselves to change in order to feel happy. They want their sunscreen to be at CVS and on sale for them to be happy. They want nothing to go wrong in their day to be happy. They want to sleep well to be happy. They want to feel energized to be happy. They want the restaurant to have their favorite salad to be happy. The reason I just thought of that one is there's a restaurant in town, Sierra Nevada, and they have the most amazing salad sometimes on the menu, and they got rid of it, like, six months ago. And every time I go in there, I'm just Fingers crossed. Hey, by chance, do you have the elote salad? Sometimes they say yes, but they say no. And I take a minute and I'm like, and I'm like, emotionally like, rub my back and say you're okay. Courtney, you're going to be fine. You can have this salmon, the salmon tacos, you're going to be fine. But I'm not waiting for Sierra Nevada to put the elote salad on the menu to be happy. I'm going to ask for it. I'm going to be fucking thrilled if they have it, but if they don't, I'm going to be like, it's not the day for the elote salad. We are still good. It is my choice to spend time in more positive emotions and not just outwardly positive emotions. And what I'm not talking about is just putting on a smiley face for everyone around you to think you're a positive gal. What I'm talking about what's more important than that is you feeling like you are walking throughout your day going, my life is pretty awesome. I'm pretty awesome. Things are not perfect, but things are pretty great. And I have a few areas that are not great. I'd like them to be better. And here is how I am intentionally thinking about these areas. Here is how I want to get better, and the things I want to do take action in those areas to make them better. And then maybe I have another area over here that I'm really feeling sadness or grief, and I'm allowing those motions just for this area, but I'm also taking care of myself while I'm managing all of it for you, not for anybody else. I want you to live a more positive life. I want you to spend more time in positive emotions, more than anything for you, because it's completely possible for you. So I have a question for you, what are your baseline emotions? And what I mean by that is my sister is the one that gave me this word baseline. She's a nurse, and she says it's always important to know your baseline. And I remember the first time she said that I'm like, speak to the muggle. I always call. I tell I tell her that US non medical people are muggles, like, we don't know, we don't know what y'all are talking about. You doctors and nurse friends that I haven't even the dentist there, you guys talk about things we don't know. And so what she said, by baseline is, it's your it's your norm. Everyone has a different norm, right? My baseline for feeling positive emotions is pretty high, and it's gotten higher and higher and higher. The more I do this work, the more I coach, the more I read books that are powerful, the more I continue to learn about the mind and the brain and the body and nervous system and all those things. So what are your baseline emotions? And I would, if you really want to get the most you can out of this podcast, I'd pause it and think about that. And if we want to say it in muggle terms, if you think about your day by day by day, you have some days where you're feeling a lot of joy. You have some days where you're really excited. Maybe you got a wedding that you're coming getting ready for. You just bought a new dress you look amazing in. So that day may be really exciting, maybe fun. Maybe you've had kind of a bummer day because you have something that didn't go well, or one of your kids is struggling, that was a hard day. But if we average out your days, what some baseline emotions you feel on the regular? So pause it and answer that question before you go on. Okay, I hope you did it. I took a drink of water. These baseline emotions are the ones that you feel routinely on a day to day basis. I'm going to tell you what mine are before I tell you what mine are. I want you to know that you have neural pathways in your brain. I think millions and millions, maybe trillions, I don't know, but these neural pathways are your wiring, the makeup of who you are. And the neural pathways really are your like, your thoughts, feelings and emotions kind of all rolled up into one, probably more, all rolled up into one. And so if your baseline emotion is rolled up in with thoughts and the way you act all rolled up into one. And so if we want to get you feeling more positive emotions, we need to change some of those neural pathways. We need to get you thinking differently more often, and we need to get you feeling obviously positive more often, and doing more positive often, which is easier. When you're feeling more positive, you act in a more positive way that aligns with that positive emotion. So my emotions, my negative I'm looking at my like negative base emotions. I think I spend more time than I would like to in frustration and worry. And I was like, am I calling it anxiety or worry, and it's more worry. And to me, there is a difference. Anxious feels a little bit more irritated, and I think for me it's more of a deep like sad worry. And so for me, it's frustration and worry. Now I'm a very positive person. You probably, if you know me, you probably would be like, Oh, wow, I wouldn't think of you as a person who's frustration, who's frustrated and worried? And I don't think I am very much, but if I am feeling negative emotions, those are two that I feel there's a part of me that wants to say that, if you're a mom, worry or anxiety might be part of the deal, and you're going to have a hard time convincing me otherwise, because I think sometimes when we love so deeply that that is part of the deal, but that is the thought. So that is the thought, but I'm just giving you my honest thoughts. But so for me, I spend more time than I would like, in frustration and worry, and I don't feel like I even spend very much time there, but I think to myself, Okay, if. Those are my baseline negative emotions. What do I want more of my emotions to be like I want to do less worry, less frustration? What do I want to do more of so I want you to pause this and think, How do I want to feel more positively? If you could like, 10% lower your worry, 10% lower your frustration, or whatever your negative emotion is, what would you like to up in the positive emotion arena? So pause and think about what positive emotions would you like to be feeling more often? I'm going to give you a moment and take a drink. Okay, when I think of positive emotions and knowing that I have control to feel them at a more regular, deeper level, what would they be? And the first one for me that came to mind is content. I think sometimes people would say excited or joyful or happy, but I think that on a day to day, when I'm looking at a day like today, I went to breakfast with one of my boys, which was so lovely, and then I'm doing this podcast. I love you. I love this podcast. I'm so proud of it. Then I'm gonna work out, and then I'm gonna spend some time, maybe doing a little laying out, because it's gonna start raining here, and I want to get some sun. Maybe I'm gonna go for a long walk. All those things, all those things sound lovely, but they don't. I'm not excited, I'm not like joyful, I'm not like heightened, Yahoo. So content is a beautiful, lovely emotion. Just content I feel like, when I think of content, like all is, well, this is where I'm supposed to be. So those are the thoughts that produce contentedness for me. Is contentedness a word I'm just gonna decide it is content. I also think that I want to feel more grateful. I want to, on the regular, do what I did this morning when I walked out of the DMV, I was like, God, this is amazing. Like, I've been to the DMV before when there has been a line of 50 people out the door. So I was like, I'm really grateful that just saved me an hour and a half of my day that I thought I was not going to get back. Okay. I want to spend more time just feeling grateful for what I already have. I also want to spend more time feeling grateful for the things I want that I don't yet have. And if you're a manifester, you know what I'm talking about in order to manifest, we have to think something is possible. We have to believe that it is inevitable for us, and we have to feel the feelings that we would feel if we had that thing right now in our life. So I'm grateful that I went to the DMV and it was such a lovely experience. I'm also grateful for all the things that I am creating in my life that have not happened yet so fun and by being energetically grateful ahead of time, it is energetically drawing those things to me while I do the things that I'm doing to create those things. Another emotion I want to feel more of the time is pride. I want to be proud of my life. I want to be proud of what I am doing in order to get where I want to go. I want to be proud of my past self, who has lived a life that today I am reaping the benefit of it's just so fun to be proud. It's so funny one of my best friends when we started becoming friends a few years ago. She was like, You are so funny. You always say, I'm so proud of myself. And I was like, I do. And she goes, Yeah, you say that all the time. And I said, Well, you should start saying it feels really good to be proud of myself. And you know, it is so funny. After the years, we've become good friends, she will say to me, I'm really proud of myself. And I just chuckle. She doesn't even realize she's saying it. I've rubbed off on her in the best way possible. It feels so good to be proud of ourselves. Every time I do a podcast for you, I'm like, so proud of myself that I'm putting such goodness into the world. So yes, I want to feel even more pride. The other emotion that I would like to spend more time in is curiosity, and I think that's a really positive emotion. Maybe it's kind of neutral, but I think curiosity is fun. I saw a YouTube video a long time ago, and it was this woman, and I think she lived in like, one of the Blue Zones, and she was over 100 years old. She was like, there was a it was a video where they were talking about the centurions, and I think that's how you say it, someone who's over 100 centaurians and and she was talking about one of the things that she thinks really keeps her healthy and keeps her loving her life and keeps her alive and well, is that she's curious. And I remember when she said that I literally energetically lean forward like what she's curious like? I never thought that I want to be more curious, but she said that, and she said, Yeah, I just when a butterfly flies by, I'm like, Oh, I wonder where it's going. I you know, I wonder what flowers it likes. I wonder, you know, how long that kind of butterfly lives. And I remember, I mean, this sounds kind of Pollyanna, I guess, but it's like, how beautiful to actually take. Our mindset and our attention away from our phones and from YouTube and from the TV and from like problems and to look at a butterfly and spend time being curious about a butterfly. How lovely is that? So I would like to be more curious. I'm going to try this, and how is it going to play out. I'm really trying to bring more curiosity into my business. I'm really trying to think, Huh, what sounds fun? What sounds like something that my clients will love from a place of curiosity and like, let's go and let's see what happens, see how they respond, see if what works. If you want to feel these positive emotions more of the time. You must be intentional with your thinking. You must guide your thinking. And one of the first things you can do to be more intentional is just to notice when you're not having positive emotions. And not from a place of, Oh, my God, I'm thinking negative again. I'm such a negative person, but from a place of Oh, there I go again. I must have a lot of neural pathways in my brain that are really used to me seeing something, thinking something negative and feeling a negative emotion. Is there another way to think about this? Can I think about this in a more positive, if anything, neutral, light. So often it people will tell me I'm a really negative person, or I'm an I just don't have a tendency to be positive. And I said, well, first of all, let's change that. First, let's stop saying that. How is it that you can start saying I'm actually getting more positive. I'm working on being more positive. I'm noticing when I'm negative and I'm course correcting. If you want to become a more positive person, you need to start finding evidence that you are more positive. We don't want to find more evidence that we are negative. Why will this, all of this, benefit you? Why will it benefit you to spend more time in the positive emotions. Well, the first one is just obvious. It's just feeling better. I mean, I think if someone came up to you right now and said, Hey, listen, I'm a your fairy godmother, and I'm gonna grant you either joy or frustration, like for the next 20 minutes, what would you like? I mean, there's no doubt all of us would say, joy, please. So it just feels better to be in the positive emotions. But here is another thing you might not have considered. You will look at your life differently when you feel like you are the master of your emotions, you will feel more powerful if you realize, oh, I have more control over the way I feel, literally, on a day to day, moment to moment basis. It's a beautiful thing when my clients come to me and say, this, work I'm doing with you is affecting other areas of my life, and they'll say very thing, a few things that seem maybe like to some people, inconsequential, like, oh, this happened. And normally I would be so annoyed, but I just thought, oh, like, I've got this. I'm going to take care of this. It should just take me 10 extra minutes. It's no problem, right? That sounds so no big deal. But when you think about all the things we do during the day, and all the people we interact with, all of the circumstances that happen to us as we navigate our day, if even 10% of those were more positive, you would be 10% happier. And if that's in your control, why would we not? Why would we not? I'll leave you with this. This is just an example of how you can do this. So the other day was my birthday, and we were getting ready to go to dinner with my whole little family of five. I was so excited just to have all three of my boys at one table together. And we were getting ready to go, and my husband said, Hey, I'm going to meet you there. I've got to go see gene in the hospital. And Gene is a friend of ours who's coming to the end of his life and he's not doing well. And he goes, I'm going to go see gene in the hospital. I said, Well, oh, well, we can drive together. I'll go with you. And he goes, Well, do you want to do that on your birthday? And I just had this thought, like, of course, like, of course, I do. Like, I could decide two different things. I could decide that's annoying. It's my birthday. Now we have to drive separately. Now you might have to take an Uber home if you want to have drinks, you know, can't we do this tomorrow? I could have had all these other Well, now we have to go 20 minutes early, because we have to go, you know, not 20 minutes I think was 40 minutes early. I could have it was totally optional for me to be annoyed and inconvenienced and feel frustrated. But I immediately decided, What do I want to think on purpose about this? And my thought was, this is absolutely how I want to spend my birthday, right? We're only going to be there for 10 minutes. We're going to love on him for 10 minutes. I'm going to tell him, it's my birthday. I don't really tell a lot of people, hey, it's my birthday. I don't really love a lot of attention, especially on my birthday, but I'm going to. Tell him, because I know that he's gonna light up. Oh, and then I say, we're gonna go to Fifth Street steakhouse with the boys, and he's gonna go, oh, good for you. I knew that that was gonna make him happy for me, and that is exactly what happens. Oh, good for you. What a great restaurant. So I could have thought totally differently than I did. I just immediately thought, This is amazing. It's the exact thing that I want to do. We're going to drive we're going to love on someone who we care about, and then we're going to go to go to the restaurant. So it just absolutely makes your day so much better. It makes your life so much better when you know that you have the power to spend more time in positive emotion. So I hope today you will start the practice of spending more time in positive emotion. If you are listening and you think, I want this, this is part of what we do in my program. It's more than just weight loss. I'll tell you one thing, when you're spending more time in positive emotion, you don't need to eat your face off at nine o'clock at night. So if you're interested, you have till tomorrow morning, at 8am Pacific Time, to join the modern change program. I hope you have a great Tuesday for information on how we can work together. Head to modern body, modern life.com. To schedule a consultation with me. I'm currently coaching women privately, and I offer group coaching programs. I.