How to change your mindset through your emotions

What is really going on?

To understand how this happens, let’s talk about your mind. We can only receive and integrate thoughts that correspond to our emotional state, which is not only regulated by your brain but produced through your whole body. So if your body is stuck in fear or sadness, positive thinking isn’t going to cut it. You’re trying to use the 5% of your brain which is conscious not only against the 95% of your brain that is unconscious but also against your body.

Let’s say you’re fired from your job. Now, you probably have a reaction of sadness or fear when your boss tells you that you can’t work there anymore. You might feel shocked and angry. Those emotions have a deep charge.

Going home and trying to push yourself to have positive thoughts isn’t going to be enough to go against that charge. If your body is feeling discouraged on a biological, cellular level, thinking “I have the best job ever!” or “I’m going to find something really quickly.” isn’t going to alter your state. 

Saying affirmations without putting yourself in an emotional state where your body can actually receive the effects of those affirmations just isn’t useful because that’s not how we function. 

Your thoughts are influenced by the chemicals your brain produces. These chemicals have a certain effect on your body. But since so much of your brain is unconscious, and also deeply linked and itself influenced by the emotions stored in your body and cells, then doing positive affirmations when you’re in emotional turmoil is like throwing a few droplets of water at a raging fire.

And, the truth of the matter is that if you’re freaking out about being fired and how you’re going to pay your bills, you cannot process new information. Your body is going to go into stress first, because it’s perceiving a threat, a potential worsening of your situation. Your heart rate will probably go up, and when you are in stress your brain focuses on finding and identifying the source of your stress.

So you’re basically only focusing on the experience that is stressing you out – you might think again and again about how you could have done things better, or why your ex-boss is the worst, or how this is unfair. This is because your brain is trying to protect you and make sure you survive (if you’re being pursued by a tiger, your brain will focus on where the tiger is, and the environment around you – like are there any branches on the floor you could trip over, for example). 

This explains why – when we are still reacting – we can’t receive the benefits of positive affirmations. We need to have practices in our lives that allow us to change our emotional state first, then we can go and do mindset work.

How to make powerful shifts when you’re emotional

Before we talk about what we can do that can be really powerful, let’s talk about what many of us tend to do. Most people think suppressing their emotions is a good idea, basically pushing them down and pretending everything is okay when it isn’t. There’s no judgement here. Society programmes many of us to keep our behaviour within ‘acceptable’ limits no matter where we are or what we’re doing.

But again, suppressing our emotions does not work, simply because your body knows better. You might be trying to ignore what you are going through with the 5% of your brain which are conscious, but the rest of your being and body can’t be duped that easily.

If instead you start your process by changing your emotional state, without staying embroiled in the negative emotions you are experiencing, you are priming yourself for positive change.

We need instead to focus on practices, like the Quantum Flow practice, which really allow us to:

1. Release whatever negative emotions we might be holding on to (without shame or judgement – it’s perfectly normal to have ups and downs as human beings).
2. Change our emotional state for the better, making space for emotions like gratitude, love, and compassion. These emotions are like doors through which we can walk in order to reach a better state, a better space – somewhere where we can truly change at a rapid speed and without holding on to any baggage. 

It is so important to do the physical practice of Quantum Flow because it does alter your emotional state for the better. In that new space of freedom and energy, you can change your deeply-held beliefs.

Practices like Quantum Flow allow us to catch our breath and change our internal state so that we can make the best decisions for ourselves and feel centred no matter what’s going on in our external reality. 

We can only receive and integrate thoughts that correspond to our emotional state – so when we have done our practice and reached a space of gratitude, or trust, or even humour, we can accept thoughts that correspond to those emotions.

If you get fired, accept that you’re not feeling good about it, and put in place a practice that you know is going to help you shift your emotional state immediately. That way, you are going to literally shift the way you process information (and what type of information you can process), and open yourself up to the benefits of affirmations. 

Then when you fully integrate those positive affirmations and corresponding thoughts, from a place of peace, your body will begin to respond to that new state of coherence and peace coming from your brain and mind.

For more information about Quantum Flow and our courses, go to https://quantumflow.com/.

Life is Bliss…